Thursday, May 20, 2010

More of Adders.

Ok so lets see what else we can tidy up here.

Adelaide really is a veritable mixed bag when it comes to things to see and do. There are plenty of small art galleries around the place if that excites you, there are also a number of decent museums as we have touched on earlier. Let's not forget to mention the wineries around the City, in the suburbs as well as East, South and then the Barossa a little further North East from the City. Due to time constraints, we were only able to go to McLaren Vale and to my favourite winery in the Adelaide Hills, Bird In Hand.

When we ducked into the winery tasting/cellar door area we were lucky enough to meet Clement. The cheerful and happy-go-lucky Frenchman hosted us for the visit and was nice enough to let us taste some back vintage Rieslings, which were all holding up very well. The earlier vintages were getting the traditional kerosene finish to them that only good Riesling's get. He was nice enough to tell us some great stories about his travels, as well and about the wines we were tasting. Of course at the end we were so excited that I had to purchase more wine, which I think brings my total in the cellar (of Bird in Hand wines) up to about 150.

Sometimes there are advantages to living overseas, your cellar ages well and you don't think about them, well not as you might if you were at home. I thoroughly recommend anyone in the Hills region to follow the signs from Woodside and try their wines and olive products , it is a great location and the wines are superb (and award winning).

The tasting room behind a lawn that screens roll on me!
The storage towers and the gallery to the right.
Me wondering what I will do with yet more wine for the cellar! Luckily, reds from Bird in Hand age well.
The superb olive oil which has made it home to Poland safe and sound and already enjoyed itself on some fresh Polish bread.

When in the Adelaide Hills, there really is no chance of going past Hahndorf and not stopping. It is a really great town in the sense that it is really touristy and really cliche/embarrassingly naff. I love it and have ever since I was a child. So of course I took Marty there for a little bit of experience that is Australia doing Germany.
One of the great things about Handorf is that there is a wide variety of food (and advertising boards), from the traditional German sausages and even a German version of Golonka through to the common and now probably traditional Aussie fastfoods of Spuds aka baked potatoes.
Sometimes I just love that simple repetition of normality.
Soft Autumn sun can work nicely sometimes.
Also Handorf is well known for its handicrafts/art works/oddities.
Whether they be mosaic tables or tin rats.
Or why not iron ducks.
Luckily being in the hills, Autumn hits a little early as it is always a touch cooler (temperature wise) up here. Of course being a German town, the plantings here are a lot of the time European in nature giving some fiery colours.
Or some strawberries if you so desire.
Even more out of the blue was that this time I found an Indian store there which has some lovely bells.
And all sorts of different knics and knacs.
Being a great home of produce, not just the delicious wines of the wineries, in the area there are more traditional things such as Beerenberg the home of some of the most lovely jams, sauces, and honeys. Some of which made it back to Poland with us and they are going very well on our pancakes.
There are many different varieties we bought a fantastic Cinnamon and Fig jam.
Also to be found in Handorf is some rather odd and scary animals in cans! I doubt I would eat them but maybe some tourists like them. At nearly $AUD20 (56PLN, 12GBP, 17USD) I hope they taste as funny as they look!

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