After the outdoor museum in Wales and the Black Forest, we've been looking for them everywhere and there's a large one in Alsace! We spent our entire day there and it was so worth it. An outdoor museum is like a Colonial Williamsburg with houses from the area and various time periods, farm animals, demonstrations from artisans, and kids activities.
The very first house was a barbershop and we looked around and walked out. Then I noticed we had left Chopper behind and when we went back to find him - he was in the chair! Turns out that the barber was doing straight-razor shaves for demonstrations. This may not seem like a big deal but for some time now Chopper has been saying that he wants to have a straight-razor shave but they're really hard to find. The barber asked him to sit down and voila!
He let William help with the shaving cream
I love this picture. William was very interested in the whole process.
The hot towel - Chopper is definitely in heaven. He said it was the best birthday present ever and fun that it was completely a surprise!
The rest of this post is just the things that we saw - the working waterwheel, insides of houses, etc.
I've come to realize that "fancy dress" for each region is different. Cultures have traditional outfits that they get all dressed up in for special occasions. But the dress for everyday work? Yeah it's all the same!
I love houses covered in growing things - roses are particularly beautiful. I just don't think I would actually want to live in one because of what would also live in the plants.
Alsace loves their storks. In the seventies they were worried that they were losing them all - only 9 pairs in the whole region - but they did something and have brought them back. Every house in the park had a stork nest on top. They build metal platforms and then I think the storks build the nests. They were everywhere and are one of the symbols of Alsace.
A real shepherd's wagon! If you've seen Far From the Madding Crowd there's one in there. So I kind've felt like we were in a movie. These sheep cracked us up too. As we were leaving, one of the workers was walking a goat (on a leash) to a new location and the sheep freaked out and all ran to the side of the fence where the goat was nice and free and they weren't. Then they just stood there bleating at him and they all had distinct voices - including one who sounded like he was burping. The kids thought it was hilarious.
A stork with babies!
This house was just weird - I think we actually weren't supposed to be back there because it was mostly storage for painted wooden pieces that must have been around the property at some point. It was goofy to see.
I'm not sure exactly how well you can tell what this is. It's the process of laying out the walls of a house that's going to be half-timbered but they've put it on the side of the building. So imagine that on the ground with people working to put the timbers together, then they raise it up and fill the spaces with hay and mud combinations.
We heard this peacock and then it raised it's plummage for us! The kids loved seeing that in person - I got a great video of it but not such a great picture.
William wanted to be all the baby animals of course.
The domino house
The Alsatian hat
We had a very late lunch at a restaurant on site and so we weren't too hungry when we left around 5. But on our way back to the house we saw a pick your own strawberry patch. We couldn't help but stop and the kids enjoyed it so much. It brought back good memories for Chopper of picking strawberries at Belvedere farms.
This is William sniffing the strawberries that dad picks
It was a ton of strawberries for about 12 euro - fantastic deal! But what to do with all of them? We ate strawberries for dinner, breakfast, and then took the rest home and I immediately pulverized them into jam! Our French strawberry jam!!
That's Abby's "these are sooooo good" face
