Yesterday, Jan, K and I went to the Wurstmarkt in Bad Dürkheim. Those of you who understand even a little German will probably have noticed that “Wurstmarkt” literally translates to Sausage Market. But din’t let the name fool you… it’s actually a wine festival. The biggest in Germany, no less!
We arrived at 12:35 in the afternoon, so the logical first act was to go and find some food. Bad Dürkheim is in Rheinland-Pfalz, so the obvious choice of food was Pfälzer Saumagen – sow’s stomach. For those who are now thinking “eeew”, it actually tastes a lot nicer than the name suggests. A bit like gammon, but spiced differently and with little bits of potato in among the meat.
Because we were planning on staying at the fest all day, we decided to make our first drink a Weinschorle (wine spritzer, i.e. wine with fizzy water). I went for a Riesling.
Once we’d eaten and drunk, we decided to go for a walk and see what else there was going on. As with all German Fests of this type (including Oktoberfest), there was a huge funfair.
As well as the rides, there were various stands where you could win things by hooking ducks, shooting balloons or throwing balls at stacks of cans, among other things. Check out all the prizes at this stand:
Next, it was time for more wine. We discovered the Weindorf, an area where a dozen Bad Dürkheim wine merchants had set up tents and were serving wine in a slightly more stylish atmosphere than in the “ordinary” wine tents where we had eaten. The tables in the Weindorf were decorated and the benches had cushions on. Very nice.
Later, we went for another walk through the fairground area in search of some candy floss.
Candyfloss eaten, we returned to the Weindorf and tried more wines until it was time to leave for our train home.
This year’s Wurstmarkt is on until Tuesday 10 September 2013, then takes a break before reopening from Friday 13 to Monday 16 September, so if you’re in the area and like wine there’s still time to get yourselves along. It’s well worth it!
Confuzzledom 
Love the last shot of the wheel 🙂
That corn…I mean candyfloss man is terrifying!
hahaha I love that you call it candy floss, in the US, we saw cotton candy. I was supposed to be there right now, but alas Saturday night at the pub got hte best of me. Maybe next week…
It’s kind of funny that we call it candy anything seeing as we don’t usually call sweets candy (except for candy canes).
I hope you make it next week.
Ah that looks so nice (except for the giant corn man) and your weather still looks gorgeous!
We were really lucky… the forecast said “chance of rain” but it stayed sunny with a few clouds all day. It rained overnight, but today has been dry (but grey). Autumn is definitely coming though…
Oh it sounds and looks lovely! That giant sweetcorn man would be right at home in Mexico, he’s my favourite! 🙂
It was a really nice day. If I can, I’ll be going back next year!
Sweetcorn man is cool, but I don’t understand the practice of selling people a paper cup full of sweetcorn?! They used to have a little shop doing that at Mannheim train station… but it’s now gone out of business and been replaced by a hotdog place! Much more sensible if you ask me.
Oooh sweetcorn in a cup! I had never seen that until I came to Mexico, they sell it with lime juice, mayonnaise, cheese, and of course chili! I really like it! Glad you got to enjoy it despite your tooth pain! 🙂 x
I have never been to Bad Dürckheim but I do love wine festivals. We have a tiny one in the area I come from and it was always a lot of fun!
It was a lot of fun.
The winery on the glass of Rieslingschorle pictured here is owned & run by my friend, Michael Wolf & his family. Put a smile on my face to see it. Thank you for sharing this!
What a coincidence 🙂 The Riesling was nice!
Thats awesome 😀 I liked it!! Thank you!