Patchie [Wines]

Firstly, congrats to theolivetree, winner of the Chatham Giveaway! This'll probably be my last giveaway for awhile, just because it's time consuming and the "turn out" hasn't been very good. But I do want to thank you guys who do check in on a regular basis and take the time to follow me, so there will be something this fall, I promise! Ok, back to the mini-vacation...

After doing the faire all day the day before, we enjoyed sleeping in the next morning. When we did finally congregate in the hotel lobby we knew we wanted to get into something before heading home. Deciding to keep with the theme of the weekend we made it a goal to hit as many local wineries and vineyards as we could. But first - breakfast!

We went to downtown Lititz, and it is an adorable little town with a bunch of little local shops and delis and coffee shops. I very much want to live in a town like this some day. While I do like my hometown I miss being able to park in one spot and wander around little street containing shops and other little treasures like I could where I went to college (but that was a much larger town). We found an awesome little coffee shop with a full menu and had an absolutely delicious breakfast/lunch! Afterwards we wandered the town a little - we had about 30 minutes to kill before any of the wineries would open, anyways.

Because it was a Sunday and vineyards/wineries are open for shorter hours on that day we only were able to hit two of them - a winery right by Lititz that had awesome wine but lacked atmosphere, and a full vineyard in Bainbridge that had a ton of atmosphere. The wine in Bainbridge wasn't quite as impressive and I found the staff to be pretty impersonal, but the scenery made up for it and it didn't stop us from buying two more bottles of wine!

The weather was iffy that day, but in Bainbridge it was pretty awesome because we were between two storms and could hear and see them from where we were on the mountain, but over top of us it was sunny. And of course how can you complain when your spoils from vacation is 4 bottles of wine?

But really, it was a fantastic little getaway with a bunch of friends. We already have plans in the works for next year being bigger, better, and longer. I'm already excited!

Didn't get enough pictures or information? Go check out Marizabeth's posts about PARF and Day #2! My iPhone makes more cameos than my face. And you can still find my post about PARF here!

Sadly I'm pretty sure the Maryland Renaissance Festival is a bust for me this weekend - tomorrow Irene is supposed to hit (and I keep calling it Eileen) and Sunday is iffy but I told The Boy we'd lay low that day. Oh well, guess I'll just have to spend it drinking some of that wine!

P.S. - you can find other vineyard trips I've taken under the "tastings" tag!