Hill Country Jewels

A few weekends ago, we went to visit our wonderful Austin friends, Kristin and Dave. Dave was Travis' roommate at UT, and they have been great friends ever since. When Travis and I decided to plan a weekend getaway for our anniversary, we knew that visiting them would be a fun stop on the way. They recently bought a home in the same neighborhood that Dave grew up in, and they have completely redone everything on the inside- it's absolutely gorgeous!! (I will have to ask her to send me some pictures so I can post them on here...)

While the guys golfed all afternoon, Kristin took me to some super cute places in Austin. The first one was an Italian market- Mandola's. It is a precious little Italian restaurant/market/bakery/wine bar kind of place. Kristin talked me into splitting the margherita pizza....definitely outside of my pepperoni comfort zone, but it was THE BEST pizza ever!! I would highly recommend it.

After filling our tummies, we shopped a little for new house things and then stopped at a cupcakery and coffee shop. Apparently this place has different cupcake specials daily! I love that! We chose 4 different cupcake flavors so that we could all have a taste of each one when the boys came home. They were yummy yummy! (well, I only tasted the vanilla one, but it was yummy! Trav's favorite was the strawberry!!)

That night we decided to pick up food (the girls were still very full from the pizza) and head out to "the lighthouse." This is a very special place that you would have to see to believe! Dave's dad built it and it is amazing. It's right on the top of a hill with views of Lake Travis all around. We spent the evening hanging out and catching up in the hot tub that overlooked the lake- it was so nice and relaxing and fun. (pictures to come...remember?...Buddy chewed on the computer cord!)

Saturday morning, after a delicious pancake and egg breakfast thanks to Kristin, we were off to the wine country to celebrate our anniversary! We booked a precious little one room bed and breakfast type place that we found at absolutecharm.com. (the best website!!) It was definitely not a traditional bed and breakfast, and we were very leery about booking it, but as we pulled into the driveway, I was so happy that we did!!! The gardens outside were beautiful and the cottage was so cute and matched the house.

After checking in to the "Buona Sera" (meaning goodnight in Italian), we headed into town to find a spot for lunch. Fredericksburg is such a fun little town- it's all about wine and good shopping!! We had a delicious burger lunch as Winslow's and after window shopping for a little bit and buying Buddy some treats at Dogologie, we decided it was time for some wine! We started at the Fredericksburg winery in downtown Fredericksburg. This place was a little different, because they do not have their own vineyards, but they do make their own wine in this huge warehouse type place. They gave us free samples of about 10 different types of wines and told us all about them. They were very personable and funny (I think they had probably already been drinking wine all day!) We decided that we should buy our favorite wine at each place, so we purchased a bottle of Enchanted Rock Red. The lady told us that it went great with BarBQ. :)

Next we had time to visit 3 other wineries that were closer to our Buona Sera retreat. Grape Creek was gorgeous! They recently built a new tasting room and of course, had beautiful views of the hill country and vineyards. The samples of sweet and semi-sweet wines were free and then there was a small charge for the dry wines. We liked them all! Next, was Torre di Pietra. I had been waiting for this winery for a long time!! I knew that they made the ever famous, Dirty Girl and Red Flirt wines that I had tasted before. The winery was everything that I thought it would be. The wine was wonderful and the atmosphere was great. There was a huge covered patio with live music and dancing. After our tasting, Travis and I had a glass of wine on the patio with Rebecca and Brad (friends that we had run into when we got there...very fun!) After that, Travis was fading and ready for a nap, but I convinced him to go to one more winery- Becker Vineyards. I was so glad that we went, because Becker was very different from the other 3 wineries. The main building was kind of like an old farmhouse or barn and the tasting room inside was surrounded by wine barrels. You have to buy 5 tasting tickets and then choose the 5 wines that you want to taste, but for some reason, our guy never asked for our tickets so I think we tasted all of the wines! He was so funny because he had just started working there, and he really didn't know much about the wine...I don't even think he drank wine. He told us that 2 weeks before, he was the manager at the Dairy Queen, but he decided he wanted to do something new. He was a very sweet man and we just loved him! He told us all about his life while he poured sample after sample of different wines. I think Travis was glad that we went.

Dinner, like everything else, was fabulous! We went to the Cotton Gin, and our only regret was that we didn't get there earlier to experience the beautiful gardens and fountains outside. I think our favorite thing was the homemade potato "chips" with blue cheese fondue. It was SO GOOD!

Next stop- Hondo's- a super fun bar with a huge backyard and great live music. We met Rebecca and Brad here and had a great time listening to the music and watching people dance...I think some people had WAY too much wine that day, but it was entertaining for us.

Fredericksburg is so fun! I hope that everyone who has never been will take the trip sometime to experience all of the unique things it has to offer. If you are scared of the bed and breakfasts, there are lots of boring hotels, but honestly, we had a great experience!! Can't wait to go back!! (Maybe when it's a little cooler! :))