Rhineland-Pfalz is wine country, and nestled in that wine country is an area with almond trees planted. Similarly to cherry trees almonds bloom in the spring, pink and fragrant and full of life.

Every year a committee of people in Gimmeldingen village watch the almond trees for the peak of their bloom, and schedule the almond blossom festival. I’ve been checking every week since February to catch the right weekends for the festival, and this year it just so happens to be March 22nd and 23rd, along with next weekend as well. This was excellent timing as our anniversary happens to be March 22nd.

We all loaded up in the train around 10am and took the hour long ride to the village. It was neat to wind our way up the medieval streets, following a crowd of other folks going to roughly the same place. We took a right onto a slightly less travelled path and got our first glimpse of the almond trees. They were beautiful, but we weren’t totally sure it lives up to the hype.

We continued on the path until we encountered a truck booth proffering wine. Things started looking up as we got our first glass of schorle style wine, where sparkling mineral water is added to the wine to make it sparkly.

As we walked up the hill further, drinking our wine and enjoying the sunny weather (a pleasant surprise, it was supposed to rain according to our apps) we started seeing a bigger picture of the festival, and everything started making sense.

The main almond-lined panorama view of the village was lined with booths full of food, confections, wine, and various craft goods, similar to the Christmas markets. There were tables and benches in open seating areas and the yard of a building that let us know from a carving it was built in 1772. We were unable to pass by the artisanal French sausage cart, the candied almond cart, or the Netherlands cheese cart without buying the wares. One booth offered braised salmon sandwiches, also not passed up. We found half meter spicy sausages on brotchen, pommes, and almond cookies, along with a refill of our wine.

We wandered up onto the panorama way to look out over the Rhine wine valley, vineyards and almond trees making a tapestry of the land. Industry distant in Mannheim, and I think I was able to distinguish Heidelberg far away as well.

On the way back to the train, we tipped a busker playing accordion for passersby, and observed as the festival began to fill up with more people.

We stopped into one of the wineries in Gimmeldingen proper to buy a bottle of the wine from the schorle. “€6.50” stated the nice wine attendant as she placed the large bottle on the counter. “€6.50?? Can we have 2 please”. Good wine doesn’t have to be expensive, especially here.

We took the trains back home with only a little worry for the connection, but everything went off without a hitch. 4 bottles of wine, 5 sausages, 2 cheeses, a bunch of sweets and 3 very content people later, we were very pleased with discovering the Mandelblütenfest. Just so happens, this year is also Gimmeldingen’ 750 year anniversary. Happy anniversary!