Weekend in Gruene
My gift to Suzanne for our first anniversary was a weekend’s stay at a bed and breakfast in Gruene (pronounced green), Texas. Gruene is a little German town located near New Braunfels — which is 30 miles northeast of San Antonio.
For your first anniversary, the suggested gift is a clock. I extrapolated from that the concept of time and thought a weekend away would be perfect.
We both took Friday off to enable a casual drive down to Gruene. Its about a four hour drive from Dallas. The drive was pretty smooth, but was slowed predictably by traffic in Austin. We lost another 45 minutes trying to satisfy a Starbuck’s craving within Gruene — basically, we got embroiled in some unexpected traffic there and never found one. Go figure, they aren’t on every corner in New Braunfels.
Once we got to the bed and breakfast, we discovered it was as beautiful as I had hoped. I had found the place on the Internet by using keywords like “Gruene”, “Guadalupe” and “Bed and Breakfast”. Anyway, the point is, I wanted a place on the river. And when we arrived, we were very rewarded with beautiful gardens and a river-front deck. If you explore the Flickr set, you’ll see what I mean.
The bed and breakfast has many places to stay, but I had booked the cottage which added a bit more privacy and its own overlook to the river. It was quite nice inside.
Once we got our stuff moved in, it was time to gather up a bottle of Pinot Gritio and explore the deck and riverside. It was beautiful and relaxing. We stayed for quite a while and took quite a few pictures.
Later that night, we went to the Gruene River Inn for dinner and that too was wonderful. We closed the night with a half hour in the hot tub.
On Saturday morning, we reported for breakfast at 9am sharp where a raspberry cobbler was waiting for us. I’m told it was nice, but a cold dessert wasn’t my thing for breakfast. The main course was a kind of creamy scrambled eggs with sausage and sweet potato medalions. Pretty fancy! And the presentation was beautiful. I didn’t know what to expect, so it was a surprise to have a gourmet meal.
Later that morning, we went to Landa Park and hiked the Panther Canyon Nature Trail. If you’ve read about our previous hiking experience, you’ll no doubt be surprised to see the word “hike” make its return to the blog. All I can say is that this is what we think of when we say or hear hike: level ground, short, scenic, and fun. The hike was fun, but the river bed was completely dry. We did stalk some deer up the canyon, so that was fun.
By the end of our hike, full-blown rain had set in, so we retreated to a restaurant to have lunch. We were a bit disappointed with the Mexican food restaurant in Gruene — can’t remember the name, but there’s only one, so you’ll know it when you see it. It wasn’t bad, I was just expecting better since we were closer to San Antonio…and thus closer to the Border also.
We walked the town later that afternoon; I took pictures while Suzanne did some shopping. By then, the rain had lifted some, so the walk was pleasant.
We retreated back to our Inn for another early evening edition of wine on the deck. We got halfway through our wine when we decided to go walk the road to look at all the deer that frequent the area. We must have seen 15 of them over the course of the 30 minutes we were out there. Seeing deer up close like that was really cool!
Later that night, we went to the Grist Mill Restaurant which is THE place to go for dinner in Gruene. We actually got there pretty later, 8:45pm, but still had to wait 45 minutes to be seated. If there had been another option, we probably would have bailed. Dinner was nice, but not remarkable.
Breakfast the next morning was again pretty remarkable, although it wasn’t compatible with my picky eating style — french toast with pumpkin spread in the middle. But everyone else seemed to love it.
After breakfast, we checked out and began our trip back. We stopped at an Outlet Mall near San Marcos and shopped for two hours before getting on the road for good.
All in all, it was a nice trip. If anyone is interested, the bed and breakfast is called the Lamb’s Rest Inn. Highly recommended.
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