The girls do Hermann, MO

Today I woke up early and ventured out with the neighborhood girls to the Amtrak station to make our way to Hermann, MO for the day. We first stopped at Starbuck's and all got coffee and then enjoyed the pleasant 3 hour train ride to this beautiful little town. Time just flew with us girls chit-chatting & laughing all the way there.


Once we arrived, we made our way through the streets of Hermann to find somewhere to eat lunch. We decided on a little place called Simon's on the Waterfront and enjoyed a really good meal. After we ate, we made our way to the visitor's center to get some information on the wineries located throughout the town. We met a lovely elderly lady there named Dolores who was so very helpful. She provided us with a map of where to go and we were on our way. She had told us where her house was along our walk & informed us we were more than welcome to stop and rest on her porch. About 2 blocks into our walk, we passed her home & we did just what she had told us to & made sure to get a picture:

Our first stop was Stone Hill Winery. Little did we know it was located on top of a steep hill and since we were walking, we had to walk up that hill to get there. I thought we might lose Michelle during our hike but we all managed to get to the top - sweaty, winded and ready to try the wine!

This is on top of Stone Hill Winery. You can see the road we walked up to get here!

We all decided to take the tour of the winery which ended up being very interesting. I just love listening to history and it was quite fascinating learning about how they make their wine. Here are a few pictures from our tour:

Barrels of wine that are left to "age" for several years

Huge steel cisterns where wine is presently fermenting

Unopened bottles of wine left behind from 1965

After our tour, we got to sample the many different kinds of wine that Stone Hill winery has to offer. I would have to say I enjoyed the reds the most :)

Next stop was the Hermanhoff Winery. It was another beautiful place and we decided to enjoy the beauty of the grounds with some wine & some snacks!

Our last stop was the Tin Mill Brewery. This was a really small bar but offered a lovely little "sampler" of all their brewed beers which we enjoyed trying:

After we finished our "sampler", we made our way back to the train station to head home. You can tell by these next few photos that we were all feeling pretty good at this point from all the wine and our samples of beer:



There weren't any seats together when we got on the train, so we made our way back to the snack car and sat at a table back there the entire way home. We did crosswords, took turns playing "name that tune" on our iPods and reminisced about our fun day.

The weather was beautiful as was the town of Hermann and all the wineries it had to offer! It was such a fun-filled day with wonderful friends & I can't wait to have another "girls day" with these awesome ladies in the future!