Friday, September 12, 2008

Market Days in Wimberly, TX

One of the many booths at Market Days in Wimberly, Tx


A magnificent agave by the side of the road in Wimberly, Tx



Beautiful olives at the Bella Vista Ranch in Wimberly, Tx

Last Friday husband and I went to Wimberly for the weekend. The Village of Wimberly is located a little over an hour drive from Austin, TX in the Hill Country. It is a quaint little town, filled with galleries and stores carrying from your typical souvenir to fine ceramics and art from local artist. There are 3 or 4 restaurants in town, one of them is Luigi's, serving Italian food. The food is decent and the prices reasonable, the ambiance is so so, nothing to rave about.
Twice we attempted to eat breakfast at the Wimberley Cafe but both mornings it was packed, maybe due to the fact that it is the only place open for a full breakfast. Being too hungry to wait we walked away and ended up eating breakfast tacos (known as burritos in my native Mexico) at a convenience store. We had the eggs with chorizo burritos and they were delicious!!
While in Wimberly we went to Market Days. Market Days has a lot of good quality vendors, anything from plants, jewelry, crafts, collectibles, clothing, art, antiques, food and more. The market is open the first Saturday of the month from 7am to 3:30pm and it has been running for 44 years. Check out their website www.wimberlymarketdays.com ...the setting is really nice with curving paths and lots of oaks. Just remember to wear a hat and drink tons of water, it gets pretty hot.
If you are adventurous, Wimberly has a zipline, I heard is the longest in Texas. I can't tell you how it was because you won't get me flying between trees any time soon.
While in Wimberly, on Sat. night we met with friends for dinner, Our friends Romeo and Julieta, actually his name is Antonio, have a booth named Mexican Masterpieces, they sell fine textiles from Mexico. Beautiful blouses and jackets and table runners and pillows, and more. Check out their website: www.mexicanmasterpieces.net
.....On Sunday, after having our "breakfast tacos" we went to Jean's antique Mall, not to buy antiques but to find Veronique, the tamale lady. The day before at Market Days she was giving out samples of her tamales. I tried a piece and I liked them but she doesn't sell the tamales there because the tamales are sold frozen and vacuum packed so on Sunday we went to her store which is in the same building as Jean's store to pick up the tamales. This lady is from France and I found curious that she would make a business selling tamales, which are Mexican. It would be like me, being Mexican, selling croissants or crepes. Hey, perhaps that's why some people are curious about me being a quilter because quilts are not part of the Mexican culture. If you want to know how I got started on quilting read my biography in my website.
This entry is getting too long so I will wrap it up. After picking up the tamales we went to Bella Vista Ranch, www.texasoliveoil.com an olive orchard near Wimberly, it is the first Texas olive oil company in the state. Jack the owner told us all we needed to know about olives throughout history. We took a tour of the orchard and saw their pressing room. The pressing room is where they process the olives. We sampled the olive oil and walked away with 2 olive trees that we had been looking for and we also bought some olive oil, wine and balsamic vinegar. It is a great place to visit, the whole thing took a couple of hours.
On the way home we took a detour to have lunch at the Salt Lick Restaurant, www.saltlickbbq.com near Driftwood to have some Texas barbecue. Just the perfect ending to a relaxing weekend.

Martha, Antonio and Julieta at the Mexican Masterpieces booth

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