We had a late start today and a pretty light schedule. It was still raining but the forecast showed clearing later in the day.
The most westerly point you can reach by highway in North America.
We started out by heading into town to check out the interagency visitors center. It had a trail down to a slough that we took but there was not much to see. Our next stop was the farmers market. Several of the stalls were Old Believer families from the Russian Orthodox Church. We tried a potato pie which was pretty good, and cheap.
The beach at the most westerly point.
On the boat tour yesterday they pointed out a spot of land that had the most westernmost road in North America, so we decided to head out there. As we pulled into the lot there was a group of folks standing around a car in the lot. One of them came over and asked us if we had a metal hanger so they can try to unlock their car. We gave them one of our hangers and they managed to get the car unlocked. They had an interesting operation there where they launch fishing boats directly into the surf using old bulldozers. The fishing culture in Alaska is pretty impressive and omnipresent.
Our last stops for the day were to try taster trays at the two breweries in Homer. When we returned to our spot the sun was out and the mountains were clear, but the wind was howling, so after a brisk walk on the beach we hunkered down in scout and waited for sunset.
Today we returned to the Chevy dealer to get the new parts installed in Scout to get the Diesel Exhaust Fluid system back in service. After a couple of hours the service representative came in and said it may be 3 or 4 more hours, and offered to have their courtesy shuttle drive us somewhere.
We decided on the Anchorage Museum. The museum was undergoing renovation, but they had a very nice display of artifacts from all of the different native groups in Alaska. The artifacts belong to the Smithsonian Museum and are on loan to Anchorage. The display was really well done and interesting. They also had a section on the relationship between Russian and Alaska. We also took a walking tour of the museum with one of the docents.
The interior of the Anchorage Museum.
We finally got Scout back about 3pm, and so with time on our hands we headed over to one of the 18 breweries in Anchorage. Odd Man Rush brewery was a hockey themed brewery with pretty good beer. The last stop for the day was the PX and Commissary at the Air Force side of the base. Gabi had told Ton that the commissary was one of the best she had seen and Ton concurred after the visit.
We woke up bright and early to head over to Alaska Sales and Service. They were able to diagnose the problem, and the good news is it is under warranty. The bad news is the part was not in stock so we have to return tomorrow to finalize the repair. They also confirmed that we could drive around town and take care of our other business.
We had some time until we had to be at Costco for our tires, so we headed downtown to check things out. We joined in a guided walk by the National Park Service. As usual with NPS talks it was outstanding. The ranger was very knowledgeable and the weather was clearer than forecast so we could see Denali and all of the other mountains.
Some flowers from downtown Anchorage, the flowers are starting to fade in mid-August.
Our next stop was 49th state Brewery. The food was good, the beer was good, and the view from the restaurant was outstanding.
We next took care of our tire replacement at Costco, and filled up our refrigerator with food. It will be nice to be able to have full confidence in our tires.
We joined Gabi and Ron for an outstanding Chili dinner. We solved a lot of the problems of the Tiger world, and shared war stories from our times in the service. Thanks Ron and Gabi for the great chili and company.
The first chore for the day was to sort out the tires. We had both researched tires looking for a good tire with the maximum load rating. We both had decided on BF Goodrich TA KO2’s as it had a load rating of 3400lbs per tire (our current tires are rated at 2400ibs). Luckily for us one of the Costco’s in Anchorage had 4 on hand and the price for 4 new tires was pretty close to the price for 2 Nitto’s which we currently have on the truck. So after some pleading from Ron and pulling the Oregon card (the tire center guy in Anchorage was originally from Roseburg OR) we convinced them to hold the tires for us until Tuesday. So Monday as soon as the heater is fixed we will be doing the 6-8 hour drive to Anchorage.
The rest of the day was spent getting the oil changed on the truck, shopping at a huge Fred Meyer grocery, visiting the Commissary and PX (grocery store and variety store for non-military folks) at Fort Wainwright we were pretty well stocked. We would have bought more but now we are going to be at a Costco on Tuesday.
After that we were able to relax a little. We visited Wendys for Chili (Ton’s favorite), Hoodoo Brewery, and Santa’s Village in North Pole, Alaska. Hoodoo is the best brewery we have been to on this trip. We did a tour led by one of the owners and brewers and his passion and knowledge was obvious. Unfortunately they don’t distribute outside of Fairbanks so we bought a few cans for future consumption.
Today we finished the drive to Salt Lake City. First we checked in at the Air Force Base outside of town to get a spot, luckily we went there first as we got the last spot they had. We had a little time so we went by the shopping on the base and walked around a bit to see what they had.
Later we met Pae and Supachai at Squatters Pub Brewery downtown. We were hoping to visit this brewery and were pleasantly surprised when they called us and told us to meet them there. Ton and I had always skipped downtown Salt Lake City as we were a little nervous about parking downtown, but it turned out to be no problem as things were quiet on a rainy Sunday.
After a couple of beers Pae wanted to see the Great Salt Lake so we headed out to a state park near Saltair. The view of the lake was nice and we also got a good view of the largest copper mine in the US. Pae tasted the water and determined it was very salty.
Ton and Pae on the shore of the Great Salt Lake.
We ended the day by heading to Cathedral Square which is the center of the Mormon Religion. It was quite impressive with lots of large buildings surrounded by well maintained gardens, and statues of prominent people and events in the religion.
The cathedral for the Mormon religion. Non-mormons are not allowed to enter.
Today we left Columbia. Enroute to Pensacola we realized we were within 50 miles of Ft. Benning and decided to swing in there for the night. Today we covered over 300 miles over back roads through Georgia and South Carolina. The Tiger handled very well and is very comfortable to drive. Despite being a bigger looking vehicle it actually feels smaller than the Sprinter. We are able to fit comfortably into any parking lot and quite often into a single space. We are getting spoiled with the XM radio and will have to see what we do once the free trial is over.
We arrived at Ft. Benning and after checking into the campground, Ton noticed that there was a Brew Pub on base so of course we had to check it out. Ton had an Infantry Stout, and Ron had an Armor Ale. To keep with the tour of the south we included boiled peanuts with the beer. The beer was OK, and the boiled peanuts were not up to the standard of Thailand, too salty and mushy.
Tomorrows plans include a visit to the PX and Commissary on base, and then onward towards Pensacola.
We ended up spending another day in Asheville to plan some changes in our itinerary. Ron received a request to work a week in Kentucky so we needed to figure out what we are going to do next week. The current plan now is to head to the south east and explore Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and the pan handle of Florida, before heading up to Kentucky. So tomorrow we will be heading south.
One of the many craft breweries in Asheville.
The day was not a total waste. Asheville is reputed to be the beer capital of the US with the most breweries per capita. To put things in perspective there are 12 breweries in Asheville compared to over 60 in Portland. We visited 4 of the breweries. They were all good, but none of them knocked our socks off.
Still trying to figure out the Tiger. We are very happy with the handling and the ability to manuever in the city. We were able to park downtown in a standard parking spot. There are a few things that Ron is still trying to figure out. At this point all of the major systems are working well, there are small things that are not working, but this could be an operator problem as much as a vehicle problem.
Since this is supposed to be a travel blog today we will talk about our time around here. Columbia is the capitol of South Carolina. We spent some time Wednesday, Thursday and Friday exploring the town.
On Wednesday we had dinner with Mark Guild, Fred and Denise Cook, and Chief Warrant Officer Robert Nixon at an Indian Restaurant in Columbia. The food was good and the company fun. Fred and Denise were picking up their Malayan so we enjoyed discussing future plans for our Tigers.
The highlight was a visit to to Conquest Brewery. It reminded us very much of the small breweries we see in Portland. We punched the address into our trusty Garmin and we ended up in a dark street next to the University of South Carolina football stadium. Just as we were going to turn around we saw a little industrial park with a small hand painted sign and we had found it! We tried a sampler and the beer was very good. If you are in Columbia I highly recommend it. The highlight beer for us was a coffee infused IPA. We usually are not big fans of infused beers, but this one won us over, nice aroma and just a hint of coffee in the beer did not overpower the hops.
The sign for the brewery is well concealed.
We had some interesting conversations as this is not only a brewery, but a Christian brewery. Later in the night they had a discussion of art and Christianity in the brewery. Talked to one of the brewers and he really he knew his beer. He strongly recommended we visit Asheville NC as they now have more breweries per capita than Portland. Sounds like we will have to make a visit. We enjoyed the place so much we returned again on Friday.
While not having the Tiger ready on time has been a pain, it did result in one good thing. Ton’s cousin Pee Porn lives near Charlotte. If anyone is responsible for Ton and I being married it is Pee Porn. When we met on Okinawa 33 years ago Ton was visiting Pee Porn. We had not seen her in over 30 years. Saturday we drove up and spent the day with her and her husband Richard. We had a lot of catching up to do and it was a great evening. Pee Porn cooked some great Thai food that we ate for lunch. Later Ton mentioned Ron’s love of Carolina BBQ, and before we knew it we were off to a great BBQ joint called Garry’s in China Grove NC. We had a dinner of Carolina BBQ with hush puppies, onion rings, coleslaw, and baked beans. Ron was in heaven, and the price was unbelievably low. It was really nice to see Pee Porn and her family again and we promise that it will not be 30 years before we do it again.
Ton and her cousin Pee Porn in front of a great BBQ joint.
Sunday we headed to Charleston, made the obligatory visit to Costco, then headed to downtown Charleston. We stopped at a coffee bar and taproom and sampled some of the local brews. Nothing knocked our socks off, we then headed towards the market. We were lucky as one Sunday a month they close down one of the main streets downtown. There were all kinds of street musicians, and food vendors on the street. It was a great walk with lots of interesting people to see. We had visited Charleston the year before and enjoyed it then, it is a beautiful old colonial city definitely worth a visit.
Another long drive today as we decided it was time to move on from Germany. Just like with Spain we thought we had enough time to see most of Germany and it turns out we have missed most of the central part of the country. We wanted to make one more stop on our way out of the country in Cologne.
Cologne is one of the largest tourist destinations in Germany and has the most visited place in Germany in its Gothic Cathedral. Since it was on the way towards The Netherlands we decided to spend the night here. Again we were both up pretty early and got an early start so our drive to Cologne was nice and easy if a bit long.
We got a nice spot in the aire facing the Rhine River so we have spent part of the day watching the river barges going past. After settling down we headed towards the city center to join the crowds at the cathedral. Our route was along the Rhine, and for the last mile the path was a sprawling flea market. Between the flea market, the holiday and the five river cruise boats docked along the river the river walk was jammed with people.
One of the five river cruise boats docked along the waterfront.
We finally reached the cathedral, and had a quick walk around the exterior before going in. Much to our surprise the entrance was free. This cathedral is still Catholic unlike many of the churches we have been visiting lately which started out as Catholic, and were converted to Lutheran after the reformation. The exterior is massive and the spires are the main attraction. Construction was started in 1248 and suspended in 1473, it was finally completed in 1880 after over 400 years of suspension.
The exterior of the cathedral, it is hard to capture the scale of the building.One of the gargoyles about 100 feet above ground.
The interior is attractive, and the stain glass is pretty though we presume it is all post WWII. The Cologne cathedral would probably make our top 10 list of cathedrals if we were keeping one, but closer to number 10 than number 1.
The interior houses a reliquary of the three kings, which was the original reason to build the cathedral.The mosaics on the floor were extensive and intricate, they were the highlight of the cathedral for us.
Cologne is also famous as the originator of Kolsch Beer, so that was the next attraction we headed for. The first place we went was Peters Beerhouse where the first waiter asked if we were there to eat or to drink, we replied drink and he immediately showed us to a standup bar in a corner next to a bar, and the place where waiters return the used beer glasses. This was in a huge place that could easily seat several hundred and it was 90% empty. The tradition in Cologne is to serve beers in small glasses so that the beer remains cold, the server is supposed to come by frequently so you can get refills. In this case after the first round the waiter came by and said his shift was over so we needed to pay up. So we were out of there.
The server on the right in this picture is carrying the traditional Kolsch Beer Caddy, so he can provide cold beer on the spot.The modern plastic version.
Hoping that was an aberration we headed over to another famous Kolsch place which again was largely empty, this time we got to pick out table and sit, but the service was not particularly friendly so we decided to cut our losses and head on back to François thru the slightly less crowded flea market. Ton cooked a great German meal of pork cutlets, spatzle, sauerkraut and kraut salad so the day ended on a positive note as we enjoyed our meal while looking out on the river traffic on the Rhine.
Some of the river traffic we have been enjoying this afternoon.
When we moved from Schwerin to Lubeck we crossed from the former DDR (East Germany) to the GDR (West Germany). We knew because the pedestrian lights changed.
The stop and go lights in Western Germany.The stop and go lights in Eastern Germany.
he wait and go lights in East Germany are referred to as Ampelmanchen, and are one of the few things that have been retained. Much cuter than in W. Germany, Ton loves the hat and the portlier body.
Hamburg is the second biggest city in Germany with a population of nearly 1.8 million. It is a bigger city than we normally take François into so we were a little nervous. The drive in turned out to be pretty easy with only one detour caused by construction. I had accidentally loaded in the coordinates for a different RV parking than we planned, but by the time we figured it our we were settled in.
We only budgeted one day for Hamburg so we decided to take a “Free Tour” of the city center to try to take in as much as we could in a short time. The tour as always was informative and gave us a quick view of the city and it’s history.
The Speicherstadt is multiple blocks of warehouses with canals built in the late 1800’s when this area was duty free. They lost their duty free status in the 1990’s and have now been converted to hip studios, restaurants, and galleries.
At the end of the tour we were by the new Elbphilharmonie Hall. This concert hall was recently completed in 2017 for over €800 million, and besides the concert hall there are apartments and a hotel in the building.
The exterior of the Elbphilharmonie Hamburgs newest landmark.
The concert hall reportedly has the best acoustics in the world, and is designed so that no one watching a concert is more than 100 feet from the stage. Today they were celebrating their 10 millionth visitor to the Hall so they had free concerts and apple strudels.
The interior has the stage in the middle. They were setting up for a symphony concert.
The interior is beautiful, the exterior attempts to be modern and striking and we think misses on the striking part. The observation deck has a panoramic view of the very busy Hamburg harbor.
The view of the harbor from the Elbphilharmonie, Hamburg is still a very busy port.
Our last stop was a brewery in St. Pauli which is the former (current?) red light district for Hamburg. It turns out the brewery was across the street from the RV parking I had meant to use, so it was a missed opportunity to save on some walking. We stood out from the crowd, not because we were American, but because we were not young, hip, and tattooed. The beer was good, and the people watching fun so we indulged in two rounds instead of our normal one.
The exterior of the very hip brewery in the St. Pauli district.
We have found a city in Germany that we really have a good feeling about. As we have traveled around Europe we find cities or towns that we kind of instantly like. Examples are San Sebastian, Seville, and Malaga in Spain, Dijon, Gardes, and Flavigny in France. It is hard to describe why, but it just happens. So far on this trip we have not had that experience with any German cities. We have discussed this several times over the trip, we have not had a bad experience here, but overall we are lacking the connection we have felt in Spain and France.
Before we headed out of Schwerin we headed to the town to take a look around. It has one of the nicest castles we have seen, and it avoided major damage during the war and was part of East Germany so it’s old town has not been modernized like most cities in Germany. Our tour of the city was quick but we enjoyed it.
Schwerin Castle survived the war intact. My personal favorite castle in Germany.Another view of Schwerin. It was a really pretty city.
Today we found a city that we have connected with in Lubeck. It is a relatively small port city on the Baltic Sea with a long and interesting history as a trading city. But almost as soon as we arrived we liked the feel of the town. Our parking spot is right across the canal from the old town, they do not gouge you for the spot. After several weeks of hearty German food we opted for seafood and found an old slightly upscale restaurant with a great atmosphere. The waiter not only served us efficiently but took time to have a nice conversation about travel, and the way different cultures take care of the elderly. It was an unexpected personal connection.
The interior of our restaurant, it used to be the sailors guild hall.
Lubeck is also famous for Marzipan which is a confection of almonds and sugar. We decided we needed to sample some Marzipan so we went to the most famous bakery in town. The pastry was quite good, and not as overly sweet to Ton as American pastries.
A Marzipan pastry. Niederbergers has been producing Marzipan since the 1800’s.
We ended the day at one of the best breweries we have been to in Germany called Brauberger. Their specialty is a Zwickel beer which is a cellared Lager. It was quite good, and we split a pitcher and had a good time people watching.
A view across the canal into the old town from near our parking spot.The sign on the city gate says Harmony within, Peace without.
I know this sounds like many of our days, but this one was our best so far in Germany. As we were walking back we discussed staying another day here even though we are feeling some time pressure, and are quite a long way from Belgium.
This happy devil captured some of the spirit of Lubeck that we liked. The story is that he was conned into helping build the church by the workers who told him it was going to be a wine bar.
Spent the day touring around Leipzig which is a nice city. This is an up and coming city in Germany, which means it still has a little roughness around the edge which we liked. Dresden’s downtown felt like it had completed it’s makeover, in Leipzig it felt like it was well on its’ way but still in progress.
We went to St. Thomas Church which was the base of J.S. Bach for many years. As we entered the church a youth orchestra was beginning to practice for a concert. We sat and listened to them for a few minutes which seemed a fitting way to pay homage to Bach.
Bachs’ statue in front of St. Thomas church.
Leipzig embraces its’ role in the downfall of East Germany, and as you walk around town you see plaques telling stories about key events in 1989. It is humbling for me to walk the ground to see the role that common people played in bringing down a government with the repressive power of the old East German government.
This cross is part of the story of the revolution of 89, as people would come to the church to leave messages for friends as well prayers.
Leipzig is also the site of one of the great battles of the Napoleonic era. At Leipzig Napoleon was defeated by the combined army of Russia, Prussia, Austria, and Sweden. This defeat led to his first exile. There is a huge monument to the battle on the edge of Leipzig. While the scale is massive, (it takes over 500 steps to reach the top) the aesthetics of the monument were not to our taste. We gave it a quick walk around without buying a ticket to go inside, and moved on to one of our favorite activities.
This massive monument to the Battle of Leipzig was finished in 1913. Huge statues and huge blocks of stone.This picture is from Auerbachs Keller that has been operating since the 1400’s, they claim you cannot say you have visited Leipzig unless you visit here, so we had to stop. It is supposed to be Faust and the Devil on top of the barrel.
Our last stop was at a brewery in an old train station near downtown. Bayerischer Bahnhof Brewery is one of the originators of Gose style beer. We usually don’t much like sours but this one was good and Ton claimed it helped with her allergies so we had a second round. The brewery is located in one of the old train stations in town, the station was closed down around 2001, but the entrance hall was a historical site so it was saved and eventually converted to a brewery. It may be the nicest brewery we have ever visited and we have visited a few!
As I said yesterday we planned to move to Bayreuth to go to the largest beer museum in the world. It was an easy 50km drive in light rain, and we have parked up at the first free aire since we arrived in Germany.
After lazing around for a while waiting for the rain to stop, we headed into town to the museum. The museum is only available by tour twice a day and we wanted to make sure we had a spot so after checking in we were told to come back in a couple of hours.
We headed over to the main street of Bayreuth and found a really nice and wide pedestrian zone. We enjoyed checking out the stores and the people. It was a little quiet since the weather was still unsettled and unseasonably cold. We stopped by the opera house which is a world heritage site to check on tour times as it is also only accessible on tours.
Every town in Bavaria has one of these poles which shows the different services available in the town. By tradition they are taken down and updated every 3 years which prompts a beer festival
After a quick lunch at a Donner Kebab place we headed over to the Maisel World of Beer for our tour. When we first checked in they told us the tour was in German but they would give us an English script so we could follow along. However, it turns out we were the only ones on the tour, so the guide said she would do the tour in English if we did not mind her making a few mistakes as she had never done the tour in English before. It turned out to be a great tour. When Maisel replaced their old factory with a more modern one, they just left all of the equipment in place in the old building. We were able to see really cool beer making equipment purchased between 1890 and 1910 still in working order.
Some of the original equipment from Maisals factory. It was used from about 1900 to the late 1970’s.
The tour much like yesterday included every part of the beer process from grain to shipping. The bonus was it was done in English, our guide was a college student from the local University and she did quite well only stumbling on a couple of technical terms. They also had an interesting display of beer glasses, steins, and signs from over the last 100 years.
Some of the hundreds of beer steins on display.They have over 5400 beer glasses on display from around the world.
They still produce their traditional Maisel Weiss which is the beer that made them famous. But the 4th generation of brewers wanted to expand the horizons a bit so they have a second company called Maisel and Friends which while keeping with the purity laws produces typical microbrews including ales, porters, and IPA’s. The brewery itself looks very much like an upscale west coast brewery. It would fit in very well in San Diego or Portland. It was interesting to see the German take on a microbrewery.
We ended a day with a tour of the Margravial Opera House which was built from 1744 to 1748. This time there were plenty of Germans on the tour, so we were relying on our pamphlet to understand what we were seeing.
The wood carvings on the balcony of the theater are incredibly intricate.The wood carvings on the interior are incredibly intricate and a bit ostentatious.
The stage is really deep and allows for the staging of really large sets with lots of extras. For this reason it was a favorite place for the German composer Richard Wagner to stage his operas some of which go on for 3 or 4 hours with giant casts.
Bayreuth was the adopted home town of the composer Richard Wager so these little statues of him are everywhere.
We were completely lost during the extensive talk about the building. But it is indeed an impressive piece of architecture, and I can see why it works as an opera house even if it is a little over the top.
Bayreuth turned out to be a very nice city and the easiest we have walked around in Germany, with a great pedestrian zone, and extensive walking and biking trails. Though we were in a big city we were mostly isolated from the cars which we enjoyed.
Today was a pretty easy day. After Ton had one more luxury shower at the campground we headed into town to do some shopping at a Lidl and a Rewe that were conveniently next to each other in town.
Once François’ shelves were restocked we headed down the autobahn towards another Frankish town called Kulmbach. While we are technically in Bavaria the area we have been in since Rothenburg are inhabited by a people called Franks who will tell you they are not Bavarian by choice. It appears to be a friendly rivalry, but they do make a point of telling you at every opportunity that while administratively they are in Bavaria they do not consider themselves Bavarian.
We arrived at the aire in Kulmbach after Greta decided to test my driving skills by sending us right thru the center of town complete with narrow one lane roads with cars parked on both sides. After settling in we headed over to the nearby beer museum.
The museum is located on the grounds of Mohnschof Brewery and is really quite a museum. It looks like they built a new brewery on site, and took the old brewery including all of the equipment and built a really fascinating beer museum.
A shot of the interior of the new brewery that replaced the one that became the museum.
The museum winds up three floors of the old brewery and then across and back down three more floors. It covers everything from the history of beer, and variations of beer around the world. It shows everything you want to know about how to make beer from farming the main ingredients, brewing using the old brewery equipment to demonstrate how, to transporting the finished product.
The old brewery equipment that was replaced by the stuff above.
Needless to say we were in heaven. We spent altogether over 2 hours working our way thru the museum even though all of the displays and information are in German.
Really cool storage barrel, not sure if it was ever actually used to store beer.
If the signs were in English we might still be there. The tour ended with a well deserved glass of beer.
They had a great collection of beer steins back almost 100 years.Ton really liked this ad from the beer museum. The caption means The Reward.
As good and extensive as this museum is, it is not even the largest in the area. Tomorrow we will be visiting the largest beer museum in the world according to the Guinness book of world records.
Today when you are traveling from campground to parking lot to campground you start to appreciate the little things. This campground has absolutely the best showers we have ever seen in a campground and would rival most luxury hotels. Ton and I have been really taking long luxurious showers the last two days.
Ton liked this sculpture in downtown Bamberg.
We had a low key pub crawl today. We stopped in 4 breweries/beer halls and craft brew store for one of the largest suppliers of beer malt in the world. We enjoyed the breweries, and did not enjoy the malt company craft beer store due to poor service.
These wrought iron signs have been common everywhere in Germany, this one is for a brewery.
At the second of our brewery stops we saw another couple sitting at a table with no beer. At a lot of the beer halls they do not serve you at the table, instead you go to a window by the bar and order your beer. We heard them speaking English so we explained the process to them. We ended up chatting with them while we enjoyed our beer.
The beer tender at the beer garden. Frequently in Germany the beer is piped directly from the brewery to the taps.
They had lived in Beaverton for a while before retiring in Florida so we had a nice chat about traveling. Eventually we parted ways to head out on different beer agendas. A couple hours later we were sitting in our 3rd brewery when we saw them walk in. We ended up spending the next couple of hours with them as they planned to visit the same breweries we had picked. They had lived in Germany in the past and gave us some good tips on other good beer towns though they did admit that Bamberg was their favorite beer town Germany.
Number 3 of our brewery crawl.
It was a fun day with lots of good German beer; our faith in German beer and creativity is restored after today. Ton thought I was a little harsh on Würzburg the other day, she thought the scene on the bridge was fun and that my expectations were too high .
Number 4 (6 if you count the two yesterday)and the best of our brewery crawl of Bamberg.
Had a rushed start to the day. Part of our daily routine is for me to get up and make a cup of coffee. When that is done I take a short walk so Ton can have some privacy while she gets dressed and makes herself beautiful. This morning as I was leaving the parking lot we spent the night in I realized that a bunch of people in yellow vests were taping off the entrance to the parking lot and the entrance road. I finally understood that the Würzburg Marathon was going to run right thru the parking lot we were in, so I rushed back to François and hurried Ton to get dressed before we were blocked in for the day.
As we were getting ready to set off we had to decide where to head for the day. We have been having an ongoing debate about whether to go to Nuremberg. We have read great things about it, but it is a pretty big city, and the options for parking François were pretty unappealing. We had continued the debate last night without coming to a decision whether to go to Nuremberg and then Bamberg, or straight to Bamberg. As we were getting ready to roll I asked Ton, and she said Bamberg much to my relief.
The old mill in Bamberg on the Regnitz River.
Bamberg is another World Heritage Site, with the bonus of reportedly having the most breweries per person in the world. Bamberg was a must see for us. Because of our early start, and allowing Greta Garmin to use the Autobahn we arrived in Bamberg before 10am.
The Rathaus (Town Hall) in Bamberg, the story is that the town would not provide land for the Rathaus so the Mayor built it in the river.
We have been struggling with Germany a bit. The cities are pretty, clean, and well organized. The people have been universally helpful and nice. But for us it has been less sanuk (for non-Thai’s a word that speaks to a feeling of fun, and spontaneity) than either Spain or France. As an example last night at the bridge had the feeling of sanuk right up to sunset when everyone packed up and left at once. On top of that; the beer (and this will sound heretical to many) has been mediocre since Munich. In Germany’s defense the weather has not been helpful with days and days of cold and rain. Last night we talked of heading to Poland and cutting Germany short.
The party on the bridge in Würzburg, 30 minutes later it was done.
But Bamberg does have all of the things that we have been looking for. The town is really pretty and easy to move around. The tourist information offered a beer map with 65 breweries listed in English.
One of the 65 Breweries in Bamberg.
They even have a coupon book that allows you to visit different breweries and get their house choice beer. We tried two today, and they were really good beers restoring our faith in German beer The sun was out and we enjoyed walking around and people watching. We even found some more Thai to talk to on the street. There have been a lot more Thai in Germany than in France or Spain.
Thats what I am talking about.
Every place we sat down someone tried to engage us in conversation which was really nice. When we got back to the campground we extended our stay for another day to check out some other breweries that the locals told us about.
Another view of the Rathouse in Bamberg one of my favorite buildings so far in Germany.
We slept well with a natural white noise machine going all night in the form of the Lech River running at near flood stage behind us. The plan for the day was to follow the Romantic Road further north to a town called Rothenburg.
The Romantic Road is quite pretty but it reminded us of hundreds of miles of roads in France without the marketing. As we were driving we could see some flooding from the weather over the past few days.
Ton mentioned that she wanted to stop at a town called Dinkelsbuhl before we got to Rothenburg. I pulled into the parking for RV’s and was checking the pay machine to see how much it would cost for a couple of hours. I noticed the cost for a night was only €6 so I went back and asked Ton how nice was this town supposed to be? We went back and forth for a few minutes when a German couple came over having noticed the French plates and thinking we could not figure the machine out, we told them our dilemma. They were adamant that we should spend the night here as it was cheaper and the town was really special.
The view from our parking lot.
Dinkelsbuhl turned out to be a gem. It is a walled town with many of its towers still preserved.
One of the 18 towers still in place in Dinkelsbuhl. Some of them looked like they were private residences.
It is just big enough to have a lot of interesting things to see, but small enough to manage on foot. It is very well preserved, but still feels lived in.
This is the view as you enter the town thru one of the gates in the wall.
It really helps that the sun was out today, and for the first time in about a week we did not need to be in rain gear, or to have it in our bag on standby. We took advantage of the good weather to sit in a beer garden and try a couple of the local beers.
We have not seen any storks since Alsace. There were several pairs here.Ton really liked the logo of the brewery today.
Our final stop was at the cathedral, when we walked in two musicians were playing a composition for two xylophones. They were recording the piece, but rather than closing the cathedral during the recording they just put a sign at the back of the cathedral asking people to be quiet.
The recording session we were allowed to observe for a few minutes.
We finally headed back for a relaxing dinner, Ton really made a nice chicken and spatzle dish. She is really doing a great job mixing German, Thai, and American cuisines. The day ended with a quick run thru an Edeka to make sure we have the refrigerator full for the next stop. Once again the flexibility of not having reservations and our own house on wheels allowed us to make a new exciting discovery.
Yesterday when we went into the Army facility near us the guards told us we should have our identification cards registered with US Forces Europe as it would make it easier to get on other bases. So we started the day by walking over to the Military Police Office, the process was quick and efficient. The lady was very nice and told us we could use the facilities. This base is a recreation and conference center so they actually sponsor a lot of tours. After looking at their options we opted to sign up for a couple of tours, so we will be spending several days in the area.
The first tour we signed up for was of the Greisbrau Brewery. It was located about 40 minutes away, and the brewery is from the 1970’s, though the building is a few hundred years old, but was previously a cattle barn. Wolfgang our host walked us thru the brewing process.
Wolfgang enlightening us on the fine art of making beer.
We learned about the German Beer Purity laws which limit Beer to only three ingredients, Water, Hops, and Malt. The talk was interesting and we were all paying extra attention as we had to take a test at the end to earn our Beer Drinkers Certificate. Ton and I passed and we are now an official Bavarian Beer Connoisseur.
Wolfgang giving out samples of the beer to our group of future Bavarian Beer Brewers.My certificate as an official Beer Connoisseur.
We ended the tour with a nice Bavarian meal. It was a late night out so todays post is a little short.
We have been enjoying Lake Constance so we decided to spend another day on the lake at a UNESCO World Heritage Site on Reichenau Island. Yesterday we visited “Flower Island” and today we are visiting “Vegetable Island”.
The drive over was quick and uneventful except for a diversion to the ferry terminal as Greta Garmin decided that was the quickest way to Reichenau, she was probably right but we decided to skip the ferry fee, and after some resetting of Greta, we were on our way by road.
World Heritage Sites are usually pretty spectacular, so when we pulled on to Reichenau it seemed that the emphasis was on vegetables and not memorable architecture. For our friends from Oregon think of Sauvie Island with three small churches. After settling in to the Stellplatz we decided to walk on over to the Abby which is the largest of the three churches that make up the UNESCO site. The walk was thru a bunch of vegetable fields where we played guess the vegetable, Ton won.
A field of different types of Lettuce on Vegetable Island.
We arrived at the Abby and it was a nice enough church but nothing spectacular. We finally figured out that the smaller church called St. George Church had the paintings that were what caused the UNESCO designation, and we had a couple of hours to wait until the next tour.
Part of the Abby which was the center of the religious order on the island in the middle ages.
The island this time of year is really very quiet and peaceful, and we spent quite a bit of time just wandering aimlessly around the streets enjoying the views of the lake and enjoying the ambiance and the greenery, it really reminded us of Oregon. We visited the museum to try to understand the history of the Abby as the tour was in German so we needed to prep.
A reproduction of some of the art that we would see later in St. George Church.
Finally what we thought would be the highlight of the day was the tour of the interior of the church which has artwork from the 10th century that was rediscovered in the 1880’s when the white wash that had covered them was removed. The paintings are in the process of being preserved, access to the church is limited to help minimize the humidity in the church.
An example of the paintings from the 900’s that are being preserved at the entrance to the church.Some of the art inside the chapel, this type of painting is very rare and this is the northern most church in Europe that this style is found.
The explanation of the on going work to preserve the paintings and the meaning of the paintings was quite extensive, but we did not understand much as it was of course in German. But the guide was quite obviously proud of the work and very knowledgeable.
The exterior of St. George Church, sometimes modest structures hide real treasures.
We had planned on taking the bus back to François after the tour, but I was unable to figure out the bus system, and the bus guide we had did not match the one at the bus stop. So being unsure whether the bus was going to take us home, or into Konstanz I talked Ton into walking the 2 miles back. On the way she saw a sign for a grocery so we detoured down a side road where we saw a small brewery.
Being a little curious we crossed the street and were peering in the door when a man waved us in and welcomed us in German. We were a little shy as we do not speak any German, but the man switched to English and asked us where we were from, when we told him Oregon he laughed and his wife smiled. He said he got his Masters Degree from Southern Oregon University! They have been operating the only microbrewery in the region for about 3 years. Thomas insisted on giving us a tour of the facilities and a couple of beers to taste. His beers are excellent. We were also invited to a special event the brewery is having on Saturday including beer making, bands and food. It looks like we may be staying in the far south of Germany for a few more days.
Thomas and me in his wonderful brewery. If you are anywhere nearby try Insel Beer.We ended the day by walking down to the beach for a romantic sunset over Lake Constance.
The weather had gotten a little better overnight after heavy rain as we fell asleep. While it was still pretty cold and cloudy it was not raining. Today we visited Riquewihr and Ribeauville. They are both listed as must see villages in Alsace.
The first stop was Riquewihr as we could walk there from our campground. As we were walking into town Ton stopped me and pointed at what I thought was a wineshop. It turns out she had read about this excellent microbrewery in Ribeauville and we had found it. We went in sampled their IPA and a Belgian Dark. Both were excellent. Refreshed, we headed into town. The town was as beautiful as the guidebooks suggested, but very tourist oriented.
The entry into Riquewihr.
As we were walking up and down the streets we saw a large group of Asian tourists and presumed they were Chinese. It turns out they were Thai. After spending a couple of hours in town Ton had killed the battery on her iPhone taking pictures so we decided to head back to François for lunch and to charge her phone.
After lunch we headed over to Ribeauville. It was a short drive over in François. Ribeauville was supposed to be larger but less picturesque than Riquewihr according to both of our guidebooks. Since it was Sunday the parking was easy. Our first site on entering the town were two storks nesting on a large timber building.
Storks are a big thing in Alsace. They build these stork nest platforms in towns and fields to keep the storks from nesting on chimneys and utility poles.
Storks are a big thing in Alsace. They build these stork nest platforms in towns and fields to keep the storks from nesting on chimneys and utility poles.
Ribeauville is in a valley surrounded by vineyards with three castles overlooking it. The combination of colorful timbered houses, the vineyards and the castles make for some great views.
In fact despite the guidebooks Ton and I liked Ribeauville a little better. It had more of the timbered homes, and it felt less like a tourist town and more like a real town that had great views.
A collection of half timbered buildings from Riquewihr and Ribeauville.
As we were walking thru town we came on a different group of Asian tourists, and much to our surprise they were also Thai. It is a rare day when the only Asian tourists you meet in France, are Thai. This time I could not resist and one of the Thai couples were taking turns turns taking pictures of each other so I asked them in Thai if they wanted me to take their picture. They were pretty startled to have a pharang (white guy in Thai) speaking Thai to them.
This little guy was in the field next to where we parked François, who can resist a cute lamb.
