Germany – Be Back Whenever

10/2023 – On to Salzburg and Stuttgart

I love Salzburg and wanted to spend some time there. We took the train from Munich and hung out for 4 days. We first visited 32 years ago on our European camping trip – not much has changed. By dumb luck we hit the St. Rupert festival for their patron saint and founder. Surprise! It involves beer. At a nice market, I found some handcrafted jewlery to buy.

Hohensalzburg with the Mirabell Gardens, famous from the Sound of Music.

This little guy was in The Sound of Music, too. We did NOT do the tour.

My favorite place for a beer – Steigl – overlooking the rooftops of Salzburg.

The last time we visited Helbrun Palace was 32 years ago. The tours are now self-guided. We could spend as much time as we wanted looking at the water powered creatures built by one of the many Archbishop Princes of Salzburg.

The water holds up the little hat and changes its height.

From Salzburg we took the train to Stuttgart, home to the 2nd largest “Oktoberfest” in Germany. It is officially called a Volksfestival – we assume that “Oktoberfest” is copyrighted. Deutchesbahn was actually on time!

The official name of the Stuttgart festival

The grounds open at noon during the week. Much less crowded than the counterpart in Munich first thing in the day.

We had 1/2 chicken and a beer for lunch in a very empty tent.

City Library in Stuttgart. It’s a tourist stop for architecture. Since it was right by our hotel, we had to wander in.

Gluhwein and Friends Heidelberg

We flew Condor from the Seychelles to Frankfurt because that’s the only direct flight to Germany and we really didn’t want to connect through either Istanbul or Dubai. The flights all leave Mahe late at night (10 PM or later), making the connections at 0 Dark 30.

After flying for 10 hours, the Condor flight landed on time and our body had a small weather shock. It was about 85 F when we left the Seychelles and it was 32 F when we landed in Germany. What was Mark wearing?? You guessed it – shorts! One flight attendant looked at him and said, “I hope you have pants packed someplace.” He did!

Our luggage with all our summer and safari clothes actually showed up and we managed to have some coffee before we met the Lufthansa shuttle to Heidelberg. The room was ready when we showed up at 10 AM and our suitcases with winter clothes (We’d left them in Heidelberg with friends.) were waiting for us! By the time we sorted out dirty clothes and found warm clothes, the snow started. The Christmas markets are pretty magical when everything is white, even if it was wet snow. When we wandered back to the markets in the evening for some more gluhwein (Susan’s favorite!), the snow stopped and was all melted!

Snowy Heidelberg shopping street

Snow at the Christmas Market in Heidelberg

Mark has melted snow flakes on his face from all the wet snow. Yes, we were having a dunkel beer to warm up! And he’s wearing the U. of Iowa scarf to stay warm.

It’s always nice to see familiar faces and this time we enjoyed meals with 2 different sets of German friends. The first night (after we managed to get our clothes washed!) we met Joachim at Heidelberger Kulturbrauerei for beer and dinner. The sauerbraten was really good, and the side dishes were enough for all to share. Their November beer was good even if we drank it in December!

Christmas wreath at Kulturei Brauerei

The second night after a day of shopping for supplies, we met Bettina, Michelle, and Hermann for gluhwein at the Christmas market and dinner at the Zum Güldenen Schaf. It was a fun night with the gang who’s being so kind to store our suitcases and clothes so we don’t have to take them all with us everywhere!

This Christmas pyramid was on the main square in Heidelberg. There were at least 5 different market locations in the city, including one with an ice rink.

We were all trying some Gluhwein. It’s pretty hard to hold the cup with mittens on.

A Thursday of Oktoberfest Fun – and beer!

Oktoberfest seemed to be a success for our gaggle of 21 people – 6 Germans and 15 Americans. If you don’t know, Oktoberfest is celebrated in Munich every year for 17-20 days and is a large party/fair for everyone who attends. We had reservations in the Pschorr Braurosl Tent, thanks to hard work by a German friend. Reservations are free but you must buy food and drink vouchers for 2 beers (Each beer is a liter.) and a half chicken for each person. You can order other food and “pay as you go”. Our reservation started at 11:30 AM on Thursday morning and we had the 3 tables until 4:30 PM. Let’s just say everyone enjoyed the food, drink, company, and German music. I lost count of the number of liters of beer that were consumed by our group. A few hats were purchased from the vendors, too.

This is the tent we had reservations for all afternoon.

Half a chicken and part of a beer – The rest had been consumed!

Everyone hangs coats on the table legs. Reserved signs are on the table after you find the row of your table from your reservation letter.

Keep looking for more pictures.

A day hike to Andechs Monastery

One day 14 of us took the S-bahn to Herrshing and then walked about 4 miles up to Andechs Monastery for lunch and an Andechs beer. The monks make the beer – pils or dunkel – and they’ve added a schnapps-making business.

Andechs monastery church

We’ve been there a few times so we know there are 2 different paths to take up (about 1 hour walk) or you can take the city bus #951 that leaves from the train station in Herrsching 2 times an hour and take 10 minutes. Eleven in the group walked while the other three with colds took the bus. Naturally, Mark and I picked the hardest route up (We can never remember from year to year whether to go left or right at the sign!) but we had a nice walk up and then we came down the other path. The walk up does involve 2 very long flights of steps – about 60 in each flight. We missed the rain and had beer and good food as a reward for our hard work.

The steps we walked up during our hike to Andechs. (Thanks to Stephanie for the picture.)

Enjoying beer and apfel strudel after we went inside to warm up after lunch on the terrace.

Two routes to choose from Herrsching and one of them takes you through this meadow

Pork Knuckle and Pretzel for lunch

Dunkel beer from Andechs

Tag Archive: Germany

10/2023 – On to Salzburg and Stuttgart

Gluhwein and Friends Heidelberg

A Thursday of Oktoberfest Fun – and beer!

A day hike to Andechs Monastery