Tue 5th:
Her at the top of the windscreen has done it again. About 1km into the (shortish) drive from Würzburg to Bamberg, we hit another Umleitung (diversion) in the middle of town. Off we went on a jolly detour. We were doing all right until she said something like “turn off left then stay left”. I did, but there was another “left” exit immediately following, and the lane I was in peeled-off. Wrong. So she quickly recalculated, and we followed her revised route. In completely the wrong direction again. My theory is that she gets the hump at us not following her every wish & then takes us on a wild goose chase to get even.
Instead of going East towards Bamberg, we were taken some way North and onto a completely different road to that which we’d planned to take.
Anyway – enough of that. We stopped for a bite to eat in a tiny place called Ebrach; just catching the bäckerei before he closed for lunch – he really didn’t seem pleased to see us. It turned out that Ebrach has a 12th century monastery and abbey, with wonderful gardens open to the public. It also has a 16th century orangery – now turned into floral gardens with a central fountain, and a 16th century wine and beer cellar – unfortunately not open. It also boasted the most scrupulously clean public toilets I’ve ever seen, in gleaming stainless steel, complete with electronic sensors to automate anything could atomated and more besides. It also had the most stupidly designed urinal I’ve come across for a long time (albeit fantastically clean). These are housed in what was part of the wine cellar. Obviously the designer believed the ordinary male to be vastly more well-endowed than is really the case, with the result that the floor gets more use than the urinal. This probably explains why the floor had that “just-mopped” look about it, and it was scrupulously clean. I wonder if there are some robots that pop out of some 16th century hatch and mop the floor when there’s no-one looking?
I was pretty fed-up with “windscreen woman”, and hate her dubious pronunciation of German place and street names. So I switched to a German voice to see if the German woman was any better.
We got to our chosen Stellplatz by the park & ride in Bamberg with no further problems. Except that it was full. Pity, because that one was only 15mins walk into the old town. But it WAS by a P+R (Park + Ride), it WAS pretty cramped, and it looked like it might get noisy. A quick glance at the Stellplatzführer revealed another possibility, though it was about 6km outside Bamberg in a small town called Memmelsdorf. We drove round to there: it seemed perfect. A corner of a large car park of the Sportshalle set aside for motorhomes overlooking a brook and with some trees for shade, with the playing fields (unused in the summer) beyond. And there was space a-plenty.
It was 15:30. Time to get the bikes out for a quick trip into Bamberg. First impression: Bamberg is set out for cyclists. Big time. Cars stop at junctions if the bike lane crosses the junction and there are cyclists on it. This took some getting used to as we thought we’d just get mown down. Not a bit of it. The drivers are SO aware of bike lanes crossing road lanes, and bikes certainly seem to have priority just about everywhere. I wonder if we could introduce that as a concept in the UK? The bike lanes where they exist – are also completely clear from any “street furniture” e.g. trees, bus shelters, railings, parked cars, lamp-posts. However, cyclists are also expected to obey the cyclist traffic lights which are fairly common in the town.
We were heading for the Tourist Information office; hopefully before they closed (it takes a good 35 mins into the centre of Bamberg from Memmelsdorf). Fortunately, there are big Info Points (aka “Maps”) all over the city but we still managed to get slightly lost!
The TI office was able to provide small town plans. Thus armed, and with a list of pubs and breweries I was hoping to visit, we alighted at Brauerei Klosterbräu. This was the pub/brewery on my list that’s closest to the TI!
Time to test the Klosterbräu Schwärzla – a black lager. It passed the test. Several times, in fact. Well, it was a very warm day.
Brauerei Klosterbräu was really an introduction to the fantastic fusion of Gaststätte, breweries, and history seen all over Bamberg. It is a working brewery – the oldest in Bamberg (founded 1533) – producing no less than 9 different beers. It’s also a fascinating building with an ancient passageway leading to an atrium – where we sat and had a meal. Not just Bayerisch food, but Fränkische food. I barely understood a word of what was on the menu, and I consider myself pretty fluent in German.
They were completely unfazed by us taking our bikes into the pub – never batted an eyelid. Must be common here. By 6 pm, there was barely a seat left in the place, neither inside nor outside. Great atmosphere and friendly staff.
