Day 4 – St Goar to MunichAuthor: jawapro
Date: Mon 26/01/2009 07:46 AM
Today started very early on the banks of the Rhine.
The Village shops opened early to let us sample the local produce.
The Village of St Goars (more to the point, the area of Germany) are famous for a few things. Among them, Cookoo Clocks.
Teddy Bears. The original ‘teddy’ bear came from Germany.
And Beersteins!
These beer mugs traditionally are pottery and have pewter lids. They are very cool – and still regularly used by the locals.
Unfourtuantly we weren’t allowed to take photos inside the shop (this one was outside). They were extremely cool – especially a special limited edition that has a piece of rubble from the Berlin Wall on the top – but at over 150 Euro – I couldn’t quite bring myself to get one.
A large Beerstein on the side of the shop.
St Goars is a beautiful spot, but we had to get moving, so we loaded back into the bus and headed out.
For the first half an hour or so, we followed the fantastic Rhine Valley – and saw a castle every 5 minutes on the top of the hills. Sadly – photos from a moving bus can’t do it justice.
We then headed away from the Valley, and the fog crept in. It was 10 in the morning, but we couldn’t see anything except the closest trees thanks to the fog. The ground still had a bit of frost, and some of the small rivers and ponds were frozen as we drove through.
By the time we arrived at the lunch stop – we’d seen smallish piles of snow on the side of the road. For lunch we had Snitzels – which are a German dish (as well as being one of my main sources of food while living on my own).
As we kept going – we came across more and more snow. This is the most snow I can remember seeing except on the top of mountains. Finally – I get to see a proper European Winter! Cold – but still quite comfortable in my jacket. A lot of the others were complaining though.
Classically German photo! Probably the best I managed from the bus today.
Next stop was Munich – the Capital of Beer!
We got to admire the Glokenspiel (large cookoo clock thing). It only runs twice a day, and we were too late to see it in action – but apparently it’s rather a let-down.
We checked out St Peters church.
Ate a Pretzel (no offence to Mr_Pretzel_Head if he is reading this), another German speciallity.
We did some shopping for souvenirs, and I bought myself a pair of decent headphones (my stupid little ear-plug style ones are driving me insane). Germany is known for precision stuff, but I ended up buying Sony’s which were made in Taiwan. Ah well…
For dinner tonight, we headed to the HofBrauHaus. This is one of the big and famous beer halls in Munich.
Here, beer doesn’t come in a range of sizes. You get it in a 1 litre mug – and that’s it. If you don’t want a litre, tough luck.
I don’t drink much beer, so wasn’t sure I’d manage a litre, so I got a ‘Radler’ which is beer mixed with lemonade. Still – a litre of that is probably more beer than I’ve drunk in a sitting before. Yes, I know I’m tame – but who cares.
The glass was so huge I felt like the Hobbits when they get their first even pint.
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Dinner was a ‘pork knuckle’. Pork is very common in Germany – and it was delicious, as well as being massive. Might not look that huge in the photo – but remember, those mugs hold a litre!
Emma has a sausage meal (another German thing) and a much smaller glass of wine.
A photo of our table.
Anyway – that’s it for today. Stay tuned…
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