Land of beer and pretzels. Literally, that’s pretty much all we ate and drank…
We started our tour of Bavaria in Nuremberg. It wasn’t nearly the city that Berlin was, but it had its charm. We were staying slightly out of the city center in a neighborhood called GoHo, an up an coming hip neighborhood in Nuremberg. The first night we ate at a local brewery and beer garden. The beer was delicious and the food was even better!
The next day we woke up and got fresh baked pretzel sandwiches from a local bakery and headed into the city center. As soon as we exited the U-Bahn we were ambushed by a beautiful church, tourists, and more fresh pretzel stands… Which of course we bought more of. Throughout the entire city center was a giant market with just about everything you could need. There were also an incredible amount of churches, we tried to see them all but I’m sure we missed plenty. After walking to the castle we stopped to watch the festivities at a renaissance fair then headed back near where we were staying to indulge in more beer and Franconian food. This brewery and beer garden had been brewing since the 1400s and it showed. Their beer was delicious.
We then ventured to the old Nazi parade and rally grounds. Looking for Nazi history and architecture, we ended up finding an amazing carnival! The nurburg folksfest! It was a giant festival packed with people, cars, greasy foods, screaming children, brass bands, and carnival rides. After winding our way through that we walked to the stadiums where they held the Nurburg Nazi rallies. It was an incredible feeling to be where that many people were congregating for such momentous events. It is now used for a public park and a race track. Seeing the pictures of it with the cathedrals of light and the rallies and imagining what the feeling was like during the height of the Nazis had to have been powerful.
After nurburg we headed to Bamberg. A city with the highest amount of breweries per capita in the entire world and home of smoked beer. Not the beer itself of course, but the malt that is used to brew it. It tasted like bacon, but not the shitty fake bacon flavors you find on so many things. It was just a nice smokey flavor that accompanied the beer flavor. That being said, I only had one then switched to a different beer… Bamburg was definitely a tourist town full of college kids. Tons of geriatric tourism groups following young people telling them about history, but also random groups a college kids that were there before the semester started. One day was plenty of time to explore the town and see all there was to offer on our budget. We heard there was tons of biking around the city which would be fun to do if we ever return.
In our experience Bavaria is a great place for great food and great beer. All the people we met were plenty of fun as long as you avoid the tourists and try to find some locals, which are quite welcoming once you start talking to them. It helps to be staying in a locals place to help get some tourist advice and some company at dinner it they’re willing.
I wish you had never posted that picture of the fresh pretzel sandwich. I will not rest until I’ve had one of those! Guess we’ll be heading to Germany at some point 🙂