Nearly Neutral Travel

We had a lovely breakfast in the cosy dining room of the guesthouse.  We tucked into cereals, yoghurt, juice, tea, coffee, bread rolls – and with our bottomless stomachs, it kept us going for about an hour! Our first stop was the tourist office because we needed to find an internet cafe to sort out some hotel bookings.  The town was gorgeously quiet as it was early Sunday morning, and we were directed to the only place open.  It turned out to be one of the strangest places we’ve ever been! It was basically an incredibly dark and smoky games arcade with a dragon-like woman in charge who was definitely not pleased to see us. Oh well, the computers worked…

We left blinking in the bright, natural sunlight and started our day of sightseeing. We both absolutely loved Bamberg straight away, it was beautiful, chilled and definitely deserving of its UNESCO World Heritage status. To begin, we visited the Cathedral and Monastery (in both, we didn’t really know what we were looking at other than lots of religious imagery, but we enjoyed speculating!) 

After a bakery lunch and some kuchen (still enthusiastically embracing German traditions), we climbed to the top of the hill overlooking the town and took a tour around the Neue Residenz, an imposing castle-like stately home. We were two of only four on our tour, which was unfortunately mostly in German, but we did have some written information and were really pleased we visited. We especially liked the huge porcelain chimneys in each room, which served to conceal the fireplaces from the ‘important’ people, somewhat unnecessarily in our view!

We continued our wanders through the town and next to the river Regnitz, and soon succumbed to the temptation of more Rauchbier. We sat in the beer garden of Schlenkerla, the most famous brewery, and were suddenly surrounded by English speakers, mostly Australian (previously, we had heard very little English spoken at all). We thought it was very funny that they complimented us on our excellent English. Why, thank you – we’ve been practising all our lives!  When their group got up to leave, Oli possibly gave the game away that we weren’t local because he asked for a full pint of beer that they had left, but free beer is free beer and it seemed a terrible waste! We didn’t seem to last long on the beer and mainly got a bit sleepy, which meant we were in bed before 10pm on both nights, most unlike us. We had another good dinner of local sausages then straight to bed ready for another day of travel tomorrow, to Prague via Nüremberg.

We boarded the train in Berlin for our four-hour trip to Bamberg further south.  It felt like our journey was really beginning now!  We really enjoyed the trip; it was a clean and modern train with toilets almost like in a hotel (rather unlike trains in the UK…) and we passed some lovely scenery. We spent the time watching beautiful small towns with tiny well-maintained gardens, rolling hills, forests and even a rainbow from our window.  We arrived in Bamberg without a reservation for accommodation, so we wandered round the streets with our big rucksacks and our trusty Lonely Planet guidebook to find somewhere to stay.  Our first choice of a hotel within a brewery (chosen for obvious reasons) wasn’t available, but we found another good option relatively easily.  Our hotel in Berlin had been very modern and somewhat anonymous; in contrast, this was a much older and more basic guesthouse with whitewashed walls, spartan furnishings and a shared bathroom, but also lots of character.  We were pleased to find breakfast was included and planned to take full advantage!  

We headed out to wander around the old town and had a pre-dinner pint of Bamberg’s speciality Rauchbier, which is said to taste just like smoked ham. Oli could taste it and rated it highly but Sara wasn’t so convinced, although she still managed two pints just to be sure! 

We ate dinner outside as it was a beautiful evening. Our German skills thoroughly let us down and we couldn’t understand any of the menu, but were presented with some German sausages and a pizza (a bit of a surprise – who knew flamegriller meant pizza?!) so all was well. On the next table were a group of extremely jolly local men who were singing and toasting at very regular intervals.  It really made us smile, they had obviously been taking full advantage of the excellent beer!  After dinner, we went back to the guesthouse for an embarrassingly early night.

We were a bit more successful at the bakery this morning and managed our Guten Morgens with ease! We went straight to the Reichstag dome, which is a modern glass dome on top of the older parliament building. Unfortunately, we both share an incurable ‘need for completeness’ so we couldn’t resist listening to every last entry on the free audio guide, which meant we learnt rather more than we intended about its history!  The views were amazing though, and we were so glad we chose a beautiful sunny, fresh morning and beat the crowds. 

Next, we were off to Checkpoint Charlie, which is a replica of the original checkpoint between the American sector and Soviet sector of Berlin. We spent a couple of hours at the museum, where we read lots about inventive ways people managed to travel from the East to the West (digging tunnels, flying over the wall, doctoring suspension in cars so the weight of people hidden in the boot was undetectable, kayaking across the sea…).  Neither of us would describe ourselves as particular museum fans, but this really was fascinating.  Again, so sad though.

We had a late lunch at Curry 36. There was a massive queue, which is always a good sign.  Everyone else seemed to know what they were doing when ordering, which is another good sign.  The pressure was on to get our order right! (Does anyone else get this?) We shared a currywurst, which consisted of wurst (sausage) chopped up, smothered in curry powder and ketchup and served with chips and mayo. It was delicious but perhaps not the healthiest snack!

In the evening, we went to Alexanderplatz and couldn’t resist some pick n mix when we saw it for sale.  A classic!  We then took a tram to Hackescher Markt which was all lit up and buzzing, a lovely farewell to the city.  Tomorrow morning, we leave for Bamberg.