Traveling – Rotenberg, Germany

In 1996, we made our families first trip to Europe.  I had a nine-week sabbatical and we used the entire time touring European cities, towns, and villages.  Along the way, we took a bus ride from Munich along the Romantic Road, a collection of restored medieval German towns.  We ended our bus ride in the town of Rotenberg.

Rotenberg is a very picturesque little town in which everything including the large stonewall surrounding the town has been restored.  We spent two nights in a bed and breakfast in the center of Rotenberg.  We used Rick Steves material that provides information on where to stay on a budget and what to see.  Rick does mention that after the tour groups leave for the day in their large busses, that the town just about shuts down.  He was not kidding!  We really had trouble finding a place to eat at night.

One night on the way home from a restaurant, we were terrorized by small Germany cars careening at high speeds through the narrow dark streets of Rotenberg.  People were hanging out the car windows, yelling, and blowing the car horns.  It was very unnerving, and several times we barely had time to duck into a narrow doorway to avoid being run down.  We found out later that Germany had won the world-cup soccer game that night and people were just out celebrating.

One of the experiences that Rick Steves said it is best to skip was the schneeballs.  A schneeball is a mass of thin strips of dough that are pressing into a ball and then deep-fried.  They are served covered with powdered sugar or dipped in chocolate.  We just had to try eating one - we should have skipped it.  The schneeball was very stale and just didn’t taste that good.  It is definitely an experience to skip.

We did visit other sites in the town: we walked around the old stonewalls, climbed the bell tower, visited the Crime and Punishment Museum, and stopped into Käthe Wohlfahrt’s Christmas shop.  The Käthe Wohlfahrt store is a wonderland of Christmas products available all year round.  Can you say tourist center.  After looking around, we did find one product to purchase; chocolate covered gummy bears.  We really enjoyed eating those while we walked around the town.

Sometimes we are warned not to eat something and we do anyway, we may not like the result, but at least we have a strong memory about the experience and a great story to tell.

Adventures In Food: Author: Kerry Howell

Traveling – Oberammergau, Germany

After we left Nuremberg during our fall 2007 trip to Europe, we traveled South to the small town of Oberammergau Germany.  We were intrigued by the little bit of information about this town when we saw it on a Rick Steves TV program.  We also talked to some friends that had recently enjoyed themselves on a visit to Oberammergau and they highly recommended that we visit.

It was a beautiful drive to Oberammergau which is located in Southern Bavaria quite close to Austria.  Our drive took us through farmland and quaint little villages.  Just before Oberammergau, we drove through the town of Ettal that has a very nice Abby in the center of town.  We discovered latter that the store at the Abby also sells some potent liquors from Ettal that are delicious.

We made our home base at the bed-and-breakfast; Gusthaus Magold, where our hostess Christine always served a wonderful breakfast.  As we had arrived about dinnertime during one of the towns fall celebration (unification day), and found a place to eat along the main street (the food there was just edible, but barely).



Oberammergau is a charming town that looks like it belongs in the Alps (surprise, that’s where it is).  Most of the exteriors of the buildings are wonderfully painted to add architectural detail.

The second day of our visit we walked through the town and visited many of the woodcarvers shops to study their work.  Oberammergau is known internationally as a woodcarving center.  People come from around the world to take classes from the masters.

We ate lunch about a block away from our BnB at the Gasthof – Pension Bayerischer.  This was a delightful little family run restaurant where we both ordered schnitzel with mushroom gravy.  One the table was a little advertisement for a product Krauterhexe.  We asked the hostess what it is, and she indicated that it is a locally produced liquor that it is made with local herbs and flavorings.  We really enjoyed our small glass of Krauterhexe, it had a subtle flavor of licorice as well as other unidentifiable herbs.

After lunch as we continued our walk around town, we found a store that sold the Krauterhexe and we purchased a bottle that we enjoyed throughout the duration or our trip.  We wish we had purchased more to bring home!

Oberammergau is the home of a Passion Play that is held every 10 years (2010 is the year, but good luck getting tickets).  Over half the town participates and the play takes an entire day.  We went on a tour of the theater and were amazed by the lavish costumes and sets used in the play.

Oberammergau is also centrally located to some wonderful sights in the area.  The most famous is Neuschwanstein castle built by King Ludwig II.  This castle was the basis for Disney’s sleeping beauty castle.

In another direction is Linderhof Palace.  This is a lesser-known palace that was also built by King Ludwig II, and though it is small in size, it is equally beautiful in its own right.

Nearby is the town of Garmish, where we caught the gondola lift to the top of the Zugspitz Mountain.  At 9,718 feet, the Zugspitz is the tallest mountain in Germany, and when the weather is nice, you can view a wide expanse of the Alps.  We had a great meal of chicken kabobs over greens and finished with a yummy pastry in cream sauce and fruit.

We enjoyed all of off the different foods we experienced in this region (except the dinner the first night).  Before we departed Oberammergau, we stopped at one of the bakeries and picked up a few pastries to take on the trip.  This was a cream filled cake with a chocolate topping, it was very good!  You always have to pick up pastries for the road as you never know when you will find the next bakery!

If you get a chance to tour Southern Bavaria, we highly recommend a visit to Oberammergau in any season to enjoy the sports, shops, sights and the food!

Adventures In Food: Author: Kerry Howell

Traveling – Nuremberg Germany

On a business trip in early 2007 I had the opportunity to visit Nuremberg Germany.  A location well known for it’s part in the criminal war trials at the end of WWII.  I discovered while touring the town with my colleague Stefan, it was also a location where many of the major Nazi party rallies were held.

Outside of the history that happened during the war, what I experienced is a delightful old walled town that has been restored and is a charming place to visit and tour as well as sample their food.  The first time I visited, Stefan told me about the little sausage for which Nuremberg is famous.  They are smaller than a breakfast link and very tasty.

When my wife accompanied me on our 2007 business/vacation trip, I incorporated a several day visit to Nuremberg into our itinerary for after we left Munich.  In preparation for this trip, we had purchased a Garmin Novi 370 GPS that include maps of the United States as well as most of Europe.  When we were hungry, we would just program the GPS to find the nearest restaurants, we would make a selection, and off we would drive.  It was the best investment we made for the trip.

On the way to Nuremberg, we stopped for lunch at a little restaurant Wirsthaus Zum Pauli on a side road where only the locals eat.  It was a Sunday afternoon and there was a small party in progress at the restaurant, so the restaurant had a festive.  It was fun to see several generations of the family enjoying themselves while they partied and ate.  We had another wonderful meal that included several types of pork; patty, sausage, and bacon.  It was served with rice along with several different kinds of spicy vegetable sauces, it was very good.

The first time I visited Nuremberg, Stefan took me to a former hospital now converted into a restaurant the Heilig Geist Spital.  The restaurant was built to extend out over the river that runs through the center of town.  This scene is one of my favorites from my trips.

My wife and I stayed just outside the old city walls of Nuremberg and spent a day exploring the traffic free old town and tasting the local food.

One day for our lunch, we decided to try one of the kiosks that are located around the city.  We chose a pretzel kiosk and it must be good because there was a line of about 20 people waiting to order.  Because of the line, we had a chance to determine that we wanted a salted pretzel, split in half and filled with Nutella (a hazelnut and chocolate spread).  We sat on a nearby bench, ate our pretzel, watched the people, and enjoyed the colorful outdoor market.

The outdoor market was beautiful and is unlike farmers markets in the states.  The choices and colors were fantastic to photograph.

We took a walk around the town, checking out the castle and the house where the artist Albert Durer once lived.  Traveling around the old city wall took us to a little café with gardens overlooking the river; here we enjoyed one of the local beers while watching the ducks and swans on the river.






For dinner one night, we ate at the restaurant Heilig Geist Spital and had the sausages and sauerkraut.  The sausages were excellent, but the sauerkraut was fantastic.  This sauerkraut is sliced much finer than any I have found in the states, and it had a slightly sweet taste.  My friend Stefan said that his mom would make sauerkraut and add an apple and a little sugar, maybe this sauerkraut also had these additions.





The next night for dinner, we ate in an old grain cellar that is the restaurant The Nassauer Cellar.  To get into the restaurant, the diners are required to climb down some very steep stairs to the basement.  Here we started dinner with a very nice salad of local greens with a light salad dressing.  Then the main course of pork (knuckle) and Kartoffelkloesse (potato dumplings) with some local beer to accompany the dinner.  I didn’t care for the dumplings, but my wife really likes them.

After we climbed the stairs back outside, we finished our dinner with some ice cream.  The shop where we selected our ice cream had a fabulous display of about 30 flavors, many of which are natural berry or fruit.  There are also some exotics, though none as exotic as what we saw once in Barcelona Spain of Viagra!  The Viagra gelato was even colored purple.

On one of our day trips our from Nuremberg, we stopped in the little town of Altdorf.  We decided to try the only restaurant we could see which was on the main street of town.  We ate outside and had a great lunch of bratwurst sausage and sauerkraut.  The sausages were much larger then the little Nuremberg sausages, but still delicious.  We completed our lunch with some Apple Kuchen with whipped cream.  Mmmm.

If traveling to central Germany and time allows, I would defiantly make Nuremberg part of a trip.  Rick Steves has some excellent information regarding Germany and is a must for visitors.  The city is great and there are several interesting museums and castles in the area to visit.  And don’t forget the Nuremberg sausages with mustard!