Justine woke up this morning feeling a little unwell (something she ate perhaps), so she sent me down to breakfast alone. This is when I confirmed just how little of the German language that I know. It seemed that our hostess ran the breakfast show with her husband following her orders. He was shuffling around in his socks delivering bread and boiled eggs to the tables, all the while grumbling away to himself in German of course. We have found that a German breakfast is not ‘breakfast’ without at least one boiled egg and a couple of Kaiser buns. Just as the coffee isn’t coffee without full cream milk (now that takes a little getting used to). But the cheeses and cold cuts that come with the fresh buns are well getting up for. However when we have had our buns for breakfast, a stop by the bakery for lunch, and perhaps a pizza or a kebab for a cheap dinner (as it is the only thing that is still open), there are some days that we feel completely ‘breaded out’, and would like to eat anything other than bread. Those are the times that we really look forward to a self catered meal.
The pantomime that our hosts and I performed during checkout, I am sure would keep you all amused, but somehow or the other I established that our hosts wanted to know if we wanted to stay another night (due to Justine not feeling well), did we want some lunch to take with us for the journey (for free), and the wine that had been in the fridge was free (it’s a shame that we only drank one of the three bottles that was there). We did buy a couple of bottles to go though, at the going rate of 3 euro per litre. The wine here really is cheaper than the water.
So while the church bells were tolling, less than 50 meters from where we were standing, calling the faithful to prayer, our hostess was doing a roaring trade selling the wine from their cellar by the case load. We felt pathetic just taking the two bottles.
Despite the language barriers, our hosts have been more accommodating, helpful and friendly than we could have wished for. This side of the German spirit has been displayed to us yet again. So much for stereotypes.
We left the valleys and vineyards today and headed down the flat lands of the ‘Romantic Road’. This is a series of roads that head from here down to Munich passing through a series of small medieval towns, and that is exactly what we did. We had a stopover at Dinkelsbuhl, in which the majority of the houses in the old town were built in the early 1500s. A very cool town with a mixture of plaster and half timbered houses and manors. They did have a market day going on with a number of stalls selling the usual things like piles of socks, shirts, beads, Australian hats, and sausages. With the occasional organ grinder for a bit of light relief.
But the stall that got me, was an Indian guy that had a couple of long tables set out with scissors of every shape and description, tweezers for every purpose, a whole range of surgical implements and dentist tools. And all the while yelling out his banter to anyone within earshot. A banter that seemed to carry the dominant theme of “rust free, rust free!” Hmmm … firstly it makes you wonder where he got them from, and secondly who would buy them, especially when you consider that this town has a small population and he had enough for each of them. I was expecting him to pull out ‘Surgical Procedures for Dummies’ or perhaps ‘101 for Dentists’.
When it comes to lunch and bakery goods, we had it on good authority to avoid the ‘Schneeballen’. They look like dough that has been rolled out flat, shapes cut out of it with cookie cutters, then these shapes gathered together, rolled into a ball about the size of a baseball, and then coated with various types of icing, chocolate and icing sugar. In other words, the leftovers from the bakers floor gathered up and rolled into a dough ball with icing. Are you tempted yet? A local delicacy that we managed to resist.
After spending quite a bit of time in Dinkelsbuhl, this town is a temptation that is hard to get away from, we headed on to Munich and checked into our hotel. A nice room with all the things that you need, plus a little bit to spare, but without the personal touches that you get in a B&B. We walked into town to orient ourselves and to find where the free walking tours start from, as that is our plan for tomorrow.
The buskers were setting up as we were about to leave, so we stayed to listen for a while. This is the first time that we have seen a busking group comprising of violin, piano accordion, double bass, drum box, and grand piano. I kid you not, these guys had a grand piano on wheels that they had brought along. You can imagine the discussions beforehand, “… and Otto, it’s your turn to bring the piano.” I have no idea how they got it there. It makes learning the violin an attractive proposition doesn’t it, it’s transportable. Once we had seen that, we just had to stay and listen, and they were really very good, playing a mixture of jazz and classical, and adding their own personal twists and showmanship. The quality and the mixture of styles here has been most enjoyable.
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