Bamberg - another Christmas Market

Monday, we left Nuremburg and made the short drive (about 45 minutes) north to the town of Bamberg.  Because of its impressively well preserved Old Town including 2400 listed buildings, winding alleys and the abundance of mediaeval churches, Bamberg was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1993.  Bamberg is a lively arts and cultural centre with a thousand year old history, a long tradition of beer brewing and the buzzing atmosphere of a city full of life and street cafés and small antiques shops.

Thanks to the Garmin, we found our hotel fairly easily.  The parking, however, was another story.  I had to drive through this very, very narrow entry onto a parking platform that is basically an elevator.  If another parking space is needed, a key is turned and the car is elevated to create another space.  There is also a turntable to put your car on to turn it around so you don’t have to back out.  Getting out of there in the morning is going to be more than a little challenge! 

That's our car parked on the right - sitting on a lift.  Also, there is the turntable in front.

We came upon the Christkindlesmarkt pretty quickly and it was much smaller than the others we’ve seen.  Also, it appeared that the regular market was interspersed with the Christmas stalls as there were also vegetable and fruit stands.  Of course, there were the usual Gluhwein and Bratwurst stalls.  There were some different stands as well though.  One served fresh herbed Kasespaetzle and another was making fresh churros.  I had an order sprinkled “mit Zimt und Zucker” (cinnamon and sugar).  Yummy!  We continued to explore the old town and saw the famous Altrathaus (Old Town Hall) and Klein Venedig (Little Venice).

The Christmas tree at the Bamberg Christmas Market (above) and some of the stalls (below)

 

Above and below - the Altrathaus

Bamberg' "Little Venice" (above and below)

Kath was VERY pleased to find you could buy a 1 Euro bottle of beer just outside your room!

For dinner, we went across the little square at our hotel to the Klosterbraueri which was a rustic and typical Bayerisch restaurant where you share your table with other people.  The couple sitting at ours was from Leipzig and we "chatted" to them - to the extent I can chat in German! - and it turned out they were also staying at our hotel.  (More about them later).

Every now and then, you have one of those experiences in a restaurant where you are pretty sure you have ordered something that you will enjoy and it turns out differently.  For example, one time in Grindelwald I ordered a special house cheese fondue thinking it would be that amazing Swiss dish.  Not so much, it turned out to have curry in it which explained its odd yellow colour.  Well, something like that happened here.  I ordered Krautspaetzle mit Kase und Salat. which, I thought, would be some sort of herbed spaetzli with cheese and a salad.  However, what came was actually the traditional cheese spaetzli mixed with sauerkraut!  Yuck!  However, the salad was crisp and good.

The restaurant where we had our dinner

Tuesday morning, after a nice breakfast, we checked out and I had then to face what I thought might be a challenge – getting the car out of the garage.  Thankfully, the couple whom we’d met last evening were in the breakfast room and they offered to help us.  That was a good thing!  First we had to lower the car – done by turning a key – and then I had to back the car onto the turntable, the part of the floor that rotated.  The man then turned another key which turned my car around (there was not enough space to manoeuvre it otherwise), then the doors were opened and, although I had thought the entry was really narrow, it was actually a piece of cake after the first bit.  We profusely thanked the Leipzig couple and we were on our way!

The parking garage door we had to drive our car in and out of

Our car elevated so another car could park beneath it

Next up:  Munich with a short side trip on the way there.