Intellectual Ferment of a Different Kind
Of Salt and Spas The first thing I’ll say about Bad Reichenhall in the southeastern tip of Bavaria is that I was pleasantly surprised. I’ve never been one for spa towns, and have left places like Bad Ischl in Austria and Karlovy Vary (Carlsbad) …
I’d passed through Traunstein several times on trains between Vienna and Munich and had always been struck by the beauty of its surroundings. The picturesque region is a place of flower-bedecked meadows, old wooden farmhouses, and cows grazing languidly in emerald fields. Situated amid …
~Weltenburger Kloster and Its Beers~ The morning fog in Kelheim has just lifted as we walk down the ramp to board the boat. We set sail, passing the imposing Befreiungshalle, the neo-classical hall commemorating the battles that ejected Napoleon and his armies from …
Ayinger is affectionately known as Munich’s “country brewery,” and it’s easy to see why. When you take the train out from Munich, the cityscape gives way to the industrial margins of the city, and then suddenly you’re on a broad green plain with gently …
Kloster Andechs occupies a central place in the pantheon of German brewing. Founded by Benedictine monks in 1455, Kloster Andechs has been offering hospitality to weary pilgrims ever since. Now run by the Benedictine Abbey of St. Boniface in Munich, Kloster Andechs is the largest …
Weissenohe at the Gateway to Franconian Switzerland It’s a gloomy afternoon in late spring made slightly brighter by the cheerful yellow canola in full bloom and the several shades of green fields spread over the hills like a patchwork quilt. The bus from Forchheim …
Bamberg’s one of those places that you immediately sense is a beer town. The moment you step off the train on any given day, you’re greeted with the sweet aromas of malt from the Weyermann facility just north of the train station. And oh, the …
So here we are again. One more turn around this mortal coil, drinking to forget the follies of an old year and toasting the auspiciousness of the new. For me 2017 has been extremely enjoyable, uncanny parallels between the 1930s and the present notwithstanding. I …
Paulaner may well have become one of the world’s leading brewers of Weissbier in recent decades, but Paulaner’s Salvator Doppelbock remains inseparable from the history of the brewery’s famous Salvatorkeller beer garden atop Munich’s Nockherberg. A Church Bell Named Salvator The Süddeutsche Zeitung …
I was at Schloss Belvedere a few days back, the famous Viennese museum that houses the even more famous Kiss by Gustav Klimt. Alongside some of his other iconic works such as Judith und Holofernes hung several paintings dating from the year of Klimt’s death …