Can there be too many quaint Austrian and German villages along the Danube, Main, and Rhine? In Bamberg today, I’m taking a day off from the bus + walking circuit to recap our previous few days in Melk, Passau, and Regensburg.
There is this self-destructive cycle of tourism in which we find ourselves. We want to SEE, but, when we do, we quickly tire of the same ol’ village. *yawn* another hand-painted baroque ceiling. Oh, NOT another castle! How many bloody things did these people build? (A: one in every town, of course). Last night, a fellow traveler said it was the same thing in Egypt–desperate to go, then three days in, NOT another tomb and 5000-year-old hieroglyphics!
I will try not to bite the hand that feeds me too much today, since I am a tourist, and I am here to appreciate these exquisite German villages.
Bavaria, Land of Cobblestones and Useful License Plates
The first thing the guides have all told us is that people in Germany often tell you what region/state they are from rather than mention their country. It might be that if you are in Germany, you assume people know you are German, and you are being more precise. I typically tell people I am from near San Francisco rather than starting with being “an American.” But it’s a German thing, they say, to not fly the flag or mention it. Whereas the Austrians mentioned that they were from Austria, repeatedly.
We clipped the northeast corner of Austria, and, as we transitioned into Germany, made our way across Bavaria, which is the region spread across the south. Munich is the capital of Bavaria, nestled in the southeast, where it is Oktoberfest right now. There was a special tour, to go there, but despite it being so close, we didn’t go.
I will note that I have nothing against beer-drinkers, but it has no interest for me, so I’ve been a bit long-suffering in these towns as the guides and fellow passengers go on and on about it. I started avoiding any tour that even had the word “beer” in the description because even those highlighting castles, cathedrals, and boat rides always seemed to include a lengthy beer tasting. I mean, I love accounting, but I don’t go on and on about it. Hence, no Oktoberfest for me, nein Danke.
Several of these other small Bavarian towns also share the love of beer, lederhosen, and pretzels. I could skip the first two, but I do love the giant, bready pretzels dipped in soft cheese. By the way, pretzels should be served with cheese and NEVER with mustard, and certainly not covered with oil as they are in the American malls.
The small Bavarian towns here–Passau, Regesnburg, Thisburg, Thatburg–all feature streets full of cobblestones. Lovely to look at, treacherous to walk. Those close together may have been funded by the nearby bishop. Look for shiny flecks of granite and tight mortar.
Anna, our guide in Passau, said she was a transplant from the north, cheerful and friendly, while the Bavarians, like her husband, were not. She said that while many Germans would wish each other Guten Tag or more customarily Gruss Gott, her husband would simply make a bit of eye contact and a slight hand gesture. She would upbraid him for not greeting people, and he would say I did! Didn’t you see my hand? Apparently, the big pick-up line for the young men is to walk up to a girl in a bar and just say: And… and she would know he was asking her for a date.
Supposedly, only a select few cars were allowed to be in Passau, and, as one went blowing by us, she frowned and said, Not from here. How did she know? She explained with another license plate. The PA referred to the town Passau, two letters for a small town, and one letter for a large one. The E at the end meant it was electric. The colored circle has a blue-and-white checked pattern, meaning from Bavaria; the colored bar left marked it as German and part of the EU. The Z meant something else (year it was manufactured?) and the other little circle had the date of its last inspection. I want to say that’s over-organized, but it seems to me a very efficient way of communicating.
Melk: Abbey (*coff* palace) and Bedeless Library
We sailed upstream on the Danube through the Wachau valley, which is like driving through the Grand Canyon or New England when the leaves are changing. Spectacular. One photo-worthy view after another.
In the little town of Melk, Austria, the featured tour was of the abbey. Abbey meant a school and monastery, so I was imagining wooden buildings and cramped quarters. Nope. This was a massive building, a palace or estate originally built by a wealthy merchant who gave the estate away in his will. As much as they have recruited, the monks only number a few dozen, so they need a lot of tourist traffic to maintain the grounds. There was an extensive garden, half-English/half-French; a panoramic viewing plaza (ticket only two euros) with a modern gift shop; a more traditional abbey gift shop; a tower with an even better view; a museum; a library with antique documents; a cathedral, and somewhere in all of that a school with living quarters for 21 monks.
Empress Teresa of the Habsburgs blew through here a few times, and they had the means to feed her and her entourage of the 30. So that 300 years later could point that spot out to us on the tour.
Maybe that should be an American model. Larry Ellison or some tech-millionaire builds a giant palace, occasionally entertaining Taylor Swift or Lebron James, then leaves the estate in his will to a school, soup kitchen, or immigration center. Well, I can dream.
Meanwhile, on the tour, as Ludmilla plodded mechanically through each room, waving at the ceilings and Renaissance portraits, I chafed a little. Naturally, there were chandeliers and gold-encrusted bishop vestments. As if on cue, the next room had dim lights and only a giant but plain wooden crucifixion statue. Ludmilla in hushed tones emphasized how, in the “Dark Ages,” people were scared and sad and needed to cling to their simple beliefs.
Hogwash. The Dark Ages were invented by the German Enlightenment historians, trying to emphasize their wonderful age in contrast to what came before. People in the 1550s were no more fearful than we are today—then and now, it depended on what propaganda you listen to. Back then, they made bread and beer, prayed, celebrated birthdays and holidays, wrote stories, invented better ways to do things, and did all the things we do now. It wasn’t really “dark” in Europe, and it definitely wasn’t dark in any other part of the world, where civilization flourished in China, Africa, India, and the Americas.
To add insult to injury, for me, Ludmilla bragged that the little ancient library held important documents, like the calendar description by the venerable Bede, The Reckoning of Time. As it happens, I brought that exact document with me to read on the trip because I’m going to write about the holidays and the months. So I was ecstatic to perhaps see it, but Ludmilla vaguely waved that it was downstairs somewhere, safely hidden away. Later, I scoured the abbey’s library inventory and the Internet, and I think Ludmilla was just reading from a script. I doubt she’d ever seen the document in the abbey or anywhere else. Ain’t no Bede manuscripts in Melk.
The Mad Scientist of Weisswurst
However, since I’ve been a bit gloomy and cranky in this post, I don’t want to give the wrong impression. Bavaria was beautiful. And fun! I want to end this post with the best thing we did: make sausages in Regensburg. This was at a little shop called Wurst & Bier on the Danube, a former Roman outpost about an hour away from the southeastern German border.
Proprietor Roland was very particular about how we must make the sausages, giving us a whole–forgive me, Roland–shtick at first about locking the door, speaking in hushed tones, and wearing aprons and gloves. He talked for almost 20 minutes about what we were going to do, and I thought that it might be better to show rather than tell. But I was wrong. Roland knew what he was doing. Don’t mess with the genius.
These were white sausages, conceptually like is called Bockwurst and decidedly not what is called Bratwurst. Sausages to me have always meant chunky and meaty. This was a pureed mousse of veal and pork. I would not have believed how it was made if I hadn’t watched it happen, and by God! It was in the precise order of ingredients, temperature control, and mixing with ice. There must be no air holes–none! And, by heavens, they were fluffy. Veal & pork. F-L-U-F-F-Y.
Second time in a week that I have had an out of body experience, first being hearing the Vienna Boys Choir. You DO eat the sausages with mustard, and they had four kinds. I will leave the beer tasting to others and enjoy the mustard-tasting along with these angelic sausages. P.S. NEVER eat the casings.
