Beer and Castles Route, 25 May

The Swan Whisperer went for rather a longer run than he meant this morning as he thought he was heading up the hill to the Plassenburg castle, but missed his path. Oh well, no harm done this time....

After breakfast we walked up to the museum. It was in fact three museums in one - a museum of brewing, one of baking and one of herbs and spices. The woman on the ticket desk said she wouldn't recommend we did all three in one morning, so we just bought tickets for the bakery and the herbs and spices one. The brewing museum was said to be as big as the other two put together, so I'm glad we didn't try to tackle it.

One of the disadvantages of being officially old is that you already know an awful lot of the stuff in museums, and there wasn't much about milling flour and baking bread that we hadn't already come across before. An interesting history's section, though, going from the Egyptians to the Romans, then to the middle ages and early modern period, with some interesting information on the legislation in the various city-states that comprised Germany until very recently.

Then on into the herb and spice museum which began with a trip along the Silk Road, bringing exotic spices to Europe, and where they went by sea (and the kinds of vessels their were transported in), and a but about the land route north of Venice. Then some descriptions of the various herbs and spices in everyday use and a history of their use in cookery and medicine. All very interesting, but I was tired. Our entry fee entitled us to some bread to eat on the spot and a sachet of herbs, rather nice. I believe if you'd been to the brewing museum you got a small glass of beer.

We walked back to the motor home and then on to a local bakery to see if they did the sausage in bread that this area is famous for, which they didn't and we felt bad for disturbing her lunch, but she told us where we could find them in the town, which we duly did and ate them (and very delicious they were, too). Then we bought a few bottles of the local brews, and it was time to say farewell to Kulmbach.

Our afternoon drive first went up to Weißenbrunn, where we saw a famous fountain,  the Jungfergettl Brunnen, which is a fertility figure with water pouring out of her boobs. Then to Kronach, where we caught a glimpse of the Festung Rosenberger, and so to Mitwitz, where we would have liked to have seen the Wasserschloss, but when we got to the car park an officious official told us we couldn't park there - although why not just for half an hour - and insisted we move on, despite our pretending not to understand.

Then we decided to leave the route for a détour to Coburg, where we saw the castle that Queen Victoria called her second home, and I think a glimpse of the one where Martin Luther translated the Bible into German. But again, parking was difficult, and I was incredulity thirsty, for some reason, so we drove on a little way to Neustadt bei Coburg, where there is a very nice aire, like the ones we have spent the past few nights at - free, but you pay for electricity and water if you want them.