Wednesday, November 7, 2012

Europe 1.03 - Andechs, Germany

Actual date of this event: 24 October

After seeing as much of Munich as we wanted, we decided we would take a day trip out of town. After weighing the options, we determined that going to a brewery was obviously the best option. We had heard from a few different people (most of them strangers from the internet) that the Andechs Monastery was a very unique place to visit.

We used the trusty intertron to determine that we needed to take the train the Herrsching which would bring us close to Andechs. We hopped on the 9:30am S-Baun and arrived in Herrsching 45 minutes later.


We knew that we would have to either walk to the monastery or take a bus, so we asked the information center what the best option. The lady told us that the next bus would not arrive for an hour or we could walk which would take an hour. So given that we all had working legs and a few liters of beer to burn off from the day before, we thought walking would be fun. The kind lady gave us a map with clearly marked directions to the monastery. Or so we thought they were clearly marked. When a map doesn't give you road names and the roads are not marked, it isn't so easy!


After finding the path, we were on our way. Uphill! All uphill! And all through the woods. Poor Jen decided that today was the day to wear her heeled boots. Even though, the walk was uphill, we got to see the lovely autumn colors throughout the forest. We also could be loud Americans which is something we have had to hold back on so far.



After walking for 60 70 minutes, we came upon some signs that told us we were close. Especially since we saw buses ahead... yes, the bus arrived before we did.


But we still had an even steeper hill to go before we arrived to a mega sign that we were oh so close!


And what could make this better... yes, I think stairs will do! But it led us right to the church.


After walking through the woods with zero sign of any other living beings, we entered the bier hall and find LOADS of people. So many people that we cant even find a seat. And this place had two buildings of tables.

Left: the place was packed and no table looked like they were getting up soon
Right: people's personal beer steins locked up for when they need them

beer menu
Who walked all this way? Us! Who deserves to sit? Us! Who deserves beer? Us!!! Who deserves some yummy food? Us!! We waited for about 15 minutes before a table opened up that we could all sit at together. We ordered our food and ate some DELICIOUS pork roast that had a super perfectly seasoned fat crust. Yep, I ate the fat! And FYI, if you were there, I would not have shared my fat with you.


We sat for a while and enjoyed our beers. Mike (Jen's dad) came back with some dessert for us all to split.


After a while, we began to get goofy while taking pictures.
(to understand what they are doing in this viedo, watch this funny YouTube video)


And it was time that these obnoxious Americans needed to leave. We stopped in the gift shop, and after a few liters of beer, we decided we would walk back. We figured that it took us 70 minutes uphill, surely it would take half that going downhill.


Wrong! It still took 65 minutes. And I even ran for the first few minutes... can you guess why? Yep, that was the beer talking.


We took the S-Baun back to Munich and took it easy for the evening since we had to move locations the next day. On Thursday morning, I got up for a quick jog around the Oktoberfest site, which ended up being close to 2 miles. We headed to the train station to catch a 9:30am train... to Garmisch-Partenkirchen!

Why do I love the Andechs Monastery? I loved taking a hike through the colorful trees and getting some exercise while doing something different. Along the way, we saw some cute little country homes. The beer and food was so yummy! I bet it is a wonderful place to go in the summer.

RANDOM FACT:
Andechs Monastery brews 7 different beers. To visit their site, click here but you will need to translate it to English to read it, unless of course you can read German. Danke!

-Debbie-

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