A Brief Stop in Germany

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No, really, a brief stop- This is a very short entry.

Since we had to stay for an extra day in Paris (gee, darn.) We had slightly less time (only 24 hours) in Germany. We arrived in Tubingen late at night after a variety of train switches. The next morning we went out to explore the town. Tubingen is a small university town just south of Stuttgart. It's a lovely, very picturesque, very German town. Just one look at the painted plaster and wood buildings tells you exactly where you are.

The day we were there happened to be there was Market day, so there was a small farmer's market set up in the square in front of the town hall. There was all kinds of produce and meats from the surrounding farms. We decided to have lunch in the town before heading off. It was a beautifully sunny day, and almost everyone it seemed had some type of Ice Cream in their hands. Ice cream is not a good lunch food, and we went in search of a restaurant- and found one called Ratskeller. (For those with no UNC background reading this: Ratskeller is/was a bit of a dive bar in Chapel Hill) I found this hilarious, so we went there for lunch- It was actually very nice, with delicious German food!

After being fortified with good, really bad for you, german food, we headed off to the old monastery just outside of town. It's a lovely old place- with a lot of history. It survived as a monastery, with lots of additions, for a few hundred years. Once the reformation came, materials from the cloisters were removed to build an adjacent castle. Later the monastery became a protestant school and seminary, and remained as such until the 1800's. It was really a lovely place, set in a town even smaller than Tubingen, and surrounded by fields.

Once we returned to Tubingen, we wandered up to the castle above the town for the view and the beginning of the sunset. The castle was more wood than rock, but still well defended. We got a late dinner at a pizzeria, and got ice cream from one of the many gelato stands there, before turning in early for our early morning train ride to the Czech Republic!

Next Stop: Prague!

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Comments

[Mom]

Their Ratskellar looks a lot better than Chapel Hill's Rathskellar, and evidently the food is an improvement as well...