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We left Rothenburg reluctantly today... for such a small town, we just didn't have the time we needed to explore it to the fullest. But, we were on to another adventure... staying on a farm in Schönau am Königsee, Bavaria. Gasthaus Steinwandlehen is an absolutely gorgeous bed and breakfast run by the Fegg family... all of the rooms are inside their house on the second floor, but we were staying in a tiny cottage on the property. The views were absolutely amazing, looking down into a valley... with white snow-capped mountains, and lush green grass. We couldn't have asked for a better place.
Our hostess was the nicest lady... wish I could remember her name. They served us milk fresh from the cow every morning, which I'm sorry to say kind of creeped me out. I never could really put my finger on what it was... whether it was the fact that the milk was warm... or it tasted very different than the skim milk I'm used to... or if knowing it had just come out of the cow was disturbing me?? (Even though the honey from their beehive wasn't disturbing me...) I couldn't drink the milk until the last
day when my mom suggested putting cocoa in it. It was already warm, so I thought what the heck? That was some of the best "warm" cocoa I have ever tasted! Now I know the secret!
We ate dinner at a place called Gasthaus Bodner, where we were introduced to barlauch, a local plant that tastes like garlic. None of us had heard of it, so the waitress brought out some leaves for us to try. They had a whole page in their menu dedicated to dishes made with this. I had Cordon Bleu with Barlauch sauce... it was so good, but boy, I didn't want to breathe on anyone after that!
April 25, 2008
I woke up this morning to find the entire valley shrouded in a misty fog. The day before, I had discovered a cemetery just down the hiking path from the farm, and this was the perfect photo opportunity. I grabbed my camera and scrambled down the path. The Germans are very serious about their cemeteries... all of the plots have fresh flowers growing in a little garden, and many have oil lamps that burn 24 hours. It had rained overnight, so some
of the lamps had fallen over... I tried to right as many as I could before I had to run back up the hill, late (and out of breath) for breakfast.
Eventually it started raining, so what better way to get out of the rain than to go underground? We went to the salt mines at Salzbergwerk Berchtesgaden. Salt was an extremely important commodity hundreds of years ago because of its ability to preserve food. The tour was pretty fascinating, learning about how the salt is mined and seeing all the machinery. We stuck our fingers in the large brine lake to taste it, and slid down a wooden slide about 100 feet to the lower level, it was a pretty good rush! After the tour, we were each given a tiny shaker of salt to take home with us, and while I can't say it tastes any different than any other salt, it tastes better just knowing that I saw where it came from.
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