Monday, March 14, 2016
Andescher am Dom
I haven't tried any new restaurants lately, but I noticed a new one the other day that piqued my interest. As I was going past Frauenkirche on Saturday I spotted a familiar Andechs beer sign, the same monastery brewery I had visited back in February. The food and beer there were excellent. I had the lamb fillet with thyme sauce, green beans, and roasted fingerling potatoes. Es var wunderbar! I think I'll have to try going back there in the last 10 days I have in Munich. Did you read that carefully? 10 DAYS LEFT!
Sunday, March 13, 2016
Salzbergwerk Berchtesgaden
The town of Berchtesgaden is nestled way in the southeast corner of Germany right on the border with Austria. Closer to the city of Salzburg, Austria than Munich, Berchtesgaden is perhaps most famous for being the site of Hitler's Alpine retreat the Eagle's Nest (Das Kehlsteinhaus). You may know of Berchtesgaden and the Eagle's Nest from the final episode in HBO's Band of Brothers series when Easy Company captures the town and takes advantage of the large stores of wine the German officers had collected. The Eagle's Nest has been one thing on my list that I most wanted to see while in Germany, but it is, unfortunately, closed till the middle of May for renovations. Not to be deterred with at least visiting the town, I found that the main industry in the area is the Salzbergwerk, a salt mine, and they do tours!
The two-hour drive to get there was an experience in and of itself. The first half was on the autobahn (speed!) and the second half was along some of the most scenic roads I've ever driven (gorgeous!). In fact, I'm pretty sure that if I'd driven these scenic roads in the summer that I would have crashed from not paying enough attention to actually driving. Thankfully, it's still winter, so the trees were bare, the grass was brown, and there were no flowers. I can just imagine it though, and it makes me want to come back when it's warmer! These roads were basically the picturesque roads you see in pictures of the Alps. They wove up, over, and through the mountains, making hairpin turns with steep drop-offs, and then meandered lazily through the stereotypical Alpine villages. I couldn't get any pictures for you because I was driving, so you'll have to come on your own sometime!
I did make it to the salt mine just before the doors opened for the first tour, so I got my ticket and English audio guide (basically a little phone you hold up to your ear that speaks to you in English), pulled on my complimentary coveralls, and boarded the miner's train. One small aside, I had my first experience of having to take a picture of a large family with their phone. I knew what they were asking me just from context clues, but once I started counting down from three in German, I realized that I had no idea what Germans usually said for pictures! "Do they say 'cheese' too? I know that word in German, but would it be really weird for me to say that? Maybe I should just say 'zero.' Crap, I don't know how to say that. What about 'go'? Nope, don't know that one either." I settled with saying nothing. I said "3, 2, 1" and then took the picture. They were all smiling by 1 anyway, so I think it went okay.
Anyway, back on the train. It took us deep into the mountain to what is known as the Salt Cathedral. This was a huge room that was once filled to the brim with water, which dissolved the salt in the rock walls, leaving a salty brine which could be pumped out and evaporated, leaving behind pure white table salt. This, if you didn't already know, is the standard technique for salt mining. Huge shafts, some are 400 meters deep, are drilled into the earth and then pumped full of water. The filling process takes 1 year (1 YEAR!) because the water dissolves the salt in the rocks and seeps outward to create large cavities, much like the Salt Cathedral. Once each hole is filled, the brine extraction process takes another 30 years (30 YEARS!) because they are constantly pumping out brine and pumping in new fresh water to dissolve more salt. It's a very impressive process, especially considering it all used to be done by hand.
The from the Salt Cathedral we took a miner's slide down to the next floor level. The slide is apparently a standard way for the miners to move down floors. They use elevators to go up, and maybe some of them actually do use elevators to go down. All I know is that if I had slides at work, I would use those every single day because that was a ton of fun. After checking out some of the mining equipment and walking through old tunnels, we emerged at Mirror Lake. This is a shallow, yet long cavity filled approximately half-way to the ceiling with clear, salty brine. The water was as still as glass, and you could see the lake bed perfectly. We technically weren't supposed to take any pictures on the tour, but I snuck one in before the tour guide made it into the room. Don't tell!
One quick boat ride across the lake with some sort of laser light show (yeah, this is a tourist attraction) and the tour was nearly finished. We hopped back on the train and got dropped off at, you guessed it, the gift shop. Really fun tour, definitely glad I did it, but I'm still bummed I didn't get to go to the Eagle's Nest.
The two-hour drive to get there was an experience in and of itself. The first half was on the autobahn (speed!) and the second half was along some of the most scenic roads I've ever driven (gorgeous!). In fact, I'm pretty sure that if I'd driven these scenic roads in the summer that I would have crashed from not paying enough attention to actually driving. Thankfully, it's still winter, so the trees were bare, the grass was brown, and there were no flowers. I can just imagine it though, and it makes me want to come back when it's warmer! These roads were basically the picturesque roads you see in pictures of the Alps. They wove up, over, and through the mountains, making hairpin turns with steep drop-offs, and then meandered lazily through the stereotypical Alpine villages. I couldn't get any pictures for you because I was driving, so you'll have to come on your own sometime!
I did make it to the salt mine just before the doors opened for the first tour, so I got my ticket and English audio guide (basically a little phone you hold up to your ear that speaks to you in English), pulled on my complimentary coveralls, and boarded the miner's train. One small aside, I had my first experience of having to take a picture of a large family with their phone. I knew what they were asking me just from context clues, but once I started counting down from three in German, I realized that I had no idea what Germans usually said for pictures! "Do they say 'cheese' too? I know that word in German, but would it be really weird for me to say that? Maybe I should just say 'zero.' Crap, I don't know how to say that. What about 'go'? Nope, don't know that one either." I settled with saying nothing. I said "3, 2, 1" and then took the picture. They were all smiling by 1 anyway, so I think it went okay.
Anyway, back on the train. It took us deep into the mountain to what is known as the Salt Cathedral. This was a huge room that was once filled to the brim with water, which dissolved the salt in the rock walls, leaving a salty brine which could be pumped out and evaporated, leaving behind pure white table salt. This, if you didn't already know, is the standard technique for salt mining. Huge shafts, some are 400 meters deep, are drilled into the earth and then pumped full of water. The filling process takes 1 year (1 YEAR!) because the water dissolves the salt in the rocks and seeps outward to create large cavities, much like the Salt Cathedral. Once each hole is filled, the brine extraction process takes another 30 years (30 YEARS!) because they are constantly pumping out brine and pumping in new fresh water to dissolve more salt. It's a very impressive process, especially considering it all used to be done by hand.
The from the Salt Cathedral we took a miner's slide down to the next floor level. The slide is apparently a standard way for the miners to move down floors. They use elevators to go up, and maybe some of them actually do use elevators to go down. All I know is that if I had slides at work, I would use those every single day because that was a ton of fun. After checking out some of the mining equipment and walking through old tunnels, we emerged at Mirror Lake. This is a shallow, yet long cavity filled approximately half-way to the ceiling with clear, salty brine. The water was as still as glass, and you could see the lake bed perfectly. We technically weren't supposed to take any pictures on the tour, but I snuck one in before the tour guide made it into the room. Don't tell!
 |
| Mirror Lake at Salzbergwerk Berchtesgaden |
Bonus: I went for a run in the Englischer Garten today and stopped by the Eisbachwelle, which is a standing wave in the river caused by a low dam. People surf on it year round (burr) while spectators watch from above. Looks fun!
 |
| Surfing the Eisbachwelle in the Englischer Garten |
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)