Exploring Germany: Bamberg

From Berlin I had to somehow get to other side of Germany, to Frankfurt. I had made plans to meet up with my mom in Frankfurt, that was one of the reasons I even chose to go to Germany. As I looked up the train connections between those two cities, it did not look promising at all. All connections included at least 2 or 3 changes and the traveling time did not look too alluring either.. So I decided to stay somewhere in-between for one night and divide the transfer into two legs. After few options I ended up going to Bamberg for one night.

Welcome to Bamberg!

Hotel room view

One of my friends from here knew the town and said I would love it, and actually later on it turned out that another friend of mine actually studies there! So I had some expectations towards the city. Right from the train station I knew those expectations would be fulfilled. During my walk to the city and my hotel, I could not keep looking around with my mouth probably open in amazement. It is an old town, so everywhere you look you can see old buildings in pale pink, baby blue, white.. When approaching the city, I had to cross a river and the view from that bridge over to the city in a starting afternoon sunset was just beautiful. Oh yeah, and even the train ride to there was epic, such beautiful views with all the mountains and valleys..(or is it just Holland which makes me see hills as magnificent..) What a pity the battery from my camera died in Berlin so I only have pictures taken with my iPhone.

There weren't that many places available for accommodation, but I decided to splurge a little and reserved a room from Hotel Central. From pictures it looked really nice, but I thought the price was a little over the top considering the timing etc. But when I got there, I was happy to pay the 69€. The room looked newly renovated and my view was real nice. The hotel was also very quiet and the price included a fairly good breakfast.

I arrived there somewhat later in the afternoon as the train ride took me 4,5 hours. I got a map from the reception and went to explore the city. I heard that the old town part of the city was really nice. But to me, the whole city center looked like an old town, in a really good way I mean! So many pretty houses and somehow the atmosphere there was just so different from anywhere else. The old town was located in a hill. At 18:00 suddenly all the churches started to ring their bells, and let me tell you it wasn't just two bells but more like 100. This town probably had one church per each inhabitant. After recovering from that shock, I climbed up to the highest point(that I could reach without going to people yards at least) and the view from up there was amazing. Sun setting and a nice brisk autumn weather redden my cheeks.. 

On my way down from the old town, I went trough a garden of this big church. There were signs but they were in weird german so I am not sure what they said, but I assumed that it was allowed to use the path. When I got down almost to the road I was heading to, there was this super scary shack between me and the road. There was no way of going around it so I just had to go trough. The door was open, but inside it was totally dark. You can imagine me all alone with my vivid imagination in an old church's  garden in Germany.. I was pretty scared. But luckily I survived, but it took a few minutes for my heart rate to recover. Now that I think about it, it seems silly but oh well... :-)

After this interesting experience, I tried to find this one beer I was told to bring from Bamber - apparently the best beer in the world or something.. But somehow, I could not find it from any store. I had a nice dinner and went to bed quite early. The week had certainly taken the toll out of me and I was super excited to see my mum the next day!

The next day, I continued my journey early in the morning, straight from breakfast headed to the train station and off to Frankfurt. From the smallest shop in Bamberg, at the station I even found the beer I was looking for. A nice start for the day!