Getting there from Aberdeen involves two flights - Amsterdam-Nuremberg, then the U-Bahn in to the central rail station to catch the super quiet, super smooth Deuthsche Bahn (DB) train to beautiful Bamberg, a UNESCO World Heritage site.
A welcome dinner was arranged for our party of 40 for the first night at Brauerei Spezial just across the street from our accommodation:
Neil Kellett was our tour organiser and he welcomed the gathering, but, first, he had to make a political point by donning this t-shirt:
We were treated to a typical Franconian pork knuckle dish, washed down by the local speciality, a smoked beer. After dinner, Graham Lees, one of the four founding fathers of CAMRA, gave us a short talk about how he and his friends first came across Bamberg on a cycling holiday:
Our hotel across the road was the Brauerei Fassla:
TUESDAY 11/9
An organised trip to Weyermann Maltings, a huge, well-preserved old factory, supplying raw materials to breweries world-wide, rounded off by a couple of hours in their free bar!
The CMIC committee members and a CAMRA NE member lined up for a photo:
The afternoon was free and Jo and I roamed the medieval city, catching up with a few of our fellow travellers on our occasional refreshment stops. The city has 9 breweries/brewpubs within easy walking distance, plus a number on the outskirts which require short local bus journeys.
WEDNESDAY 12/9
The warmest day so far - 29 C - and we chose to walk up to the castle on the hill for a fine view of the city and surrounds before descending again and paying a visit to the town's oldest brewpub:
We had been recommended to pay a visit to the Franconian Beer Museum where a huge range of artefacts commemorating the town's illustrious brewing history were displayed. The only problem was that everything was in German - no translations provided:
A fine trip - looking forward to next year's - possibly to Brussels.
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