Do you want to go to Bamberg?

(Sung to the tune of "Do you wanna build a snowman?")

Do you wanna go to Bamberg?

We can drink a lot of beeeeeeer!

That's as far as I got, but if you've ever spent any time around me then you know I was singing those lines on repeat the entire weekend. 

So, Bamberg! The beer capital of the world! Or something like that.

A couple weeks ago, those of us who are left in Frankfurt all happened to be around for the weekend, so a spontaneous weekend in Bamberg was called for. The town and its surrounding areas has an insane amount of breweries, even some tucked away into the forrest that date back to when the monks brewed beer in cellars dug into the side of mountains because it was cooler there.

Because it was a holiday weekend, we had to book a place about 8 km outside of town, so we brought our bikes. Little did we realize that the 8 km meant it was all uphill to get there! 

This was after having to walk our bikes up a massive hill. 

The ride was quite beautiful, though, in the midst of wheat fields and air tinged with hops. 

You pay 22 euros for a sweet backpack, a mug, and vouchers for 6 beers at the different breweries. Over the course of two days, you can imagine how much fun we had! My kind of holiday... find a brewery, drink a delicious beer, eat a snack, bike to the next brewery, repeat. 

And for those of you wondering... no, we weren't hammered off delicious smoked rauchbier and hoppy pilsners that I'd take over Frankfurt beer any day. 

The joy of consuming mass quantities of delicious German food won that day-- a pretzel here, sausages there, or meals like this:

Meat-stuffed onion topped with bacon and beer gravy? Yes, please! How have I not gained 100 pounds while living in this country?!

Seriously, if you live in Frankfurt or stumbled across this post while planning a trip to Germany, just do it. Bamberg delivered on every aspect of 'quant-German-town.'

Nope, that 3-D addition to the town hall isn't creepy at all.

PS- all of these beautiful German small-town pictures have pretty much been of the same building at different angles...

photobomb

 This is Erhan! He'll be showing us around his hometown of Istanbul next week! I used him to take a picture of the guy behind him, who was mumbling incoherently at the top of his lungs and dancing with his invisible partner.

More of these kinds of weekends in my life, please. Dan and Martha, ya'll just need to come back. 

And if you're thinking about going and wondering which ones to visit, go to all of them of course, but our favorites were Spezial (the food! the smoked beer!) and Ambraüsianum (the ambiance and small flights of beer to sample.)