Oktober Reise, Day 4: Niederaula

Yesterday: Beer and karaoke in Niederaula

Wednesday, October 5. We slept in, and Matthias whipped us up a little breakfast before we went out sightseeing. Our first stop was Bad Hersfeld's Schloss Eichhof. Built between 1328 and 1372, it was closed for renovations today.

Matthias called another castle/church/monastery/museum place to see if they were open; they weren't.

Matthias works in freight expediting, so we drove by Amazon's absolutely massive new warehouse. Seriously, there are entire cities in Germany that are smaller than this building. (For the record, Matthias does not work for Amazon.)

We parked in downtown Bad Hersfeld, which is mostly a Fußgängerzone (pedestrian zone), and wandered around a bit. Got a coffee and a roll, and found a pharmacy that had some bandages for Paris' feet, which were being shredded by her new shoes. It was nice and quiet there on this Wednesday morning.

Now it's already past lunchtime, and on this trip, lunchtime is beer time. So we went back to the house to work on some more of the beers we picked up yesterday.

Kloster Urstoff is a Vienna-style lager from Kloster-Brauerei Münnerstadt in Bavaria, although it actually appears to be brewed by Rother Bräu. It's a very good beer, nutty, toasty, and malty.

Yet another beer from Strecks Brauhaus, their Ostheimer Dunkel is nicely toasty and sweet, nutty and smooth.

We thought we'd see if the schnitzel place was open today, so we drove instead of walked down the hill to zum Alten Forsthaus. This time they did not disappoint! Good beers and amazing food, and really quite reasonably priced. Go there if you have the chance.

Back at the house for a few final beers, we had another one from Fulda. The Hochstift Pils had a nice floral hop flavor, but wasn't all that bitter, with a tasty bready malt character.

We had to get up early the next morning to catch our train to Prague, so one last Strecks beer will do it. Burgherren Pils was a good clean malty floral beer, except for a weird soapy note.

Sadly, there were still six beers in the case that I didn't get to try. But I'm sure Matthias will put them to good use!

Tomorrow: Up early for a six-hour train ride to Prague