Germany: Castles and Bavarian Food

Guten Morgen!  Are you ready for castles and museums and delicious german/austrian food?  Well you’re in the right place!  I’m back from a week traveling Munich, Germany and Salzburg, Austria.  It was a much needed break from the craze of work and I definitely gained a few pounds from the eating!

What do you think of when you think of German food? Because before my trip the two things I could think of were pretzels and weinerschnitzel. I love soft pretzels and was definitely looking forward to that, and we got all sorts ranging from pizza pretzels to pretzel sandwiches to your good old solid soft pretzel.  To be honest, because they’re so easily available and often hung on little peg towers, sometimes they can be dry and pretty “meh”.  But fresh warm pretzels were amazing, and the more exciting varieties were definitely worthwhile!

But to be honest about weinerschnitzel, before this trip I think I’d only had it when sneaking a bite from someone else’s plate. I could always find something on whatever menu that I wanted more. But I have to say, I’m a convert now! The absolute best weinerschnitzel we had was the “brewmaster’s weinerschnitzel”– a traditional weinerschnitzel but with extra savory beer crust–in a little town in Farchant after our day of visiting castles!

I’m a huge fan of castles. I’m almost exclusively a high fantasy kind of reader, though you’ll catch me dabbling in some science fiction and the occasional biography or teen fiction, when I hit the bookstore it’s to the fantasy section I go. And in that genre there tends to be a lot of medieval-inspired creativity so it’s always cool to walk around and really see a space and imagine the life and times of that era.

If you’re like me, you’d heard of Neuschwanstein Castle (Schloss Neuschwanstein if you’re craving authenticity), the idyllic featured photo on this post, but haven’t heard that it’s actually visible from another castle in the same town: Hohenschwangau Castle. And surprisingly, fun as it was to go in both, I actually enjoyed Hohenschwangau Castle more! Neuschwanstein was commissioned by King Ludwig II, one of three palaces/castles he commissioned. It had some of the most extravagant aspirations of the time, but honestly fell a little short of expectations.

It hasn’t been completed so it feels a little lonely and abandoned, and I found the extravagant carved furniture and jewels and marble columns impressive at first, but it was far less practical and much more extravagance than I needed in a castle. Weird sentence to say right?  But finding out on the tour that the jewels were made of glass and the columns were only painted to look like marble, it felt extravagant without authenticity.

On the other hand Hohenschwangau Castle felt more robust and lived-in, with full suites for both the king and queen and had passages in the walls for servants to keep the stoves heating the rooms and move around behind the scenes. I should also note that neither of these castles were the primary Munich Residenz of their kings but more hunting and holiday getaways.  The Munich Residenz we also visited and was room after room of castle!  Though that evoked the opposite thought–what does one DO with all these rooms?

But even if I don’t have even a summer castle getaway, at least we feasted like Kings along our trip! My newest discovery and highest recommendation? Cheesy spaetzel. Think mac & cheese but with small gnocchi instead of noodles and topped with a generous helping of fried onions. Who wouldn’t love that? It took us a bit into our trip to find it, but once we did we were hooked! It was good enough that I may try to dig a recipe up to share with you all sometime.

We also need to talk desserts. My fam of course had to invest in an apple strudel but it actually was outshined by “beer-a-misu” at the same table. This was a crazy, ordered on a whim dessert, but it was one of my favorites! Ladyfingers topped with a heavy beer cream, it had a definite taste of beer, but was not overpowering and was still primarily a sweet cream.

While beer cream is definitely not common, you sure can find beer around Germany!  We of course had to stop by the Hofbrauhaus, a well known beer house that serves beer and food, with the highlight of course being their own Hofbrau brews.  You can order by the litre, which of course you know we did!  The whole place is laid out as a drinking house, so communal tables and rowdy bands and bawdy songs create the atmosphere.  I could definitely see it as a fun place to be drunk, but in terms of a restaurant with the family, it left something to be desired.

The food was average at best: we sampled the pork hock and weinerschnitzel and some pretzels; the beer was definitely the highlight of that excursion.  It was made slightly better by picking up some gelato on the way back and stopping to hear a street music performance from a quartet that played the violin, accordion, cimbalom (type of chordophone), and balalaika (Russian stringed instrument).  I even picked up a CD to share with Tyler.

While the food was the similar in Salzburg, there was definitely some interesting sights!  We visited both the birthplace and childhood home of Mozart and visited Schloss Hellbrunn, a castle with a plethora of trick fountains!  Every twist and turn had trick fountains that would rise up out of the seats or spray out of the least suspicious places–antlers of statues, or right up out of the floor!  It was a lot of fun, and I won’t spoil the surprises in case you’d like to visit, but I highly recommend, especially for a hot day.