Sunday afternoon was spent in the beautiful Altmühltal Nature Park area, with its scenic white cliffs and abundant canoers. Boat tours are available between Kelheim and Weltenburg, but we unfortunately found out about this too late.
The Donaudurchbruch (Danube gorge) near Weltenburg
Baroque church of the Benedictine Abbey Weltenburg
The Abbey brewery, claiming to be the oldest continuously operating brewery in the world
Rainer enjoys a dark beer in the Abbey Biergarten
After parking in the town of Weltenburg, we made another miscalculation. I was starving and wasn’t sure I’d make it to the Benedictine Abbey Weltenburg and back without something to eat, so we grabbed dinner at a place in town. Big mistake. It turns out the Abbey has a restaurant and brewery and the food looked incredible, unlike the formerly frozen deep fried chicken breast I got in town. The Abbey brewery is first mentioned in 1050, making it the oldest continually run brewery in the world. We sat in the large Abbey Biergarten, where Rainer enjoyed a dark beer, which he found to be pretty tasty although perhaps higher in alcohol content than most beers, while I had an Apfelschorle.
It’s definitely a place we’ll go again (in fact, Rainer’s Institute has its Betriebsausflug at the gorge today, so Rainer is enjoying the scenery again as I write this), but next time we’ll take the boat tour from Kelheim and arrive with empty, growling stomachs!
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
That gorge is gorgeous!
As usual, very nice pictures!
Lots and lots of “world’s oldest breweries” in Germany, though. Weihenstephan (sp?) in Munich is another.
@vicky: It is, isn’t it? This area is really a hikers paradise. Parts of it remind me of the Shenandoah Valley too.
@vailian: thank you!
@ed: Yeah, there are many different ways of defining “oldest”. These guys seemed to put a lot of stress on continuously run. So maybe some of the other claimants closed for a few years here and there.