Our destination on our fourth day in was Ettal, a town built around the monastery that has been brewing beer since 1609 at the foot of the Alps. It was a five hour drive south, still in the German state of Bavaria. After departing Bamberg, we stopped after 90 minutes at the walled medieval city of Rothenburg, untouched by WWII. My wife and I headed straight for the nearest entry tower to climb up and make the 90 minute walk around the top of the wall. I had tried this back in ’89, but couldn’t find my way up. Now, with Internet preparations, I knew what to look for. Especially challenging was when the wall ran out for awhile, but we followed a dirt path back up another tower and we were back on the wall. This was supposed to be a lunch stop, so we grabbed some bakery to eat back on the bus.

Our motorcoach took us over rural routes for the Romantic Road, seeing the spires of the much smaller walled city of Dinkelsbuhl, but not those of Nordlingen, since the main road bypassed the center of town. About ten miles down the road was Harburg, where we caught a glimpse of the backside of a castle. From there it was via the major roads to Ettal. From a half mile away we saw the monastery‘s dome. We checked into our hotel across the street from the monastery. In fact, the monastery owns the hotel, and it was straight out our window.

There were no brewery tours at the monastery. We had to be content with their beers served at the hotel. I’d tried the Curator Doppelbock at home, and had noted on the bottle “thick and harsh.” So here I just had the lighter Kloser Dunkel, which was medium-bodied, milder but unremarkable. I know it was after 11 p.m. that we fell asleep, since we could hear the tolling of the monastery bell, which was silent again until 6 the next morning.