Wednesday 1 September 2010

Bayreuth to Munich

Some effing café 11:00

Mike's tapeworm is active again and he's dragged me into an effing café close to the station. I'm waiting for the Weihenstephaner pub over the road to open.  Mike wanted to drag me all the way back to the main square to save 1 euro on a sausage. It's tipping it down. Luckily, he's seen sense.

Just 30 minutes to wait. At least they sell coffee with stiffeners here. Pharisäer, I've had. The rum in it has taken some of the chill out of my bones. Some of the chill from the death walk uphill through the rain.

Mike has organised all of the trip. That's why I need the eye-opener. Today and every other day. Let's face it, if I didn't need to concentrate for my work, I'd have one every morning.




Restaurant Weihenstephaner 11:45

Finally. We're in a pub. A kitschy Bavarian type place, but it's a proper pub. Selling Weihenstephaner beer. You probably could have guessed that from the name. We're just about leaning on the door when they open. We're the first customers. I don't care. I hate people. Especially in groups of more than one. Shit. There are two of us.

As it's lunchtime and I don't have a tapeworm I just order a Bauernteller. Perfect for picking. Here's a confession: I don't much care for big meals when beer is the primary object. Just fills up valuable beer space in the stomach. Especially dumplings or spuds. Whereas a Bauernteller is just grown-up nibbles. The meaty meatiness of it combines perfectly with a Helles. Or a Dunkles. Or anything else German and beery you can think of. I order a Dunkles. I still can't help but think of it as Dark Mild.

Weihenstephaner Tradition Dunkles: Nutty. Not clack, just nutty.

The Bauernteller is very nice. Especially as I don't rush it. I've budgeted, stomach-wise, for a minimum of 4 half litres of this delicious brown stuff. And I hate missing targets. Must come from my days in management.

Brill! They have proper aged schnapps. I've never seen that before. Not in Germany. They're between 3 and 8 tears old. I'm so impressed, I take a photo:


The waitress isn't too happy. Doesn't like me photographing the menu. Until I explain why. Then she just looks at me in pity. I much prefer being the object of pity rather than anger.

When we leave the streets are deserted. Germany's game has just started. Eerily quiet. That's how I'd describe it.


I would be pissed off. But I've a bellyful of Bauernteller and Dunkles. And I've already stocked up with impulse Schnapps for the train.




Restaurant Weihenstephan
Bahnhofstraße 5,
95444 Bayreuth.
Tel: 0921 - 82288
Fax: 0921 - 853425

5 comments:

Elektrolurch said...

Expensive tickets from nuremberg to munich?
isnt there the ,,Nürnberg-München" Express anymore? Its an RE, but its like an IC, and it can be used with the Bayern ticket, which means it should cost around 35€ for 2 people, and i remember it not being much slower than an ICE...
Anyhow, did you noticte the strange pub/hotel/whatever opposite to the station, called gasthaus schindler or something like that. its a really,really weird place somehow, but they do have nice beer.

Ron Pattinson said...

Elektorlurch, I did notice (and photograph) the Schindler place. Mike wouldn't go in because it sold Stockel beers.

Paul Bailey said...

Elektrolurch, the RE Nürnberg-München Express still runs; my son and I caught it back in July, using a Bayern Ticket. It was comfortable and relatively fast (or would have been, had we not had to wait 20 minutes at Ingolstadt for a late-running ICE to overtake us!)

Still a nice ride though, and some attractive scenery to admire.

Erlangernick said...

Hey, are you lot here *now*? Wouldn't mind a pint...er...Seidla with you.

There are a couple of options for RE trains from München to Nürnberg. The faster one is in a 250kph train, and usually you can watch through the cockpit window, which is great. The other one doesn't run on the new high speed line. Both are BayernTicket freundlich. Or they were when I took one last, a couple of years ago.

The high speed one runs through lovely Hopfenland and lots of tunnels.

If you're in or near Bamberg, be advised that the VGN has expanded north of Bamberg, so a TagesTicketPlus for 14,70 € gets two adults from Rothenbach to Bayreuth, to Ansbach, and to Bamberg for a day, or two days on the weekend.

Mike said...

The ICE train between the two cities runs twice per hour and takes a minimum of 1:03 (maximum 1:22). The Nürnberg-München Express takes 1:45 but only runs one train in two hours. This is according to the DB site. We simply bought tickets for the next train and given the frequency, we got the (expensive) ICE.