My first post took us through the first half of Belgium and Berlin. Now, on to Bavaria and our last few days in Belgium.
Lunch at Augustiner Keller in Munich was probably one of my favorite meals. We each had an Augustiner Edelstoff, a helles lager, mine in a 1/2 liter glass, Jesse's in the full-on Mass. We each ordered sausage, little pork sausages are in the back with sauerkraut, and in the foreground are the käsekraner (cheese sausages) with potato salad. First of all, the potato salad and sauerkraut were life altering. They may look sort of blob-ish in this photo, but were the best tasting sides I've ever had. Secondly, if you've ever read my blog, you know that I love Corralitos sausages, particularly their Cheesy Bavarian. Well, folks, this is the original Cheesy Bavarian and Corralitos is pretty dead on.
We actually ate quite a few pastries along the way, most of which I never bothered to photograph. Overall, the sweets were quite good in both Belgium and Germany, even ones from chains or mediocre train station kiosks were well above average. This one in particular from the Hofpfisterei in Munich's main train station, called Mohnstreusel, was outstanding. The dough reminded me of a king cake, sort of yeasty and only slightly sweet, with a lightly sweet poppy seed paste rolled in the middle, and a sweet crumb topping.
The trip to Kloster Andechs (monastery) just outside of Munich was amazing on so many levels. The hike out to the monastery was refreshing, the chapel was breath-taking, and the food and beer were top notch. We shared a pork knuckle that seemed almost as big as my head and each had two 1/2 liters of beer. I started out with the Andecher Weissbier Helles (a wheat beer) and Jesse jumped right into the Doppelbock Dunkel (a darker beer). We both enjoyed the Dunkel so much that we each got another. It was probably my favorite beer in Germany.
In Regensburg, we stopped at Spital Brewery for a snack and tasty beverage. I was sad that they didn't have pretzels, so we ordered (what I thought was a fresh cheese dip with veggies). As it turns out, the bell peppers were more of a facilitator to the pound of cream cheese stuffed inside. I didn't complain, it was very good fresh cream cheese, although I thought Jesse and I might fight over the lettuce and tomato garnish. By this point in the trip we craved vegetables.
That night we had dinner in the apartment rented for the night. We picked up a cucumber, fresh bread, cheese, and pickled vegetables for a light meal. It was accompanied by two local beers, Wettenburger Kloster Barock Dunkel and Bischofshof Hefeweisbier Dunkel that only cost €.80 each. I love local beer! We found that the hefe went really well with the cheese. 
This meal in Bamberg was the straw that broke the camel's back (or my stomach). We rolled into Bamburg hungry and sleepy and headed straight for Spezial Brewery for lunch. Don't get me wrong, it was delicious, but the roast wild rabbit in a delicious gravy with a giant knödel (a potato dumpling) and cooked red cabbage was quite a lot of food to handle at lunchtime. Jesse had a pork roast that also came a dumpling and creamed broccoli. As if the food wasn't enough to knock us down for the afternoon, we washed it back with a 1/2 liter of beer (apparently the smallest glass you can obtain in Bavaria). Jesse got Spezial's specialty, the Rauchbier (smoke beer), and I got a Märzen. The food and drink filled my stomach, legs, and eyelids with sand. We both dragged ourselves around town for the rest of the day. I was officially over German food.
On our long train ride (around 10 hours of traveling) back to Belgium, we had a 2-hour layover in Köln. It was insanely cold there and I really didn't want to have anymore beer for the rest of my life, but we pressed on and found a cafe to try a kölsch -- a local specialty. Thankfully the cafe, Früh am Dom, only poured their kölsch in .2 liter glasses. It was the perfect amount for the hour (just a few minutes after 11am).
Our final destination, Ghent, Belgium was all about relaxation. For two nights we made our own dinner at the B&B, which consisted of a ton of fresh salad greens, fresh bread, cheese, and of course, beer. Kasteel (shown in the photo) was actually one of my least favorites of the trip. It was pretty high-octane at 11% abv, but syrupy sweet to the point of almost being nauseating.
Belgium smelled like waffles (and sometime sewers, but mostly waffles). It's a sweet, buttery, delicious smell and I couldn't get enough. We got waffles from a vendor in Ghent and they were probably the most spectacular waffles that I've ever tasted, or will ever taste again. They're not airy like American waffles, but a dense, slightly sweet, brioche type dough. It's cooked in the waffle iron with sugar on the outside that slightly burns and crisps. With the hazelnut chocolate sauce, I could have died happy right there. 
The last night in Ghent, we went out with a bang by ordering mussels cooked in white wine. Prior to the mussels, we shared an order of shrimp croquettes and another abbey ale. I learned the next morning that 1/2 an appetizer and mussels does not a dinner make, especially when paired with stark Belgian brews. At breakfast my head and stomach were telling me that I might have chugged a glass full of gasoline, rather than that Duvel with our meal. It was a wonderful trip, but I knew right then that I was ready to go home.
As I sit at my kitchen table with the window open, the delicious smell of cooking bacon keeps drifting in and out of the apartment. Voila! The first category for my photo posts from the trip: Food. This is probably the best place to start, since an overarching theme during our 2-week trip to Germany and Belgium was food and beer. The main point of our trip (in addition to seeing incredible places) was to sample the wide range of fares that the two countries had to offer.
We stopped in a French cafe that appeared to specialize in tarts, both sweet and savory. Mine was leek and salmon and Jesse's was mushroom and tomato. We each had a Trappist beer with our lunch. I chose the Westmalle Tripel and Jesse's was Rochefort 10, each packing a punch at 9.5% and 11.3% abv. We quickly learned, however, that a beer (especially those potent ones) at lunch made for a very sleepy afternoon.
We only went on one brewery tour, which happened to be at our first stop in Brussels. Cantillon brewery is located on the west side of town, in a bit of a transitional neighborhood, but was well worth the trip. It has been owned and run by the Van Roy-Cantillon family since 1900 and it shows. The pride in their product and process was inescapable throughout our entire visit, especially with the care and detail with which they described the beer as "acidic" not "bitter." After the tour we tasted two of their beers, the Gueuze and Kriek. Both were dry, sour, and definitely not sweet like other Kriek beers. It is definitely a beverage that you would sip on a special occasion, not unlike a very dry champagne. Before returning home, we purchased a bottle of their Lou Peppe Framboise that we'll hold on to for our next anniversary. I kind of like the idea of celebrating with beer instead of wine.
In Bruges, we wanted to experience authentic Flemish cuisine, so we went to a restaurant that came highly recommended by the hostess at our guesthouse. We arrived at 5pm, which according to the front door was the time they opened for dinner, but the owner quickly assured us that they didn't actually open until 6pm. We returned an hour later and were lucky enough to find a table, as nearly the entire restaurant was booked for the evening. I ordered the Waterzooi (a chicken stew with potatoes) and Jesse ordered the beef stew (I can't remember the Dutch name). His came with a baked potato with curried butter melting inside. It was the most fantastic thing I've tasted in a while. We told the owner how much we loved the beef stew and he hustled down to the kitchen to provide us with a recipe! As soon as the weather cools down, I'm going to try and replicate the meal.
After our delicious (and filling) Flemish meal, we walked around Bruges as the sun went down and I took a few night photos. Then, we ended up at Brugs Beertje, a bar that was recommended in our Good Beer Guide Belgium. The atmosphere was relaxed and I was kind of envious of the people who had brought games like cards and Pass the Pigs to play while sipping their beer. Jesse and I sampled two more Trappist ales, the Achel Blonde and Bruin. I love Trappist beers, so I had no complaints other than the fact that I wanted to pass out from the full beer and meal. 
This was our first breakfast in Berlin and pretty much summed up our breakfasts for the remainder of the trip. I was in heaven. When given the option of sweet or savory for breakfast, I always choose the latter. In fact, the best breakfast in my book is last night's leftovers with an egg on top. So, bread, cured meats, cheese, butter, tomatoes and pickles was a-okay with me! 
This was breakfast the second day in Berlin. We had a lot of sandwiches in Germany, but they were consistently delicious whether they had egg and cucumber, or just a variety of cheeses, or curried chicken. I know this photo is a little out of focus, but look at that bread! The bread in Germany was out of this world. Even in Portland, where we have fabulous bakeries, you just can't get rolls of this caliber. Also, schnitzel for breakfast is divine.
Snacks were essential. Our best days incorporated snacks. This was a break in the Tiergarten in Berlin. We purchased the melba toast and cheese called Partykaas (which roughly translated into "party cheese") in Belgium for the plane ride to Germany. I loved the idea of party cheese so much that we even had a little Partykaas dance when I would reach into the backpack. Also, Kinder chocolates are delicious -- Bueno was a big hit.
On the last night in Berlin, we finally got Döners. I think the picture speaks more to their deliciousness than I ever could.
That pretty much sums up the first few days of our trip. More to come tomorrow in European Road Food Part 2!
Tuesday, September 15th - Thursday, September 17th
We're back in the U.S. now, but I thought I'd finish up my posts with a few notes about the last days of our trip and post my own photos for a change.
We arrived in Ghent on Monday afternoon, took an unplanned tour of the northwest side of the city and arrived at our B&B just in time for dinner. Both starving and exhausted from the 10-hour travel day, we ended up at a restaurant in one of the town squares that was frequented by tourists, no doubt, and a surprising number of old people. The food was good, if a little overpriced, but at that point I was ready to gnaw off my own arm. The rest of the stay was all about relaxation and preparing for the long haul home.The owner of the B&B where we stayed was a bit shocked to learn that we were going to spend three whole days in the city -- reinforcing an overarching self-deprecating trend of many locals that we met in Ghent (and maybe all Belgians?). I'm not sure why, the city is quite lovely and actually was one of my favorite spots.
One of the goals we set while in Ghent (and for most of the trip actually) was to never try the same beer twice, to maximize the tasting variety. We actually did a pretty good job at sticking to that rule, I think I only drank one Belgian beer twice, Duvel, because it is so delicious and cheap compared to the price in the US (about $2 a bottle). To taste as many beers as possible, as inexpensively as possible, we went to a local grocery store and had our own happy hour at the B&B each night (or afternoon). Here are the beers from our last few days in order from favorite (on the right) to least favorite (on the left). I think I will have Jesse guest post one day this week on the specifics, as he was the designated beer note taker for the trip.
One of the highlights in Ghent was our visit to Granvensteen Castle, just a 10 minute walk from where we were staying. It's an amazing building from the 12th century that served as the town center in the middle ages. It seems as thought it's been in a constant cycle of restoration/reconstruction since the late 1800s, when the first attempts at restoration began. What stands now is a combination of original and reconstructed areas that is quite fascinating.
Ghent also has a canal that runs through the city, which is lined with old buildings that were once main spots for commerce. Today, they're mostly restaurants, hotels, and gathering spots. This is one of my favorite shots from Ghent, taken on the first night we were there just as the sun started to go down.
In the old market place the city was undertaking a giant archaeological dig. There wasn't a lot of explanation in English about the reason for the clearance of the old (rather mundane) 19th century commercial buildings, but it seemed as though they are going to eventually restore the old market place. It was pretty awesome to watch the dig taking place everyday as we walked from our B&B to the center of town.
Our second wedding anniversary happened to fall on our second night in Ghent, September 15th. After visiting the castle, we made dinner at the B&B and sampled a couple of new beers. After dinner, we decided that we needed to take a strong stand and go out and grab dessert or a beer just to stay awake. It was pretty easy to pass out at 8pm after a long day of walking or biking, but that meant we'd be awake before the sun the following morning. I was able to get a lot of really great night shots of the landmarks around town. Here are a couple from the group:
This was one of my favorite buildings in all of Ghent, just on the edge of the main marketplace. It has a hideous addition on the left side, but I was easily able to overlook it due to the awesome dancing statues on top.
I can't remember exactly which buildings are in this photo, but the canal was so still that night it reflected their likeness perfectly. I have to say that this anniversary may top all others for quite a while.
After looking through all of the photos that we took from the trip, I feel as though we gave ourselves a pretty spectacular gift of almost 800 potential postcards filled with memories. I'll post more photos over the next few days, most likely grouped in some way, either by city or some other form of category. Jet lag has sort of muddled my organizing capacity, so I have yet to decide how to present them!
Sunday, September 6th
Today, we hopped on a train from Brussels to Bruges for a quick overnight stay. It's a pretty easy trip (judging from online guides), just over an hour. Bruges is one of those cities that should not be missed when visiting Belgium (although Colin Farrell was less than amused to be In Bruges during the winter).
From the limited exposure that I've had to the city through guidebooks and dark comedies, it seems as though it's going to live up to its reputation as the most perfectly preserved medieval town in western Europe.
Bruges developed from a 9th-century (NINTH century!) fortress by the first count of Flanders to defend the coast from the Vikings. By the 14th century, it too was booming with the cloth trade, converting English wool into fine textiles for worldwide export (or the parts of the world were known anyway). Through years of fighting and its inheritance by the Habsburg Empire (that favored Antwerp over Flanders) the cloth trade declined. As a result, Bruges failed to dredge the silted-up Zwin River in the 1500s, effectively shuttering the town and preserving it from both World Wars -- perhaps a blessing in disguise, because we get to see it in all of its glory today. The certainly don't make buildings like they used to, with a half-life of 350+ years.
Another blessing in disguise was this blog. For some reason as I was writing this entry, I decided to go and check out our hotel room on one of the travel review sites. The first entry started with, "Have you ever heard of scabies?" Five other reviews backed up this finding along with an alarming sewer smell in the shower. Seriously, folks, I did some hardcore research on where to stay and, despite my budget goals, was very choosy when selecting our rooms. This was a shock, but easily remedied before having to experience a raging case of bed bugs the third day abroad. Don't worry, Mom(s), we're at a different hotel with excellent ratings and vetted by Rick Steves.
In addition to the beautiful streetscapes (tiny mites) and canals, Bruges' museums hold some of the finest collections of early Flemish art. At the time of this blog post, rain was predicted for most of the day, so perhaps I'm dragging Jesse through galleries of 15th-century paintings instead of that planned bike ride along the canal. Our day's potential agenda includes:
Halve Maan Brewery: After a long history of opening, closing, and re-opening again, the Halve Maan Brewery (founded in 1856) is still run by descendants of the original owner, Henri Maes. In 2005, the brewery was renovated and revived with a new brew called Brugse Zot "Bruges Fool" and remains to date the only beer that is brewed in Bruges' town center. The visit includes a tour of the brewery followed by a tasting, which may include Brugse Zot (blond and dubbel), Staffe Hendrick, and Brugse Bok. Attached to the brewery is also a cafe where the chef prepares a daily menu to complement the beers. According to Tim Webb, we have to try the beer cheese soup.
The Groeninge Musem: While I was excited to visit the Musée d'Art Ancien in Brussels, the Groeninge Museum is the real deal. With only eleven rooms arranged in chronological order, it packs a punch, displaying works from Jan van Eyck, Rogier van der Weyden, Hieronymous Bosch, and Jan Provoost. I seriously can hardly wait to see some of these artists' works in person. It might even be a highlight of my day.
Bicycling along the canal to Damme: If the weather permits, we'll rent bicycles and ride along the tree-lined Brugge-Sluis canal that leads from Bruges to Damme (about 4.5 miles northeast). Damme is also a quaint village and once a main seaport during medieval times. It too dried up with the River Zwin, preserving it for our enjoyment today. Interesting fact? The 16th-century town hall (Stadhuis) was funded by a special tax on barrels of herring.
Enjoying cafe life: I think the most important part of the trip to Bruges is partaking in the rich cafe life in Belgium. I fully intend on having a couple of local beers to wash down whatever regional fare sounds best to me at the time.
Friday, Sept. 4th - Saturday, Sept. 5th
The "to-do" list here in Brussels is a bit ambitious, but the main goal is to have a variety of activities to keep us awake while we try to acclimate to the nine-hour time difference. In an ideal world, I will have slept all night on the flight from Dulles to Belgium and will be ready to start the day. However, realistic expectations indicate that we might walk around like zombies most of Friday, just waiting until we can collapse into bed. Our beds, by the way, will be plush and right in the heart of the Grand-Place. Apparently, weekends in Brussels are slow with the business crowd vacating, so a lot of the fancy-pants hotels put their rooms up at an insane discount (our normally €200/night room worked out to be €60/night for our stay). We will be able to step out the door of our hotel with Brussels at our fingertips:
The Grand-Place: is the heart of the Lower Town of Brussels and arguably one of the best places to begin exploring the city. Within the Grand-Place is the Hôtel de Ville (town hall) surrounded by seventeenth-century guildhouses. Historically, the area was marshland, which was drained in the twelfth century. By 1350 the area was a hopping marketplace, due in part to the economic boom spurred by a flourishing cloth industry. The area solidified as a place of economic power when the various guilds built their headquarters here. Unfortunately for Brussels, a French artillery bombardment pretty much leveled the town in 1695 and only two guildhouses and portions of the Hotel de Ville survived. After the attack, the guildsmen quickly rebuilt and what survives today is an awesome show of Baroque flamboyance.
11th Annual Belgian Beer Weekend: When we booked our trip to Belgium and Germany way back in March, I had no idea that it would coincide with a Belgian beer festival. This happy accident has us touching down in Brussels the very day that the festival begins. Literally right around the corner from our hotel will be hundreds of beers to sample. I haven't even bothered to count the number of breweries participating, the list is that insane.
Art Nouveau Walking Tour: Brussels is known for its Art Nouveau architecture and several neighborhoods are hot spots for soaking in all of the splendor. Potential stops include the Horta Museum (architect Victor Horta's former house and studio), strolling down rue Defacqz (not a typo) and avenue Louise, or the Cauchie House, which happens to be open only on the first weekend of each month! Another happy coincidence! 
Cantillon Museum of Gueuze:
The brewery is renown for producing amazing Gueuze beer, that consists of old and new lambics (sour beer) blended and bottled for a second spontaneous fermentation. The result is usually a very dry, tart (almost cidery) beer that in some guides has been associated with descriptors such as "chicory," "leathery," "barnyard-like," "horse blanket." Believe me, I've tasted several Gueuze that definitely are an acquired taste, but others have been quite pleasant and I'd gladly take them over the more mundane varieties of Belgian ales. Also, lambics are the base for kriek beer (fermented with cherries), which is probably on my top 3 list of favorite Belgian-style beverages.
Musée d'Art Ancien: has a great collection of early (15th through 18th century) Flemish artwork. Some of the most vivid images that I remember from my art history courses in college involve early Flemish painters, such as Hieronymus Bosch who painted fantastic (and somewhat futuristic and gory) murals illustrating religious and moral stories. He's like the Salvator Dali of 15th and 16th century Flanders. One of my favorites of his works (and probably his most well known) is the Garden of Earthly Delights triptych. I know this is supposed to be a vacation, but I feel it would be very sad to be in the same city with all of this great artwork and not stop in at least for a few minutes.
Leonidas Chocolates: I was told by a German family friend that Leonidas is the best chocolate money can buy. I was also instructed to try at least three different kinds. Judging from the online menu, I may have to try more than three. It's a good thing that we'll only be in Brussels for a short period of time!
Moules Frites (Mussels & Fries): As I've read, in Belgium, mussels are prepared in a variety of ways, but most commonly (and in my opinion, most deliciously) with fresh herbs and flavorful vegetables with a wine-based stock. According to one of my favorite beer guides, Good Beer Guide Belgium, "Belgian frites are better than British chips or American fries and, yes, myocardial masochists do coat them with commercial mayonnaise from a tin." (As a side note totally unrelated to Belgium or mussels, Tim Webb has a wicked sense of humor and made me want to actually read his guide book from cover to cover. I laughed aloud at his insight and snark.)
Thursday, September 3rd
The first leg of the trip is 5-hour flight from Portland to Dulles followed by a 7.5-hour flight to Brussels, Belgium. We'll arrive tomorrow (Friday) at 7:30am. For future reference, Belgium and Germany are on Central European Summer Time, or CEST, which is 6 hours ahead of Eastern Time Zone, and 9 hours ahead of Pacific Time Zone. Since it will only be 10:30pm on my body's clock, I may have to start the trip off with a breakfast beer.
I have taken all necessary actions to ensure that we have WiFi/internet access while we're gallivanting across Belgium and Germany, but realized that blogging in any substantial way is impossible for two reasons: 1) we are only bringing along an iPod touch for reliable internet access, which is not exactly ideal for typing; and 2) I am pretty sure I'd much rather spend my time sipping a Dunkelweizen or nibbling on mussels and fries than fussing with Blogger and html code. So, I've managed to put together a few canned blog posts to help you follow along in our follies.** This was a particularly helpful task in planning my own itinerary. It forced me to learn about our destinations and have a pretty good idea of where we'd be on any particular day of the week.
As a side note, the travel blogging and general planning wouldn't have been possible had I been working, so a quick moment for our organizational sponsors: Oregon's 12% unemployment rate, please take a bow.
The things you can expect to find in my upcoming posts are general time lines and destinations, any important facts/history that I deem interesting, and rudimentary maps (expertly edited in Paintbrush) to show our general travel path and location. Also, the posts will be filled with images pilfered from the internet, because I don't think I'll be able to upload any of my own in a reasonable amount of time.
Initial trip highlight predictions: Delicious sausage and cabbage, hopefully bicycling, castles, general medieval wonders, splendid natural scenes, and of course beer coupled with mild intoxication -- on life, of course. ** I will try to comment real-time as often as possible, but you can reliably know where we are by individual entries. I won't post until we get there (this is mostly for the Moms so they can sleep at night knowing we're on track and safe).
We will be on a plane to Belgium in fourteen days! I'm trying to plan out a few blog posts before we leave, so my blog isn't dead for a better part of September.*
My planning efforts for our September trip to Belgium and Germany were somewhat derailed this month because of summer school. Yesterday, I had our flight reservations changed,as the airline shifted things around and left us only 30 minutes to catch our connecting flight to Brussels in Dulles airport. Also, until today I hadn't really taken the time to work out some of the details that were left trailing since the end of July. While I had a pretty good idea about the first few days in Belgium, and the tail-end of our Germany excursion in Munich, I hadn't even picked up the guide book to explore Berlin. It seemed like an overwhelming venture and even though I really want to go, I didn't think it would be the most fun part of the trip. I think I may stand corrected.
I looked into a few places to stay in the central (Mitte) section of Berlin, but they didn't seem quite right. A lot of them had giant bars and techno clubs on the basement or first floor, which seems like it would attract the 18-20-somethings that I'm hoping to largely avoid while sleeping (no offense youngsters, but I took that trip already). I will bring along earplugs and noise-canceling headphones just in case.
After visualizing the potential hellish existence, I decided to look in areas adjacent to the Mitte and found Prenzlauer Berg, which seems to be a great compromise -- removed from the center, but not lacking active nightlife and cafes. Prenzlauer Berg is a borough that was part of the former GDR (East Germany) with its west boundary formed by the Berlin Wall. From an architectural historian's perspective, the area will be amazing with its 1950s and 60s communist/Stalinist housing blocks mingling with older tenements from earlier in the century. From the historian's perspective, it's a great part of recent world history to explore. After having Jesse read aloud sections from Stasiland, a compilation of true stories from the former East Germany, I can't wait to walk around the neighborhoods and areas that I didn't get to see very much of when I traveled to Berlin in high school and college.
Another exciting tidbit that I discovered is that most major streets in Berlin have bike lanes or tracks. Having become quite adapted to using a bike as one of my main modes of transportation here in Portland, I can't wait to see how they do it on the other side of the pond. To further my excitement, I also stumbled on an awesome website that allows you to enter any two streets in Berlin and Potsdam for the best route by bike. Given that our hostel rents bikes on site, I think it will be a large part of our three days in the city.
* If I get my act together, you'll be able to tentatively follow along with our travels (but don't hold your breath, as I'm not holding mine).
Right about this time last year, I wrote my first posts on our future plans and my exciting first visit to Portland. One year later, we're here and settled. I thought it would be a good idea to revisit the past year and realized that Jesse and I have accomplished a lot! I sat and read through my blog archives this morning and realized that my posts in February last year looked a bit different than they do now. While work, moving boxes, and tape were the focus of my attention last spring, it seems that food and projects (whether for work or pleasure) have dominated my daily routine since my arrival in Portland.
My life has changed a lot since our move and I'm just now starting to feel comfortable with my contributions to our household. Monetarily, I am not contributing in the way I did in D.C., but I am cooking a lot more and we're eating a lot healthier than before. As a result, we feel better, and I've been able to pare down our budget considerably. Also, I realized that instead of obsessing over having a full-time job that I should enjoy my time off and volunteer, continue experimenting with food, and dream about fun things in the future.
So today, that's exactly what I'm doing -- dreaming of fun things in the future. I talked with my good friend, Lauren, on the phone last night. It was good to catch up with all of her news and mine, but it was also wonderful to hear her talk about the trip she is planning to Italy with her husband, Ken, this spring. They're flying into Milan and visiting northern Italy, hitting Venice and Florence along the way. It sounds divine and I can't wait to get all of the details about their travels. It made me think about that trip that Jesse and I have been planning since before our wedding (a trip that we hoped to take as our honeymoon). Since our love was founded on beer and grilled cheese at Toledo Lounge happy hours in the early days of graduate school, we decided that a beer tour of Europe would be the most awesome honeymoon ever. Belgium and Germany produce our favorite brews, so our itinerary is pretty much set -- one week in each country. Of course, life happened and our move to Portland was much more important than a trip overseas. Life is still a bit hectic now to think about a big trip, and neither of us really want to travel to Europe in the summer, so this fall seems like the soonest that we could even think of going anywhere.
However, that hasn't stopped me from doing research on the feasibility of a vacation in September. I checked online and found out that we have enough frequent flyer miles to book round trip tickets to either Brussels or Munich. Throughout our move, we have been very careful to not touch the travel fund that we saved before our wedding, so our two weeks in beer paradise would not really affect my iron-clad budget. This afternoon (after going on a fabric-hunting trip with Anna to make a roman shade for her baby's nursery) I am going to the library and parking myself in the travel section. I'll probably also make a pass through the stacks to see if I can scrounge up a few books for Jesse on Belgian ale.
I know, I know, it's a long shot, but a what's so wrong with a little daydreaming?
The trip to Kloster Andechs (monastery) just outside of Munich was amazing on so many levels. The hike out to the monastery was refreshing, the chapel was breath-taking, and the food and beer were top notch. We shared a pork knuckle that seemed almost as big as my head and each had two 1/2 liters of beer. I started out with the Andecher Weissbier Helles (a wheat beer) and Jesse jumped right into the Doppelbock Dunkel (a darker beer). We both enjoyed the Dunkel so much that we each got another. It was probably my favorite beer in Germany.
In Regensburg, we stopped at Spital Brewery for a snack and tasty beverage. I was sad that they didn't have pretzels, so we ordered (what I thought was a fresh cheese dip with veggies). As it turns out, the bell peppers were more of a facilitator to the pound of cream cheese stuffed inside. I didn't complain, it was very good fresh cream cheese, although I thought Jesse and I might fight over the lettuce and tomato garnish. By this point in the trip we craved vegetables.
This meal in Bamberg was the straw that broke the camel's back (or my stomach). We rolled into Bamburg hungry and sleepy and headed straight for Spezial Brewery for lunch. Don't get me wrong, it was delicious, but the roast wild rabbit in a delicious gravy with a giant knödel (a potato dumpling) and cooked red cabbage was quite a lot of food to handle at lunchtime. Jesse had a pork roast that also came a dumpling and creamed broccoli. As if the food wasn't enough to knock us down for the afternoon, we washed it back with a 1/2 liter of beer (apparently the smallest glass you can obtain in Bavaria). Jesse got Spezial's specialty, the Rauchbier (smoke beer), and I got a Märzen. The food and drink filled my stomach, legs, and eyelids with sand. We both dragged ourselves around town for the rest of the day. I was officially over German food.
Belgium smelled like waffles (and sometime sewers, but mostly waffles). It's a sweet, buttery, delicious smell and I couldn't get enough. We got waffles from a vendor in Ghent and they were probably the most spectacular waffles that I've ever tasted, or will ever taste again. They're not airy like American waffles, but a dense, slightly sweet, brioche type dough. It's cooked in the waffle iron with sugar on the outside that slightly burns and crisps. With the hazelnut chocolate sauce, I could have died happy right there. 
