Kelheim More ruins!

Andrew's parents visited for a week in early October so, eager to show off our new breathtaking  countryside, we planned a day in Essing and Kelheim.  It turned out to also be a day of superlatives!  Here is the Essinger Holzbruecke - the longest wooden bridge in Europe! 

While hiking up to the Klausenhoehle (Klausen caves), we nearly stepped on this little guy.  Of course, our kids just wanted to keep it.  We declined...

No flashlight...

With a flashlight!

We were concerned the kids might be getting sick of caves but NO!  These were completely natural (ie no protective rails or guano warnings...) and we only finally turned back because it was getting so steep and slippery that the grown-ups were getting nervous!

Then we took a river cruise along the "Beautiful Blue" Danube River.  In Kelheim, it joins the Main-Danube Canal.  Completed in 1992, the canal is 171 km (106 miles) long and runs from Bamberg on the Main River to Kelheim on the Danube River, permitting traffic to flow between the North Sea and the Black Sea.  That's a 3,500-km (2,200-mile) waterway that runs through 15 countries! 

 

It took 40 minutes to travel upstream to the famous Weltenburger Kloster, a monastery founded in 617 A.D.!  Yep, that's older than my country too Andrew.... :)  As interesting as the monastery and church are, the real draw is the beer, brewed by monks since 1050 A.D.  Their Dunkel Barock has been dubbed the Best Dark Beer in the World!  Of course we couldn't let this opportunity pass us by...

 The Biergarten was located under a beautiful canopy of chestnut trees.  Idyllic, right?  We thought so too until the breeze caused a chestnut bombardment!  It was like a SNL skit, chestnuts plopping in people's glasses or bonking them on the head.  Some people even quickly put up umbrellas.  Andrew and Serena both came home with welts.  Emma and Declan loved it though and just ran around frantically collecting all the Kastanien!