During my Bavarian Sojourn, I spent a few days in Freising. Freising is a lovely Bavarian city located just north of Munich. Freising has a population of 45,000.
It was a short train commute from Freising to the Oktoberfest, which turned out to be easy and efficient, as German trains are well known for their punctuality. You might say their trains run like a Swiss watch. Which is not a far stretch since DB Bahn runs through Switzerland as well as Germany and Austria. I have commonly heard it said that you can set your watch by the German trains. It is true. The neither arrive a minute late nor a minute early. The International Atomic Clock checks with the German trains once a month to make minor adjustments.
I stayed at the Bayerischer Hof and had excellent service. The hospitality at the Bayerischer Hof was par excellence. I am 51 years old and have been staying in hotels for all of my adult life, and I have to say I have never had better hospitality anywhere. I had a lovely conversation over dinner with retired Canadian cyclists and the hotel manager. The Canadian couple were biking across Europe. The manager was very intelligent and insightful about world politics, German economics and European culture.
Frühstuck (breakfast) is always included in the German hotels. Frühstuck is nothing like the American “continental” breakfast where you get dried out English muffins and instant oatmeal. The frühstuck in the german hotels was an elaborate spread of a wide variety of foods. Forgive the incredibly long list, but this is what they had: Fresh cold cuts and varied cheeses, whole grain breads and various fresh rolls and pastries, assorted locally made jams and jellies, assorted fruits, fresh yogurts, eggs made to order, bacon, sausages, waffles to order, coffee, tea, juices, Nutella (they were big on Nutella). The frühstuck could easily cover your needs for breakfast and lunch, especially if you have nice pockets in your suit coat, if you know what I mean (wink wink). Oh, I’m just kidding. (….Maybe).
One thing that was a new experience for me as an American in Germany was the locks on the doors. In America, all our hotels have electronic keys which you slide a card into a slot to open. Not in Germany. they have big huge keys, and you have to unlock and re-lock your door both from the inside and outside These keys matched the big german word for key, “Schlüssel.” They have to make them bigger than American keys to match the magnitude of the words. I’m just glad they are not named “Schlüsselfürschlösser,” then they would not have fit in my pocket. (Schlüssel für Schlösser means key for locks … and I would not put it past the Germans to make up such a word, if you know anything about the German language, you know what I mean.)
Right next door to the Bayerischer there was Dirndl shop, so naturally that is where I went to get my Lederhosen and hat. Like the hotel, the service at the dirndl shop was outstanding. The clerks spoke hardly any English, so it was a great test of my rudimentary german and iPhone translator. Lederhosen are traditionally made from goat leather. They date back at least to the mid-18th century, and are originally the traditional clothing of mountain shepherds. The Dirndl originated as an Austrian maid’s dress. In this day and age, Germany’s top models are paid high dollars to wear designer dirndls at the Oktoberfest opening ceremony. The word is shortened from “DirndlKleid.” Kleid is “dress.” Dirndl, in some Austrian dialects, is “girl.” So you could go to the Oktoberfest and see Dirndls wearing Dirndls. Although this represents the historical language; I’ve never heard a modern German referring to a girl (Mädchen) as a Dirndl. I think if I had walked up to a girl at the Oktoberfest and said “hey dirndl, nice dirndl,” she would have slapped me and called me a stupid American Lederhosen.
Apparently, many cities in Germany adopt an animal mascot. They’ve done this for centuries. I wonder if this is an evolutionary forerunner to sports teams naming themselves after ferocious animals? Maybe some American cities should do the same. Detroit could be the Dodo bird because it is just about extinct from lack of ability to adapt quickly enough. Washington DC could be the Mockingbird; they say what you want to hear but it isn’t their real song. Freising, for whatever reason, identified with bears. Bavaria, as a larger region, identified with lions. (There are no lions in Bavaria; neither large cats nor Detroit footballers). So all around the city of Freising were whimsically painted bear statues.
Freising has the oldest brewery the world; Weihenstephen. Weihenstephen began in the year 1040. (The beer isn’t a thousand years old, just the brewery.) To put that in perspective, other things that happened in the same year: 1. Harthacunte lands in Sandwich and claims the English throne. 2. Block printing invented in China. 3. Lady Godiva rode naked through Mercia and 3. Weihenstephan starts brewing beer in Bavaria. The only one that remains? The Bavarian brewery. Weihenstephen is now owned by the German state of Bavaria. Weihenstephen actually has a university, where they teach, of course, brewing. They also offer degrees in university -- B.S. and Master's in biotech, engineering, renewable resource, landscape, architecture and applied science. The university is also the home of a beautiful flower garden.
I would definitely visit Freising again.
Every picture in this post was taken by me, with my iPhone-c. Many of these buildings date back to the 13th century. Enjoy these pics of the city of Freising:
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