October 1-2 - Trip Days 49-50 - Tübingen
On October 1, we caught a train to Tübingen, which is northeast of Munich, sort of in the Stuttgart metro area. Closest major airport is Frankfurt am Main.
Our friend Rachel, who we know from UW, is a postdoc at the university in Tübingen, so the main reason for going there was to visit her. She has a very nice apartment and actually had a pretty comfortable air mattress for us to sleep on.
Tübingen is in the state of Swabia (Schwaben) - and frankly, the vast majority of my time in Germany has been in Bavaria, so it was great to visit another state for once! For instance, I had Schupfnudeln for the first time (with goat cheese and apples and nuts, yum). Also, the restaurant she took us to had pitchers of beer - don't think I've seen that in Germany before!
Tübingen has a charming and well-preserved (or well restored?) medieval old town:
There's a castle on a hill, which is now a university building, home to the archaeology department. Those lucky dogs!
It's also a university town, which means that you see silly things like this.
"Dr. Acula: Office hours daily, midnight to 6 AM. Bloodletting by appointment."
On our second day in Tübingen, we took a short bus ride to an old monastery in Bebenhausen, north of Tübingen. The monastery was founded in something like the 10th or 11th century. It stopped being a monastery in the 1600s because of the Reformation, but the buildings were preserved. The rulers of Swabia used the property, and eventually (in the 1800s) built a "modest hunting lodge" there, which was actually a pretty swanky mansion, but with a vaguely rustic style (or, a king's idea of rustic style) along with the fanciness.
In summary:
It was really friend to see our friend Rachel and see how she was living in Tübingen. Tübingen itself is a rather small town, but we enjoyed wandering the old town and having good Swabian food and beer. We also got to enjoy some American style IPA homebrew at Rachel's! The monastery at Bebenhausen was an excellent side trip. There are other good side trips in the area for sure, but our stop in Swabia was pretty brief so we didn't do other stuff. The Ritter Sport factory, for example, was unfortunately not accessible by public transit. :(
Our friend Rachel, who we know from UW, is a postdoc at the university in Tübingen, so the main reason for going there was to visit her. She has a very nice apartment and actually had a pretty comfortable air mattress for us to sleep on.
Tübingen is in the state of Swabia (Schwaben) - and frankly, the vast majority of my time in Germany has been in Bavaria, so it was great to visit another state for once! For instance, I had Schupfnudeln for the first time (with goat cheese and apples and nuts, yum). Also, the restaurant she took us to had pitchers of beer - don't think I've seen that in Germany before!
Tübingen has a charming and well-preserved (or well restored?) medieval old town:
There's a castle on a hill, which is now a university building, home to the archaeology department. Those lucky dogs!
It's also a university town, which means that you see silly things like this.
"Dr. Acula: Office hours daily, midnight to 6 AM. Bloodletting by appointment."
On our second day in Tübingen, we took a short bus ride to an old monastery in Bebenhausen, north of Tübingen. The monastery was founded in something like the 10th or 11th century. It stopped being a monastery in the 1600s because of the Reformation, but the buildings were preserved. The rulers of Swabia used the property, and eventually (in the 1800s) built a "modest hunting lodge" there, which was actually a pretty swanky mansion, but with a vaguely rustic style (or, a king's idea of rustic style) along with the fanciness.
In summary:
It was really friend to see our friend Rachel and see how she was living in Tübingen. Tübingen itself is a rather small town, but we enjoyed wandering the old town and having good Swabian food and beer. We also got to enjoy some American style IPA homebrew at Rachel's! The monastery at Bebenhausen was an excellent side trip. There are other good side trips in the area for sure, but our stop in Swabia was pretty brief so we didn't do other stuff. The Ritter Sport factory, for example, was unfortunately not accessible by public transit. :(