Five Days in Upper Franconia (Journal Included)

Note about photos: There are additional photos in the Trip Album. The photo captions are only visible if you follow the link and view the photos from the Flickr website.

Note about places: If you look at the "Schedule View," you will find more information about the specifc places we visited. Most of the listings include a description, contact information, and sometimes there is a hyperlink to the web site.

This is part two of a travelogue about a summer vacation I took with my parents. The first part of the vacation was a trip to Finland, from June 27 - July 7. The travelogue for that trip is called Eleven Days of Summer in Finland.

We arrived in Frankfurt an hour later than expected, due to a thunderstorm in Helsinki that delayed our departure. Lunch on the airplane consisted of penne pasta with tomato sauce, steamed broccoli, a roll with butter, a small chocolate bar, and a bottle of water. There was also complimentary beer and wine. We landed around 4:30 p.m. Luckily, we got through security very quicly. We didn't see our friend right away at the end of the terminal, so we turned on our cell phone. It was not receiving a strong signal, so I walked outside and our friend was standing with his car in the short term parking lane. He had kindly brought us some snacks and beverages, which were greatly appreciated.

We had a three hour drive from Frankfurt to Bad Berneck, mostly on the Autobahn. Our friend was very familiar with the route and drove quickly and confidently. A particularly large, modern wimdmill is at the turn to go in to town. There are no windmills like that in the Washington, D.C. area, so I am always amazed when I see one.

Bad Berneck reminded me of Harpers Ferry, WV, regarding the topography. The town is built into a hillside that is part of a mountain range known as the Fichtelgebirge. When I was searching for an English description of the town, I came across this in Google Books:

Handbook for Travellers in Southern Germany: Being a Guide to Wurtemberg, Bavaria, Austria, Tyrol, Salzburg, Styria, &c., The Austrian and Bavarian Alps, and the Danube from Ulm to the Black Sea.
10th Edition, Revised.
London: John Murray, Albemarle Street.
Paris: A. & W. Galgnani and Co.; A. Xavier. 1867. Page 120.

Berneck. -- Inn : Post.  A village in a valley so narrow as barely to afford room for two rows of houses. On a cliff above tower the ruins of an old castle of the Knights of Wallenrode, destroyed in the Hussite War. One of the family built the little chapel on his return from the Holy Land in 1480.

The small stream, a tributary of the Main, which traverses Berneck, is famed for its trout, and for its pearls, obtained from a species of mussel. A Royal Pearl-fishery still exists here. The shell in which the pearls are found is the Unio sinuatus; they are not of fine colours, nor very large size. The time of collecting them is the months of June and July, and the number found in one season is about 150. The fishery is preserved as a royal monopoly. In former days a gallows was planted by the river-side, in terrorem. The little stream crossed near the end of this stage is the Perlenbach, above mentioned.

The pearl fishery is not there anymore, nor is the gallows. But, we saw plenty of trout in the creek  going through town, which is much bigger than a "small stream."

The pictures above and on the left give you an idea of the view from the dining room of our friends' house.

Dinner was salad (what we call spring mix, or field greens), sauerbraten, dumplings, and an absolutely beautiful raspberry torte for dessert.

It was nice to be back in a place where it actually got dark at night! I slept very well.