Bamberg, the town of a thousand (or 500, or 200... or maybe 50) beers

On our way to Munich we stopped in Bamberg, a pretty little city in the north of Bavaria, in a region called Franconia, which is quite famous for its brewing tradition, including the infamous Rauchbier (smoked beer that really tastes like... smoke). The old city is designated a UNESCO world heritage site on account of its well-preserved city centre which dates back to the middle ages. Luckily, the weather gave us a bit of a break, and was just fantastic while we were there.

This made for a nice time wandering around and enjoying the sights, such as the picturesque row of fisherman's houses which came to be known as "little Venice"...
...and the old Rathaus (city hall), which was built onto a bridge across the river, as the bishop wouldn't grant a permit to build it anywhere in the city (or so the story goes). This pictures shows the nice half-timbered middle-ages side of it, and not the rather over-the-top baroque addition on the other side.And speaking of over-the-top Baroque stylings, we also visited this church while we were there:
And because Chris just loves the churches, we also saw the old Romanesque Dom (cathedral) which was on top a hill overlooking the city. As we were leaving there was a group of female Japanese tourists going in who were completely enamoured with Owen. There were many pictures taken of him, and he was even given a candy. And he wasn't even smiling or waving or clapping! I'm almost afraid to think what might have happened had he pulled out all the stops with them. (I'm also curious what they do with pictures of other people's babies when they get home, but I guess that's the wonder of digital.)
Here's a nice picture of Chris and Karen on one of the many bridges crossing the river through the city.
As you may be able to tell from the pictures by the river, the water level was higher than usual after all the rain that we had in the preceding week, and we were entertained by watching a boat full of tourists on the river just barely fit under one of the bridges. We really weren't sure they'd make it, but then they lowered their flagpole (just in time) and announced for everyone on the open upper deck to sit down. (Of course, being Europe, which generally pays less attention to public health and safety than we poor Canadians are accustomed to, they announced this mere moments before passing under the bridge.)

Here you can see a house that has one side almost completely covered (literally!) with climbing roses. There aren't so many flowers, possibly also because it's October, but it was still quite impressive to us.While in Bamberg Karen also did some of the only shopping of the whole vacation, picking up a pair of Birkenstocks at a little nook of a shop just crammed full of them. (Only 49 euros including all taxes, which is much cheaper than the standard price in Canada.) Chris thought the shop was so cool that he had me ask if he could take a picture:
On Sunday night we went out for a nice supper at a pretty cool restaurant that, among other interesting decor, had chandeliers made out of bunches of suspended wine glasses. Here's Owen enjoying his supper with mom and dad:I know that all kids like to play with beer bottles, but Owen will fight with all his little might to get at anything at all that has anything to do with beer. While he was sitting on my lap after supper he was doing his damnedest to get at mine. I ended up finishing it and filling it with some water from his bottle so he could drink it, but by that time he'd so completely charmed the entire staff of the restaurant that they brought him his own beer glass with water in it. (This is doubly impressive as it's almost unheard of to get tap water or any free water at all in a restaurant here. Owen is just that cute.)
And despite what it may look like, Owen didn't actually get any beer. That had to wait until Oktoberfest, of course...