A final hotel breakfast in the fabulous Hotel Weiss Hirsch to get us up on our feet and out the door this morning to Goslar Hauptbanhof. It was a 15min walk back to the station, and only a 30min train ride (standing) before we we set foot in Goslar. We had a short walk (10mins) to our Airbnb accomodation the Ferienwohnung im Weberturm. While I waited with the luggage for about 40 minutes, the others went to the supermarket for supplies.
In no time the Airbnb rep was there with the keys and showed me through the place. It was as amazing as it looked on the website. 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, 3 toilets, with 7 rooms all one on top the other, connected by a spiral staircase, and all inside an old city wall tower (the Weberturm). What an amazing place to spend a chill christmas over the next 3 days!
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| Ferienwohnung im Weberturm |
We've also discovered that the town council of Goslar has determined that the christmas market is not in any immediate danger, and that in their opinion is it better to keep the market open as a response to the terrorist attack in Magdeburg. Amazing news!
So after setttling in, and resting with a nice coffee from the drip filter machine, we ventured out to explore the Marktplatz and the christmas market (quickly! as it was only open until 2pm).
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| The famous Goslar christmas market, and more hot mead! |
We wandered the market for a while, mainly looking for purveyors of ceramic tealight houses. We didnt find a single one! We had wanted to buy each of us one as a christmas gift, but now christmas day will be giftless. So disappointing! We're going to have to find some tealight houses online once we arrive back home. We couldn't leave the market without sampling the hot mead now that we had a taste for it!
We wandered home as the market was winding down, then back out again nearer to 7pm for our christmas-eve dinner reservation at Restaurant Worthmühle. The restaurant itself was housed in an old mill sitting on the side of the small stream running through town.
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| Restaurant Worthmühle |
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| Bier #29 - Krombacher Hefeweizen |
For essen, Katrina and I went with the hunter's plate - duck, venison and wild boar, while the kids stuck with schnitzel. It was pretty good, althought I kinda wish I'd played it safe with the schnitzel too ;).
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| The hunter's plate |
For our second bier, we went with bier #30 for the trip - the restaurant's own cellar bier. It was cloudy, which was good, but in the end a little too hoppy for my taste.
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| Bier #30 - Worthmühle Kellerbier |
We finished the night off with a round of Jagermeister shots - a very popular digestive in this region of the country (and a very popular pre-game in others). I was pleasantly surprised by how good it was (if strong).
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| Jagermeister - the utimate, erm, digestive! |
After dinner, we walked back to the apartment via the now empty market, taking a christmas-eve family photo in the deserted christmas forest.
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| A photo in the christmas forest. |
Day 2 in Goslar - Christmas Day dawned clear and blue, at least for a few hours. We took our time getting up and out, drinking drip coffee and eating frosted wheaty cereal in the apartment (luxury!). We were so lazy, that in the end we needed to hustle to make it out in time for our midday lunch reservation at Brauhaus Goslar.
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| Bauhaus Goslar - christmas lunch |
The first order of business in the brauhaus was drinks, and we ordered a round of the famous Gose style of beer that originated in Goslar around 1000AD. The beer is a kind of ale that was originally brewed using the local salty river water, and has herbs (most notably coriander) to give it a slight sour note. We ordered bier #31 for the trip - Gose Dunkel and it was very nice once you got used to the slight bitter/sour notes.
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| Bier #31 - Gose Dunkel! |
This time around I did not go past the schnitzel, and I am so glad I didnt. It was glorious. We spent a good two hours over lunch talking shit and making merry. Eb and I ordered a second round, making that a litre of Gose each. As I said - merry.
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| A great lunch at Goslasr Brauhaus |
After lunch, we went for a walk along the small river, back past Restaurant Worthmühle from the night before. It was a nice walk, although toilets were required at interval.
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| A better look at Restaurant Worthmühle. |
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| Walking the small river in Goslar |
After an afternoon rest in which we sat down to a movie (Collateral) and drank yet more coffee, it was time to venture out again for dinner at the Paulaner Wirthaus. Before that though, we had promised ourselves a ride on the teeny ferris wheel at the christmas market - after I had totally gutto'd out at the Erfurt market.
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| On the teeny ferris wheel. Much more my speed. |
This ferris wheel was totally fine, even though the fucking thing never stopped swaying. I could even say it was fun, even with everyone teasing me mercilessly. After our ride, it was dinner time - and a brief travel back to Bavaria.
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| Bier #32 - a litre Mass of Paulaner Weizen |
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| Dinner ar the Paulaner Wirsthaus. |
Having had a huge, beery lunch, we weren't that hungry. But still, Eb and I did order a litre of Hefeweizen each, this time in 1 litre Masses since he didn't get to do it in Munich (or even Andechs). Suffice to say the weizen from the tap was glorious, and having a whole litre was more glorious still. With 2 litres of bier per day becoming somewhat of the norm on this trip, I do feel like I may be developing a problem.
I'm even gonna call this bier #32 of the trip - a litre Maas of Paulaner Hefeweizen. Just for the record.
Day 3 in Goslar - Boxing Day - I rose this morning with the intention of sourcing some milk for coffee and cereal. The chances were slim - it being the "2nd day of christmas" and all - but I thought I'd give it a try. First I headed back towards the bahnhof, but got no joy - just the odd open bakery. I then walked back towards the marktplatz and a halal supermarket we had seen the day before. Surely a halal supermarket wouldn't need the 2nd day of christmas off? Apparently, yes.
And so, it was black filtered coffee and dry cereal for breakfast. To be honest, the coffee wasn't half bad. Taking our milk-less breakfast at a very leisurely pace, we finally got out of the apartment mid-morning with the aim of climbing the tower of the Marktkirche. It was decidedly foggy when we stepped out the front door, but we thought that might add some flavour to proceedings.
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| Up to the tower of the Goslat Marktkirche. |
We duly found the church (right next to the christmas market), and up, up up we went! Those 220 squeaky wooden stars just went up and up around the inside of the square tower, with nothing but emptiness off to the left hand side. We made it up, and fuck was it high. I almost immediately freaked out - the railing was just a metal rail, completely see-through like the Rothenburg rathaus tower. I managed to be able to stand up there only if I stayed close to the stairwell and didnt look straight down. Oof. The fog was still pretty thick, but at times it parted and you could make out plenty of detail on the ground. What was always easy to make out, and which sent my stomach reeling, was the roof of the tower next to, and just below, us.
After this harrowing experience, Eb and I decided to head back towards the apartment while Katrina and Clau headed towards the Goslar Imperial Palace. I wanted to get a start on this here treatis (I had been avoiding it for days) and christ only knows what Eb was planning. On our way back, we stopped into the christmas market for sustenance; finding ourselves on the better end of a large Krakauer with senf and ketchup. One of the better market wursts to date. Yum!!
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| A pair of Krakauers - so damn good! |
Replete for now, we returned to our homely Turm. I got started typing this very document. After about an hour or so, with Goslar day 2 complete (if not cogent), my body started telling me that something wasn't right. Something important was missing. I realised, quite quickly, that my body wanted beer. Very specifically beer. It was 2pm and it hadn't had a litre of beer for lunch. A little worrying I think you'll agree, but when in Rome.. And so I put the proposition to Eb - why are we currently in Germany, sitting here inside, without a beer in our hands? He readily agreed that it wasn't right. The only real question was Gose or Weizen?
In the end, our memories of the weizen from the night before won out, so off we jogged back to the Paulaner Wirsthaus. We grabbed a trinken-only seat at the small bar and were sipping on frosty weizen in short order.
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| Paulaner Weizen - what alchoholics are made of. |
As we slowly emptied that first half litre, we began to wistfully remember how good the Gose had been, and lamented the fact that we hadn't tried the Gose Helles variety. And so the decision was made to quit the Paulaner (as good as it was) and debunk back to Brauhaus Goslar and some Gose.
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| More Gose at Brauhaus Goslar. As good as memory made it! |
While we were standing at our trinken table, alternating pulls on our beers and sniffs of the barley and salt mixture on the table (which we'd also played with on our first visit) I noticed a dude across the room motioning to me to scoop some onto my palm and eat it! Turned out this was a Canadian called Dan, and his suggestion was a total revelation for us. It tasted so good!
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| Roasted barley & salt - Dan gave us the lowdown! |
I thanked Dan and we had a bit of a chat. He mentioned that he was going to suggest to us an Aqua-vit as an after meal chaser. I offered to buy his when he was ready. What a nice dude. Anyway, soon Katrina and Clau joined us and we were able to get round 2 in. For me it was a chance to sample bier #33 of the trip - Brauhaus Golsar - Gose Hell. Everyone agreed that the Helles was actually better than the Dunkel - much more flavourful. I thought it so good that I had to buy one of the smaller glasses from the brauhaus as a souvenir.
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| Bier #33 - Brauhaus Gosler Gose Hell. |
During this latest visit tho Brauhaus Gosler, I also managed to take a snap of the hilarious writing painted in the mens toiletten "Please help us to separate... Gose and Ramelberger Pils".
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| Hilarious writings in the Brauhaus WC |
When we finally got back to the apartment, Eb and I were a little worse for wear, but not too bad. But Eb in his infinite wisdom started in on a bottle of Rose that our hosts had left for us. Bad decision. It didnt take long for him to start throwing up, and he was in no fit state to join us for dinner in an hour or so when it was time to go out again.
Our reservation this evening was at the Butterhanne - the restaurant that we'd try to get into on the christmas morning for breakfast (with no luck). With Eb remaining back at the apartment, we settled in. Our server was a very nice lady! We went for pretty safe dishes this time around - steak and chips, and spaghetti bolognaise, with no alcohol for once (I'd drunk enough for one day).
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| Safe meals at the Butterhanne. |
Having ordered relatievly smaller meals than usual, we felt compelled to order desert for the first time this trip. I decided to grab a creak puff with icecream and chocolate sauce. Our nice server asked me - "Do you want a large one, or a really large one?" I told her large would be more than enough, but I think she was only fucking with us. The thing that came out was huge with 3 sets of cutlery sticking out of it.
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| The fucking huge cream puff. |
That thing finished us off well and truly. Our server even scolded us when she came back and the thing wasn't finished. Damn! On the way home we decided to get Eb a pizza and found a nice family run pizza place in which to buy him one. By the time we got back to the apartment he'd stopped throwing up and was able to inhale the thing.
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