Day 5 – to Ebermannstadt

Sunshine today, though still below zero.

Met one or two other dog owners while walking around the Neustadt forest this morning. My luck more likely, but it seems every dog we meet is hugely aggressive, with its owner barely managing to constrain it on its rope. I do notice that in some more residential areas people like their dogs, even train them, to be aggressive as a form of security to their property. Obviously this manifests itself when they take the dog out.

I located an indoor swimming pool nearby, and took a steam room and shower for just 3 euros. My outdoor shower is less tempting in -3C.

In the afternoon we drove a bit further north up the Aisch valley, where it is more scenic to Frucheim and the once famous hill, Kelleberg, behind it. This is, or rather was, beer festival country. There are 25 beer ‘cellars’ here, roughly constructed from wood, mainly relying on outdoor seating. They operate for several beer festivals a year; Easter which is approaching, a few others, but most famously, Oktoberfest. I use the past tense, as the pandemic has just about finished them off. It looks like they will be cancelled for Easter; Germany still has quite strict rules in place, including masks indoors. But really, they had hard times before Covid. The very many breweries of the Aisch Valley, which combine to be one of Lonely Planet’s Epic Bike Rides of the World, basically all make the same sort of beer, lager and a slightly darker beer. It’s all about 5% and they are, for me at least, very difficult to tell apart. Beer times have changed. Craft beer infiltrates the bars of Nuremberg these last years. And besides, several of these ramshackle cellars are falling down, some are even ruins.

On up the valley further to Ebermannstadt, to settle and watch the rugby before a quick beer in town and back to the van for a movie as the temperate drops. It’s hillier here, and more scenic.