Biking Bavaria

There are hundreds of bike paths around Memmingen. We love it. These are scenes along one of our favorite routes. We took it Saturday on a 25 km trek across the countryside.



See that forest ahead? We're going into the heart of it.


This is my favorite part of our route.



We continued our adventure through more woods, spotting several deer along the way.



We arrived in the town of Kronburg, and these street signs serve as an excellent marker of where we were.


I love these little church in the Bavarian towns.


We walked up to the castle, catching scents of various flowers along the way.


The view of the castle is best observed from a distance as we rode on to Illerbeuren.


In Illerbeuren, we visited the Bauernhofmuseum, which has a collection of Bavarian houses brought in from all over the country to show building styles of the various periods. I loved all of the window flower boxes.


We checked out a few of the houses and barns.




This would give a whole new meaning to bell choir.


We enjoyed our bike adventure, though it was a little warm. We'd visited the Biergarten in Kronburg for lunch where the bartender seemed surprised by our order of 2 big mugs of WASSER. In Illerbeuren, we'd also hit up a little cafe for dessert, and we were surprised by this interesting dish they served us made of apples that had been whipped up and deep fried, coated in brown zucker (sugar) and served with vanilla eis (ice cream). Just thought I'd teach all of you a little German along the way. We made our way back home and crashed.

The next day we went to Oberammergau for the great Passion Play. Over half the town takes part in this multi-million dollar production that is performed only every 10 years. It started back in 1633 when the plague was sweeping Europe and the leaders of this town made a vow to God that if he would stop the plague in their town, they would perform the play every 10 years to tell the world about Jesus.

The deaths stopped, and the town's tradition started. Except for a few years when they were forbidden to perform it (forbidden! seems strange) and years of war, they have been faithful ever since. You can get more of the fascinating story if you google it.

It was a beautiful performance, filled with still life scenes of Old Testament stories that relate to the life of Christ. We weren't allowed to take pictures, but we bought the book filled with scenes from the play, so here are a few pictures from the book.
Cain and Abel

Abraham and Isaac

Moses and Pharoah at the Red Sea