Since we work with the students during the day, the long evenings (16+ hour days) are our time to do some sightseeing. Tuesday we left Schweinfurt at 4ish and took the train to Bamberg. It is a beautiful town between two arms of the the Regnitz River. 
LuAnn, her husband Joe and I aimlessly walked around the town for 3 hours. We saw church steeples in the distance and using sight as our directions finally arrived under the ringing church bells of the romanesque Bamberg Cathedral. At each half hour, the bells ring for about twenty minutes. On this particular hill we came across many more than one hill’s share of churches!
The old town of Bamberg has been a UNESCO World Heritage site since 1993, probably because of its authentic medieval appearance. We found the town particularly refreshing–the homes along the river are adorned with beautiful flowers and the bridges have flower boxes all long the railing. Bamberg is very walkable, we began our 4 hour stroll from the train station.
Dr. Valenzuela met us about 7:30 and directed us to old town, his favorite part of Bamberg. It begins at a stone bridge across the river. The beautiful, but stately, town hall stands above the bridge. As soon as we crossed the bridge, we felt the vibe–tourists and locals ambling along the mostly pedestrian streets, past shops, restaurants and beer gardens. Bamberg is famous for its micro breweries that are in this area. We had dinner outside at Scheiners am Doff. It took us awhile to order since the menu was in German and the waitstaff spoke very little German. We used Google Translate, LuAnn’s small German/English dictionary, LuAnn’s recently developed German vocabulary, and some intuition to determine our orders. The food was good, but unlike the French, the portion size was enormous! After dinner at about 10:30, we returned to the train station and on to Schweinfurt on the 11:02 train.
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