Kulmbacher Bierwoche 2013

Do great days typically start planned or unplanned?  Do you wake up and say, "Hey, today I am going to do something great and have fun doing it," or does this greatness just happen?  I have had both planned and unplanned great days, and today was definitely one of those "unplanned" type of days.  

We woke up late and were being way lazier than we normally are.  We were thinking about maybe heading to a town nearby that Justin needed to scope out for an upcoming staff ride, but other than that we had no real plans.  Keep in mind, "unplanned" is the key to this great day.

Randomly, I decided to look up what fests were happening in the Bavaria area, not particularly for today, just in general.  Low and behold, I stumbled across an announcement for a happening in Kulmbach, a town I've been wanting to go to.  Today was the start of Kulmbacher Brewery's Beer Week, or in German, Kulmbacher Bierwoche.  So like any levelheaded American living in Germany, I put on my dirndl and decided we were going to Bierwoche.  Justin was on board, but chickened out on wearing his lederhosen, something about leather and it being too hot...oh boys.

We found what appeared to be the address for parking online, walked down to our car with sunscreen lathered on (it was well into the 90s already), and starting following our GPS (also known as Navi) down the road to Kulmbach.  It was a beautiful drive (sigh, I'm going to miss this German scenery).  Once we actually made it into Kulmbach and the downtown area we kind of started to follow the cars in front of us, hoping they too were heading to Bierwoche.  As fate and our unplanned day of greatness would have it, we found a parking lot that was....wait for it...FREE!  A rare find in Germany, so hopefully we didn't miss the pay meters anywhere, but as far as we could tell this was a good old fashion free lot.  So we parked and started heading towards the noise, still unsure about exactly where we were going.

Once we found the giant beer tent and stalls set up along the streets surrounding the tent we felt quite accomplished (I think that "accomplished" feeling is more easily achieved on unplanned days).  So in we went and found some food first, bratwurst, of course, followed shortly after by ordering our first round of specially brewed Kulmbacher Fest Bier.

Prost!

2 mini brats for the price of one and all the ketchup you want
(usually you just get one tiny packet)

After our brats, Justin was still hungry, so he randomly pointed to something on the menu, as it was all in German and a little hard to recognize any words we actually do know in German.  Luckily, he picked well.
 

Roasted chicken and fries!
(only 1 packet of ketchup though)

Going along with our unplanned theme for the day we decided to buy some souvenirs (why not, right?).  We decided on a Kulmbacher Bierwoche liter mug and a cute little cookie pin for my dirndl.  Again, Justin chickened out and didn't want one, something about it being too girly...

My pin says, "I love you," in Bavarian dialect

As if this wasn't unplanned enough, we saw a castle type building up on a hill overlooking the downtown area, so naturally we should go hike up the hill and check it out, right?  Right!  We again had no real guidance or direction as to where we were going, we just kept looking up and making sure we were still headed in the right direction.  Eventually we found what we were looking for.

Hmm, let's go see what this place on the hill is all about...

Cute streets of Kulmbach

Halfway there?

Finally made it to the entrance, where we learned this is Plessenberg

Apparently it's an old fortress that once protected Kulmbach

And here is an old cannon to prove it

The view from the top was great
(The white tent just to the left of the tree behind my head
is the beer tent we started our adventure at)

The "dungeon" that was blowing cold air, which felt so good after our hike.
Also, what is that white thing?

Made it back to the beer tent

The rest of our day consisted of drinking a bit more beer, enjoying the fest music and people watching, and talking to German folk about the education system and the army.  This was actually quite interesting and again, quite unplanned, since these people came to our table outside and randomly started talking to us once they learned we spoke English.  They really wanted to practice their English.  It was an interesting talk and a unique way to end our unplanned day of greatness.

So, are great days planned or unplanned?  Both.  But unplanned days are the best :)

Unplanned greatness