The Path Less Traveled: Germany - Day 6: A Walk in the Devil's Cave

The day started out very beautiful, not too cold, a bit cloudy...very nice. Tammy and I slept until 9 AM, but we felt like we could sleep a little longer. Since we've been here, we have been sleeping 8 to 10 hours a night, its been great and obviously much needed. I think our bodies were letting us know that we were a bit stressed with the move and now that we are not unpacking, painting, etc...our bodies are saying "Thank God we can rest now!"...and that's exactly what we are doing.

After breakfast, everyone had left for work. Manuel, Michael and Renate were to pick us up around 1 PM, so Tammy and I decided to take a little walk around the block. We came across some beautiful flowers. There was a guy tending to his fence and as we walked by, Tammy started laughing. She said he looked like a gnome with his pointy knit cap. Unfortunately we didn't get a picture of that, but got a few of the flowers....

After they all came over we had a good lunch of spatzle (pronounced spats-lay) with cheese and also a lettuce salad fresh from Gerharts garden. We then drove to Pottenstein, a little village in the Switzerland of Franconia. The scenery was very beautiful and nothing like what we have seen in Germany before. Although the mountains weren't very high, they seemed high, like the north Georgia mountains, but the rock features were amazing.

In Pottenstein was the Teufelshohle, or in English, The Devil's Cave. This cave was home to many bear that occupied this cave over 30,000 years ago. There is a skeleton of a bear that was approximately 12 feet high and weighed around 900 pounds. There were many beautiful natural structures in the cave with many stalagtites and stalagmites. The temperature in the cave was 9C or 48F.

Video of us going through a passage

After we finished at the cave, we left for Bamburg. This was a city built on a river with several canals running through it making it the Venice of Germany. It was a very beautiful city, and to help us out in learning about the city, Renate's friend Svenja (pronounced Sven-ya) was our tour guide. She is an English major and although still in school, she gives tours for tourists through the summer. She was kind enough to give us a VIP tour, giving us little details about Bamburg that we would likely never have known. As we crossed the main river that goes next to the city center, there were several kayakers working a kayak course...

Video of some kayaking through the kayak course...

More pics of Bamburg...

For dinner we went to a Bier Garten. The food was excellent and we tried a smoked beer. All I can say is that it tasted like I was sitting at a camp fire and drinking bacon. It was interesting, but I thought the flavor was good. When we were just about done eating, the live music started and this consisted of a guy playing a standup bass and another guy playing guitar and singing old country American songs. I really didn't get why, in Bamburg, Germany, at a Bier Garten was a guy singing American songs, go figure! His songs were okay, but one song that we have heard for the 2nd time since we have been in Germany was Johnny Cash's song "Ring of Fire." Not sure why this seems to be becoming a theme.