Smoky Bamberg

On the way to Bamberg, a Turkish samba band boarded our train. They had flown in from Istanbul for a music festival in a quaint German village. These sorts of things don’t happen when you rent a car.

Bamberg is famous for beer. It's most renowned for Rauchbier, or smoke beer. 'What is smoke beer?' you ask. Imagine biting into a ham sandwich. Not just any ham, more like leftover Easter ham. Now imagine that the sandwich is not a sandwich. It's actually beer. And you’re not biting it, you’re sipping it. That is what Rauchbier tastes like. They make it by smoking the malt before the beer is brewed.
 
We smelled the malt roasting when we got off the train in Bamberg, right behind the Turkish samba band. So under this haze of smokey malty aroma, Jackie, Luke, Brian and I started to explore the town.

Bamberg is still in Bavaria, but not by much. It’s in the north Bayern region of Franconia, where Frankish is still sometimes spoken.
Remember that Germany hasn't been one country for very long. Franconia was its own kingdom until 1803. Then it joined in with those redneck Bavarians but never quite gave up its own identity.
That's how the Frankish language survives today, with lots of words ending in a pretty-sounding "la". This would never happen in German, whose words often end with a clunky "gung," "lich" or "chen".

Our foursome’s energy level was a little low after three nights out in Regensburg, but that suited Bamberg just fine. It’s a small city, good for slow wandering and church gazing. There’s a 12^th century convent on a hill, a cathedral where a pope is buried, a riverfront with old bridges, cafes and breweries, of course.
This is postcard Germany.

Though any postcards from Bamberg should really be scratch 'n sniff. They would, of course, smell smoky.