Germany - Esslingen, Good times, good wine, really old stuff

Tuesday night we ventured to Esslingen for some sightseeing and dinner. Birgit Stark and I have been talking about visiting here since the last time I was here and was unable to join her there. We had a pretty large crew with us. Ben, myself, Mark, Michael, Birigt, Martin Rommler and is wife Regina, Stjepan Grzan, and one of our customers.

We took the train in from the Feuerback office, and walked directly to one of the oldest towers, the Schelzttor, built in 1286, that's right, it's old.

This tower has been commercialized and now serves ice cream..below is a local street walker that just walked off without paying for his ice cream......

An of course, right behind this tower, we have.....vineyards

This is the jailhouse where the street walker shown above was dragged to by his ankles by the local authorities.....just kidding, this is a view, in the background, of one of the old towers on the wall that used to surround the city.

There are a lot of waterways through the city like this one here.

This is a house on an island in that waterway, very good spot

and that houses gazebo overlooking the water

This is one of the oldest, if not the oldest bridge in Germany, it was built around 1229, which made Esslingen a major centre for trade on the route between Italy, Switzerland, and Northern Germany....translation, lots of toll and tax money helping to make this area wealthy.

Another view of a waterway

And Hydro power generated by the waterways

This is and old wall that used to guard the city, we are walking into the old city area

This is the church inside the old city area

The building of the accountants from the church. Back in the day, monks were the only ones who could brew beer, so the church had a lot of income from this. One of the reasons monks could brew beer, is that they have a 200 day fasting, where they cannot eat anything. Well, apparently you can live on the beer over here fro 200 days because it has a lot more calories and nutrients......sounds like a boring diet to me.

Another picture of the Schelzttor tower, this is not a real guy walking across

The Market Area

The "new" town hall, build in 1750

The old town hall, built in 1420

Old timber housing, again, some of the oldest houses in Germany

Onion Pie at a Beer Garden, great with new wine I am told

The hike up to the tower

Apparently that street walker escaped, and is now in hiding

To the left is the oldest house in Esslingen

The Einhorn, which means Unicorn, where we had dinner...this place was great

Walking down to the 700 year old wine cellar for dinner

Views from the cellar

These were my choices of lip applicators for my chapped lips.......

And some Cuvee for the road

This was a great trip, love this city, loved the Einhorn, would be a great vacation spot........