So now that the crazy month of November is over (in terms of both politcs, death, NaNoWriMo), I can finally get back to talking about some of other fun adventures I had been having.  I have a few hikes from August and September but those have videos that have yet to be made so I will get to those when I have enough time to sit and play with some video editing (which will hopefully be around Christmas – when T and I will be heading to the States!).

Until then, I am going to fill you in on some other delightful things I have been enjoying the last few months.

So first, I am going to talk about my overnight trip to Eichstätt.  This happened all the way back in October while T and I were in Hilgi for our year Muswiese festival. I know….it was a while ago 😉

Anyway, Eichstätt is the hometown of my Maid of Honor, Nicola.

Anyway, she and I have been planning a trip in a few years to go to Peru and the States (so she and her husband can both see my two “home” countries) – but it only seemed fair that I also see where she hails from.

Eichstätt is a town in Bavaria that sits in the very picturesque with the Altmühl river flowing through it.

Nico and I stayed with her parents (who are absolutely lovely people).  T was off at a conference in Stuttgart for the days I was there, so I also had Abner with me.  This ended up working out because Nico’s family also have a dog, Lilly. Lilly is a little older than Abner and not as big on playing but they got along well enough (once Lilly established that she’s the top dog of the house, which Abner had no objections to….they were cool).

As you may have guessed, we spent the first day going on a lovely nature walk through the lands owned by Nico’s mother’s side of the family.  They own a quarry which sits off to the far left of the following photo, which mainly produce Solnhofen Limestone that dates back to the Jurassic period that is then made into tiles. Once upon a time, the area that is now known as Eichstätt was all underwater.  As a result there have been also a lot of fossils discovered in this area including the well known Archaeopteryx.

We eventually made out way into the town itself and it was very lovely.

Eichstätt is considered a Catholic city (yay!).  The Diocese was founded by St. Willibald in 741 A.D. and above the town is his castle. So of course Nico and I drove up there to get the perfect view of the town.  Also they have a natural history museum where you can also see the fossilized remains of an Archaeopteryx.

If you ever find yourself in Bavaria, I highly recommend visiting Eichstätt.  The fact that it had a Natural History Museum at a castle was pretty much a win for me.  Of course, I really got nerdy excited when I saw fossils of Horseshoe Crabs.  Why? Well, the blood of this arthropod is made into a Lysat that is essential to Endotoxin testing….which is what I do for a living.  So the Horseshoe Crab is sort of my spirit animal at the moment 😉

We there for barely 24 hours but it was definitely enough of a taste to want to come back 😀 I also bought a Dirndl there…but I will save that for a later post 😉

Bis nächste Woche!