Half-timbered Houses & Beer Halls

Monday, May 1st was Europe’s Labor Day and Alex had off of work so that meant an extended weekend for traveling. We couldn’t decide what to do until the last minute so we ended up taking a little road trip to a few places in Germany we’ve never been.

Alex and I really love the small German towns. We are trying to visit as many as possible while we are here. This weekend we visited two completely different small towns and one bigger city. We stayed a night in a town called Quedlinburg. It was a really cute town filled with half-timbered houses; the houses that you think of when you think of Germany. The kind of place where most people don’t speak English (we really had to use our German skills). We wandered around the town for a few hours, commenting on all of the different versions of the half-timbered look – many houses dated back into the 1500’s! We walked up to the abbey to got a great view of the town below. Once it was time for dinner we found the perfect place. Beer halls are one of our favorite restaurants to go to in Europe. They usually have pretty good food and you get to sample the local beer. And that’s exactly where we ended up the first night and it didn’t disappoint. Another amazing little town to check off our list.

We headed out the next morning and made our way to Dresden. Along the way we stopped in another cute little German town, Meissen. Whenever we go to a new place, we always head up to the top first to check out the castle, the church or the view and this town had it all. After that, we stopped for lunch at a cute little restaurant where we could sit outside and have a nice view of the castle. Then we headed to Dresden. Once we arrived, we caught the ending of a marathon, walked along the river and enjoyed the beautiful architecture, visited the Frauenkirche, bought a few souvenirs, then headed to dinner. We had dinner at…you guessed it, a beer hall. Another good meal and great beer. After dinner, we walked through the city center around sunset. It was really pretty. That’s when Alex spotted the Biergarten sign across the river. We walked over to see what it was all about. Everyone was enjoying a beer, listening to live music, and sitting by a raging fire. We sat at the biergarten for a while listening to the music until it became too cold so we headed back.

Alex and I feel really blessed that we are able to have this European experience. He works really hard everyday to give us these opportunities and I can’t thank him enough. We are trying to make the most of being here and visiting as many places as possible. Here’s to another great weekend in the books.