A Trip to Erding

Suffering under the burden of having to take 6 weeks of vacation a year, and only having taken 3 weeks so far for our trip to Canada, Elena and I decided we needed to get caught up. So last week we took off work and made a quick getaway to the small city of Erding, in the state of Bavaria in south-western Germany. The city is just north-west of Munich; in fact the Munich International Airport is closer to Erding than it is to Munich. But aside from that, Erding -- despite it's population of only 35000 -- is known throughout Germany for two things: the largest thermal bath park in Europe, and the largest wheat-beer brewery in the world.
Naturally, we visited both.

Erding is typically Bavarian in it's architecture, and we enjoyed a little stroll the old city center after squeezing through the tiny gate.
With it's lively-coloured buildings, pedestrian-only zones and a small river flowing through the middle, the downtown is an idyllic place to wile away a morning.












Erding's thermal bath park is very impressive and difficult to explain to North Americans not accustomed to the German concept of "Therme". Imagine a spa crossed with a giant water park: a massive complex of inter-connected buildings with three retractable roofs housing everything from saunas and whirlpools to water slides, where the lines between 'indoor' and 'outdoor' are blurred.
 

After spending the better part of two days there, we can whole-heartedly recommend it if you ever find yourself in this part of Germany.
Judging by the fact that there are two tours daily at the wheat beer brewery, they also have a large number of visitors. It was an informative and entertaining tour which allowed us to see every step of the process is making the world's most famous wheat beer. Wheat beer is a cloudy, thicker, slightly sweet beer. It is sometimes referred to as "liquid bread".

Although much of the process is automated and involves all the modern technology you would expect, it is entirely naturally-brewed and there are none of the additives found in many North American beers. The final stage of the process actually takes place in the bottle during its storage in the brewery's climate-controlled warehouse, capable of housing up to 15 million bottles.

The tour ends at the brewery's restaurant beside the stills, where everyone is treated to that most typical of Bavarian meals: white sausage with sweet mustard, a large pretzel, and of course: wheat beer.
We enjoyed the complimentary lunch with a friendly elderly couple from north-eastern Germany who were travelling around in an RV.
Interestingly, the brewery had something else from north-eastern Germany on display: an intact piece of the Berlin wall, presented to the brewery's owner (it is still privately-owned) on the occasion of his 70th birthday.