Andechs

Kloster Andechs from the bike path.
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Monday. We took the train a thirty-minute trip south to Starnberg, a town that’s both suburb and resort, sitting as it does on the northern edge of the Starnberg See, one of the beautiful lakes south of the city. Our plan was to rent bikes at the train station there and ride over to the monastery at Andechs, famous for its brewery.

There was no bike rental at the train station, though we eventually found some at a bike shop after first locating the information office in town. My German is improving, but I find myself thrown by little things. I was puzzled that the woman in the tourist office seemed to be directing us to the town hall (Rathaus) when she was in fact telling us how to get to the bike shop (Radhaus).

A Carmina Burana Experience

Bavarian Baroque in the church at Kloster Andechs.
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The ride to Andechs was a lovely ten mile ride, most of it along a bike path that followed the main road through a surprisingly rural countryside. The monastery itself was a cascade of Bavarian architecture spilling over a steep hill overlooking the countryside. It is certainly a destination for German tourists, with a slight tinge of Disneyland. No, make that Duff Gardens. No rides, but three beer gardens before you reach the church at the top of the hill. We visited the grave of Carl Orff, who is buried in a side chapel and then had lunch at the largest of the beer gardens in order to get into a suitably Carmina Burana-ish state before our ride back. Our Quaker/Protestant background doesn’t really do an adequate job of preparing us for the old Catholic practice of combining spiritual practice with a hospitality focused on meeting the very real pleasures of the body.

Beer Garden at Andechs.
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The ride back to Starnberg was somewhat slower--either in spite of or because of our pork and beer fortification--and also because we chose a longer route back that followed a series of gravel paths through farmlands and woods to a lake town south of Starnberg.