Tonight we returned home from a short trip to northern Bavaria where we took part in a celebration of a family birthday near Bayreuth. We went first to Staffelstein http://www.staffelstein.de which is very famous for it's half-timbered houses, its beautiful surroundings and especially the church of Vierzehnheiligen: http://tinyurl.com/ibzs http://tinyurl.com/ibzv and the former monastery Banz http://tinyurl.com/ibzy which is now used as a congress center.

Great buildings. We stayed at the hotel Roediger in a nice and spacious room that had recently renovated and we can recommend it: http://www.hotel-roediger.de/ I can recommend Staffelstein and surroundings to you if you are staying in Bamberg and if you are interested in architecture and looking for nice side-trip...

Before we returned home we got enough of those terrific fresh Franconian sausages which we usually take home when we get into that area.

Best Regards, Johannes Haltern am See, Germany