Florian recommended that I check out the Weltenberg Abbey, half an hour southwest of Regensburg. "Why not?" I thought. He never steers me wrong when it comes to German travel and it's only a little bit out of the way to Schwangau, my final destination.
The Danube Gorge setting appealed to me more than the idea of a monastic brewery, one of the oldest in the world.
It's also a jumping-off spot for boat tours. I wished I'd had the time, but not with a 4:55 p.m. reservation at Neuschwanstein, three hours south near the Austrian border.
Water-level marks on the abbey wall confirmed my suspicion that the Danube, like the Rhine, has been stricken by drought. The marks go back as far as 1785, when the river surged almost as high as the top of the window.
Benedictine monks have been growing hops in the fields above the abbey since 1050. Practice makes perfect; they have won the World Beer Cup for their dunkel (dark) beer three times since the turn of this century.
Stations of the Cross, painted in the 20th century, led me to the Shrine of Our Lady on the Frauenberg Hill, tucked away behind some trees.
Sunlight flooded the 18th century Rococo interior.
Dozens of devotional works, including a needlepoint of the Virgin Mary were locked behind the shrine's interior gate.
I was back on the road by 10:30 a.m. with more than two hours of sightseeing already under my belt. Go go go when you're solo!
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