We started out the month with guests: Peter and Chin came from the States to help us celebrate the Fourth of July! It was a fun visit and we took them to all the best places, from picking peas in the garden to a wonderful concert by Pommersfelden's summer orchestra.

It was all good.

One of my favorite places to show American visitors is the "Documentation Center" in Nuremberg. The museum tells the story of the Nationalist Party in Bavaria. The setting is the partially finished Congress Hall, located on the huge area where the annual Party gatherings were held. Chin is teaching American history about this period, so she was particularly interested.

In the interval when Peter and Chin were touring Berlin, we enjoyed our own local culture. The Schloss hosted an outdoor show of Cuban music and dancers. We went with our friends Christiane and Thomas and it really was a special evening.

Meanwhile, we still were enjoying our own yard show. This time of year is great for just hanging around and these couple of weeks were actually warm enough. Actually, it might have been a bit TOO warm, but we will NEVER complain!

On Sunday of the weekend, we decided to abandon yard work and just go out for a ride. We stopped for coffee at our local bakery and for cherries fresh from the orchards in the hills east of Bamberg.

Our goal was Bad Staffelstein, and more churches. I'm not sure we NEEDED to see more, but since we really had no purpose to our drive, churches are always an easy target in Bavaria.

This time, we got to watch a paragliding school on the hill outside the churches too. It was a colorful site, but all we saw were people running down a hill and stopping before their lives were at risk.

Vierzehnheiligen Kirche
Banz Cloister