[Apologies for the earlier blank post. Hit the wrong button. It also means I couldn’t fully edit this post so there may be some errors/omissions that I’ll have to correct later]
Friday evening, some elected to stay on board while Linda and I opted for the trip to a winery in the Eberbach Monastery, founded by an Augustinian order, but “handed over” to Benedictine Monks in 1131. It’s now a secularly managed winery and events space/education center/museum
We walked around the grounds and heard about the rigorous lives of the Benedictines. My summary: Lots of prayer, not much sleep, and they had to invite lay-brothers into the monastery because there was a lot of work to do when not praying. They also offered herbal medicine and food to the struggling community around them (Sadly we didn’t get to visit their herb garden on this visit).
The monastery is supposed to be one of the best restored in Europe (the lion on the lawn is some promotion going on all around the area - like the bulls awhile back in NYC)
I’ll bent the monks would have appreciated this more modern approach to mowing the lawns:
Next we were led into the barrel room of the old winery for a tasting of 3 different Reislings, the specialty of the winery and the region. All tasty in my opinion, though differing in sweetness to dryness
After the tasting, we took a tour of some of the other ares in the compound, including the monks’ meeting room and the monastery church. They asked for someone to sing to demonstrate the acoustics which were amazing (our guide said the sound lasts for 7 seconds). After my wine tasting, I was willing to sing a hymn, but there’s no picture or recording sadly. The sound truly did linger I recall learning in College Glee Club that the music of the time was meant to layer as it progressed
Last stop on the tour was the collection of wine presses used through the years. Truly impressive in their size (and when you consider they were operated by hand). I wish I‘d taken a shot with a person for scale.
After the tour we had a lovely dinner in the old refectory and now that we were newly acquainted, we could choose the right wine to go with our meals. As often happens, we were too involved in food and conversation to take pictures of the meal, but it was very good.