Successful arrival in Hochenbercha.

Phew! I finally made it to Munich, Bavaria, on Air Berlin, retrieved my luggage and found a taxi. What should have been 35 Euros from the airport to Hochenbercha, the town where we were to stay, turned into 55 Euros (about $70.00). If I had made the first flight, I was supposed to have met my roommate (Mary Ellen Dorey from Dallas, Texas) in the terminal for an afternoon of sight-seeing in Munich. Because I missed the flight, I phoned her from Dusseldorf and she decided to go on to the hotel to get settled in. We would have shared a taxi (that we were told would cost 35 Euros). Not only did I have to pay the whole fare, it wound up being considerably more expensive. Ouch! My little mistake has been quite costly all around.

Original building, Gasthaus Hoerger.

I rolled my suitcase into the lobby of the main building of the Biohotel Hoerger in the rural town of Hochenbercha where I checked in and received the key to the room. A kind young man in lederhosen offered to take one of my suitcases for me, so I gratefully accepted the help. Turns out that the residential part of the hotel is a separate structure. The main building is the restaurant, bar, and reception area. Next door, the Hoerger family built a completely eco-friendly, wooden building that is constructed of sustainable materials and apparently shielded from electromagnetic radiation. That also means that there is no wi-fi. Any posting or e-mailing will have to be done from the main building.

Hallway to the rooms with lighted entrances.

Following lederhosen guy, I pulled my suitcase along a bumpy, gravel driveway over to the biohotel, a long, two story structure that was only as wide as one room and the outside hallway. The room I shared with Mary Ellen was towards the far end of the ground floor (see photo to the right). I found out later from Mary Ellen, that the helpful young man was actually Antonio, the waiter that had been serving their group at their late lunch. She noticed me check in at the front desk and then wondered why the waiter disappeared for a while. Little did I know that he wasn't a check-in person, but was really the waiter. Maybe he was a Jack of all Trades. Perhaps he was even the chef, who knows?

As I was unpacking my suitcases, Mary Ellen came in and introduced herself. We decided that because we had a couple of hours before we were to meet the group  for dinner, we would take a walk through the town to orient ourselves and stretch our legs. Behind the hotel and up on a little hill, a church steeple reached above the trees, so we made our way along the winding streets to a stairway that led up to the church yard. Just beyond the gate and before the door to the chapel was the cemetery for local families.

Church cemetery.

The plots were all arranged in neat little squares with headstones at the back and live plants on top of the graves. Each family chose bushes and flowers in individually landscaped "gardens" for their departed loved-ones. I thought they were very creative and well-tended.

This little church was the first of many I would see in Germany, and even though it was in an out-of-the-way town and quite small, it was amazingly beautiful and ornate. The ceiling was carefully painted and there were several gilded altars.

Church ceiling.

It felt good to get some exercise after being cramped into airplanes and airport lounge seats. After our walk, it was time to meet the group in the hotel dining room for dinner and orientation. People had come from all corners of the world to share the experience of the first "Journey into the Heart of Bavaria" aromatherapy tour by Kurt Schnaubelt and Monika Haas of the Pacific Institute of Aromatherapy.

Some of the Asian ladies knew each other and greeted each other warmly. They had met at one of Kurt's seminars in the Far East. Iveta and David, a married couple, had come from New York. Mary Ellen was from Dallas, Claire (an amateur distiller) was from Arizona, and I, or course, live in California. We also met Julien Juillerat, Monika's 30-year-old son who grew up in the US but is now living in Germany. He was to be one of the guides of our trip. Such a poised, charismatic young man. I hope to introduce him to my own son one day if he comes to visit his mother in California.

After a tasty meal of organic lamb shanks in a lovely sour sauce (everything the Hoergers serve is organic, from the food to the beer and wine), Mary Ellen and I wandered back to our room to hit the sack. We were to meet the bus behind the hotel at 8:30AM so we wanted to get to bed at a reasonable time.