Thursday 29th October – Illerbeuren, Germany

 The museum opened at 10:00 and we arrived just after. We were guided to a QR code where we could access a site with English and audio. I have to say that it wasn’t very good and only covered a small part of the site. Some of the buildings had very little description, even in German, but others had good information in German and English. The site has been developed over many years (founded 1955) with buildings brought from the local area and rebuilt at the museum. The most recently reconstructed buildings had good English information. The buildings were fitted out with equipment, furniture and artefacts and that made it much easier to see how the people lived and worked over the 300 years covered by the buildings.
At lunch time we went out of the museum grounds to the museum restaurant, ‘Gromerhof’. There were hardly any visitors in the museum but, like Massing, the restaurant obviously had a very good reputation and it was nearly full. The menu was The Swabians are very proud of their cuisine and the restaurant served typical local dishes. It wasn’t cheap but it was the best quality food that we have had – beautifully presented and very tasty.
Suitably satiated, we went back into the museum to continue our tour, starting at the far end of the site where, like Massing, we found an outdoor skittle alley. The skittles and a variety of balls were available and I had to have a go – it was just like being back in Somerset!
An observation tower had been to a relatively modern building, which provided a view over the site and, rather weirdly, the rest of the building was devoted to Bavarian shooting clubs with lots medals and targets on display and stories of famous sharpshooters, male and female. There was even a chance to shoot at a target using a real rifle but all done electronically – no bullets!
Having completed our museum visit of nearly 8 hours, we went to the bakery next to the site and bought two delicious-looking cakes, which was the entirety of our tea.
Photos: St. Ulrich Solde, the first house of the collection in its original position built in 1696; The kitchen of St. Ulrich Solde – great to see it in its condition as found and used; The bakery from 1920 in the foreground and the Woringer Hausle, a farmer’s retirement house built in 1823; We thought that this was a dovecot but it is an elaborate beehive from 1905; A device designed to amplify the sound of a shot fired from a chamber at the narrow end, it was used at weddings, funerals and religious festivals; The Gromerhof restaurant is another interesting house with a very traditional interior; They had heritage cattle as well; Testing out the skittle alley.