Sunday, April 12, 2009

Hermann Wurstfest

I took so many pictures in Hermann a couple weeks ago that I'm going to have to break this into two blogs. This week, Hermann Wurstfest, which is always the fourth weekend of March. We started out our day at the Whole Hog Sausage Breakfast. You can read about the Wursty goodness over at Pandora's Lunchbox.

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Breakfast is held at the Hermann Firehouse, where they have a room with a bunch of cool old pumpers.

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After breakfast we headed over to the Stone Hill Pavilion, where the day's festivities were just getting started. There was a accordion player playing the fanciest dern accordion I ever done saw. It was DIGITAL!

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There was a sausage making demonstration by Ruff Acres Farm with sausage seasoning for sale. I've never heard of waterfowl sausage but they make a seasoning for it, along with deer and pork sausage.

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Maybe someone can tell me about this fountain outside the Stone Hill Pavilion. Honest to God, I saw a lady dip her fingers and cross herself like it was holy water. We made up a Davinci Code-esque story about Hermann because the fountain had a metal A emblem on it, and later we got red A hand stamps for admittance to the festival events.

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Onward to Hermannhof! There's a lovely view of the Hermannhof from the Stone Hill Pavilion. You can see the day started out snowy, but it quickly turned into a sunny and pleasant day with perfect temperatures for the amount of walking we did.

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At Hermanhof, one of the employees pointed out these awesome carvings hanging from the ceiling, and said they are a kind of German shop sign. The first is for a locksmith, the second for a pub, the third for a millinery. If you know what these are called I would love to know, as my Google-fu is failing me.

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Hermanhof also has a self-guided tour of the cellars, which totally reminded me of The Cask of Amontillado. (Craves, Caves, & Graves: Now with Literature!)

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From Hermanhof we headed for the Wiener Dog Derby, which we were late for because we got sucked into the German School Museum (so full of awesome stuff it requires a separate post.) We finally found City Park and the wiener dogs just in time for the Cocktail (Wiener) Class.

READY!
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SET! Hold on there Mister, not yet!
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GO! No, go towards the finish line, puppies!
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OK, GO!
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We only stayed for the Cocktail and Frankfurt races and then it was time to head back into town for the sausage making competition at the Hermanhof Festhalle. The judging is done on Saturday, but on Sunday you can see the entries, both amateur and professional.

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Several of the professional sausage makers have booths set up where you can try the sausage and then make purchases. I bought some cheddar beer brats and braunschweiger and both were delicious. Phoenix and Xena both got meaty bones and, judging by the fact that they didn't stop chewing for several hours, I think they would say they were delicious as well.

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Hermann, MO is located about 90 miles west of St Louis (or 200 miles east of Kansas City) and has festivals and events year-round, along with museums, wineries, antique shops, and more bed and breakfasts than you'd think could fit in one town. Stay tuned next week when we visit the German School Museum, and mark your calendars for the Stone Hill Winery Grape Stomp in August! That's right, get your Lucy on and stomp grapes for charity!

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