Monday, 30 August 2021
For an organic day out into the countryside around Munich you might as well choose a destination with plenty options for organic food and even an overnight stay with organic breakfast at the destination: The Panoramaweg Isar-Inn bicycle route starting at Marienplatz allows you to reach such an area by bike in only 30-40 kilometers. Simply follow this route to Moosach and from there to the organic hamlet of Herrmannsdorf as part of the municipality of Glonn.
Don't expect a bicycle highway -- the parts of the route shared with cars have a tarmac underground,
but the rest are sufficiently wide gravel pathes with occasional pitholes. Nevertheless it is much more pleasurable to go here and marvel at the moraine landscape instead of using the main roads where you may be scared for your life as cars will frequently overtake you too fast and often with too little margin. It's also advisable to have a navigation app or map with you as the signage especially within build-up areas is sometimes insufficient.
Public transport isn't much faster -- an up to 1.5 hours affair (one-way) by public transport from Ostbahnhof station. Take a regional (faster) or urban train (S4) to Grafing Bahnhof, and continue with bus no. 440 to Westerndorf stop. You may take your bike on the train when buying a separate MVV-Fahrrad-Tageskarte bicycle day ticket, but not on the bus.
The Herrmannsdorf organic farm
From Westerndorf its only an about ten to 15 minutes walk (or a few minutes on bike) over the fields to the Herrmannsdorf farm, founded by meat-industrialist-turned-organic-farmer Karl Ludwig Schweisfurth and now run by his family. In addition to the organic farm with pigs and chicken roaming before the eyes of the visitors the hamlet houses an artisanal bakery, brewery and butchery, a coffee roaster's shop cum cafe dubbed Merchant & Friends, a kindergarden for the employees and a cooking and practise school offering day courses for visitors who want to learn the basics of the trades practised here at the farm. There's also an organic farm market, the
Herrmannsdorfer Hofmarkt with an outdoor garden café open when the weather is nice.
In the entrance area to this beautiful delicatessen store cum upmarket supermarket you'll find the market booth of nearby organic market gardener Gärtnerei Schmid. Depending on the season you may walk over to pick organically grown flowers from their fields and pay into the provided cash box.
The farm also has its own upmarket 100% organic restaurant, the Wirtshaus zum Herrmannsdorfer Schweinsbräu, for meat lovers definitely worth the troubles of getting here. The rustic and newly refurbished restaurant offers high-standard traditional Bavarian and Austrian cuisine based on the freshest ingredients including the farm's famous own beer and assorted spirits. The elaborately hand-written menu may be difficult to decipher, and even if you can read it you may have difficulties to understand what you read as it is deliberately flavoured with Austrian food terms. So better ask if you don't feel adventurous. It is also advised to book your table for the restaurant (ring in on your way here if you forgot to do so a few days in advance), and mandatory if you plan to come on weekends or on public holidays.
The restaurant which also has an outdoor sitting area is closed 30th December through 14th January, 2020.
If you are wondering what you are going to eat stroll through the farm and greet the pigs and piglets. During the warm season you can also sit outside under horse chestnut trees: There are food stalls, but as the Bavarian tradition of beer gardens goes you may also bring your own food (not the drinks though!). For the home-made ice-cream in a cone (only available in the warm season) walk upstairs to the restaurant. A single serving comes at 1.80 EUR.
In May, before Easter and Christmas the farm gives host to its traditional arts and crafts markets. Especially the advent market is a pleasant alternative to commercial Christmas markets in town. On these days a free bus transfer is provided from and to Grafing Bahnhof, and you may book a tour through the farm or one of the workshops. There are also special tours for kids. All tours and workshops (also outside the festivals) can be booked in advance at the website.
Sonnenhausen
If you feel that a day tour isn't sufficient turn to the right instead of to the left at the bus stop Westerndorf, and follow the way to Gut Sonnenhausen, an organic and sustainably driven Bio-Hotel located in a carefully and tastefully restored manor. Although conferences, weddings and other celebrations are their main business bed and breakfast guests are welcome, too.
More to try: Westerndorf, Piusheim, Oberpframmmern, Glonn and Grafing
If you’re looking for a cheaper place to stay the Schmiedhof organic farm in Westerndorf has a guesthouse where you can enjoy eggs and cheese (and most certainly also milk) from the farm for
breakfast. Simply let the farmers know in advance that you wish to have breakfast.
For something different take a bicycle ride to Piusheim: On Thursdays, Fridays, weekends and public holidays the Glonntaler Backkultur organic cafe cum restaurant keeps open and serves 100 percent organic lunch, dinner and snacks using the gorgeous products of their artisanal bakery as well as other locally produced delicacies like the
cheeses of the local organic dairy Hofkäserei Stroblberg. Each Friday it's pizza evening starting at 5 o'clock, and if you're lucky you may step by while one or another cultural arrangement is taking place.
During the warm season there's also a spacious beer garden.
The bakery shop is located in the entrance area at the opposite site of the house, and on weekday mornings you may head for the bakehouse in Mühlenweg ("mill lane").
Glonntaler Backkultur also runs two Sunday-open bakery shops in Glonn and Grafing which are closed on public holidays that are Monday through Saturday. Both have in- and outdoor seating for a snack or coffee break. Next to the shop in Glonn there’s a small fair-trade gift shop dubbed Handfairlesenes. On occasions you may find it open outside the quite restricted official opening hours, so step by for handicraft and other fairly traded products.
Coming from (or heading to) Zorneding or Höhenkirchen-Siegertsbrunn there's a good chance that you will pass the village of Oberpframmern on your bicycle route. Stop by the
Maierei organic farm ("Dein Bauernhof" -- "your farm") with its 24x7 self-service shop. More products from the farm -- veges, eggs from hens of a dual purpose breed, home-made preserves, Christmas trees in December and more are available on Thursday evenings and Saturday mornings when the shop is serviced.
2021-08-30 18:00:00
[Munich, Glonn, Grafing, Herrmannsdorf, Oberpframmern, Piusheim, Westerndorf, organic, fair, lunch, dinner, market, bakeries, deli, coffee, hotel, accommodation, cafe, restaurant, pizza, ice-cream, Bavarian, German, cycling, farms]
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Sunday, 11 July 2021
The epicentre of co-operative organic agriculture in Bavaria is surely the small town of Dorfen in the municipality of Erding, within half an hour easily reachable by local train from Munich. Departing from Ostbahnhof train station you can take your bike with you once per hour to reach a small Bavarian town that has been the home of the organic Tagwerk co-operative of local organic farmers since 1984 and prides itself to be a bee-friendly municipality. Though finally in vain a significant part of the population had been standing united against the environmentally harmful federal state infrastructure project of the A94 Isentalautobahn for about 40 years and is currently opposing the plans for the new B15 highway of the Bavarian state government.
The train station in Dorfen is the starting point of the Veldenbahn bicycle route (as part of the Vilstal bicycle route) on the rail trail of the historic line linking Dorfen with Velden (Vils).
To get from the train station into the beautiful town you have to surpass the hell of highly frequented Jahnstraße, and right before the nice and pedestrian-friendly bicycle route starts you may stop by the Tagwerk-Laden supermarket which demonstrates how a faceless interchangeable supermarket building in a car-centric environment may be turned into a human-friendly place. Usually this spacious organic supermarket with friendly employees and a relaxed atmosphere not only offers a lot of organic products from the region but also coffee drinks, snacks and cakes in its self-service cafe area, but unfortunately not during covid-19 restrictions. From mid of September 2020 they plan to offer lunch again each Thursday from 12 pm.
From here follow by all means the bicycle route through the
beautiful alley of Bahnweg where you'll come by an art&crafts shops offering all kind of things made from the exceptionally aromatic wood of the Swiss pine ("Zirbe"): Das Aromaholz Zirbe keeps open on Thursdays, Fridays and the first Saturday of each month.
When you arrive in town on one of these weekdays pay a visit to
Power Plant Ape for music, skateboards, and fair and organic fashion.
The shop also used to stock the emission-free organic chocolate delivered by the Schokofahrt cyclists.
The shop is located in baker's lane, and there is in fact an organically certified artisanal baker just around the corner: The flour used by Martins Backstube is daily ground from the corn of Tagwerk farmers. As for most modern bakeries there's a day cafe where you can have a coffee, cake or snack, and if you cannot make it here do not dispair: As many other Tagwerk products you can buy their bread from all Vollcorner supermarkets.
For fairly traded food, sweets and drinks, natural body care as well as colourful fashion accessoiries, gifts and household items pay a visit to the Fair-Weltladen in the very town centre.
As most of its kind it's run by local volonteers which makes it the perfect place for a chat with locals.
Bypassing the very town centre for a bicyle tour on the Skulptour II bicycle route which links seven wood sculptures commissioned by local artists in 2015, you'll reach Biogärtnerei an der Isen, a beautiful organic market garden. The place doesn't have a farm shop but in June and early July you can come here to harvest yummy organic strawberries from their strawberry field (the official 2021 season unfortunately is over, but if you have time to harvest some late berries, ring in advance). To buy their produce step by the Bauernmarkt farmers' market which is being held every Friday in Dorfen town - or find their market booth in Munich, at Mariahilfplatz on Saturdays and at Rotkreuzplatz on Thursdays.
Closed
The Tagwerk co-operative run a low-budget family and bicycle friendly hotel just a few steps from the train station but since they re-organized and moved the Tagwerk wholesale activities to a bigger location in Garching it does no longer exist although you still find the place mentioned on the web.
2021-07-11 14:35:00
[Munich, Dorfen, Tagwerk, organic, fair, market, fashion, cycling, farms, accommodation, supermarkets, bakeries, coffee, lunch, snacks, Skulptour, Skulptour_cycle_route, Vilstalradweg, Vilstal_cycle_route, Veldenbahnradweg, Veldenbahn_cycle_route, covid, corona, fair]
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Friday, 28 August 2015
Missing the mondane reputation of neighbouring Rimini eating out in Pesaro is not about posh restaurants. All the organic places I found offer simple, home-made food that suits both, lunch and dinner: pizza and the local variety, piadina (a warm wrap made of thin bread and a veg or non-veg pizza fill), simple pasta dishes, risotti and main courses.
A few meters from Teatro Rossini in Centro storico, the old city centre, the small friendly Pizzeria Bio al Teatro serves pizza to go along with organic soft drinks, beer, prosecco and wine by the bottle. All pizze are a 100 percent organic and vegetarian if not vegan, pre-baked on trays in the kitchen behind the sales counter, sold by the piece and re-heated while you wait. Decent fast food, although their pizza base resembles an airy foccacia rather than the thin, crispy traditional pizza round baked in a wood-fired stone oven. There are some bar chairs and tables inside to sit and eat on the spot as well as a couple of recycled wooden benches outside. The place opens only in the evening.
For lunch (or dinner) head for Da Peppe Pesaro Centro, approximately five minutes away located in a traffic-calmed street connecting busy Via 11 Febbraio and Viale Donato Bramante. This local restaurant chain
uses organic flour for their home-made pasta and piadine, offers grain-based organic salads, and some of the veges as well as the olive oil are also organic. Unfortunately drinks, non-vegetarian and some other ingredients are not. When ordering pasta you have to specify the pasta shape and the sauce to go with. The food is simple and tasty, and since it is prepared on the spot requires a little patience. The staff is friendly, but expect the service to be relaxed.
A further five-minutes walk East-North-East leads you to Chiccoteca, a cosy, simply-styled certified all-organic restaurant cum cafe open daily all day, with an arbour in front facing (comparatively) silent Via Buozzi. It will serve you both, breakfast, and simple meals for lunch and dinner (including -- you guess it -- home-made pizze and cascioni, pizza pockets similar to a calzone), and of course the obligatory coffee (tisane if you prefer) cum cake. Very unusual for no-frills eateries in Italy you will be served glass and earthenware, no plastics.
Supermarkets
Just around the corner you will find the Chiccoteca supermarket, a small, pleasantly furnished organic full-retailer, closed on Sundays. If you are in need for organic food items on a Sunday make sure you arrive near Teatro Rossini before 1 pm, in time for the nearby Coop supermarket branch stocking a decent selection of organic veges, dairy products, cookies and other food items.
Ice-cream
Apart from Coop supermarkets, there's a second chain in Italy you can trust to offer real fare: the ice-cream makers of Grom. In Pesaro, however, there is no Grom branch, so you have to rely on the following rule of thumb: Avoid gelaterie where the ice-cream is piled up and heavily decorated to attract customers from a distance. Real ice-cream presented this way would melt, not to mention hygienic reasonings. So stick to the ones where the ice-cream is hidden in steel containers buried in the freezer and preferably covered with a lid.
The one I found is Panna & Cioccolato near Teatro Rossini. Apart from generally yummy all-natural ice-creams, ice-cakes and smoothies (centrifughe) they also have one organic ice-cream variety on offer: Mascarpone. As with other gelaterie making artisan all-natural gelato the interior is cleanly furnished in lab-style, the workshop proudly presented, and you may have a glimpse on the ice-cream makers at work through the shop's window front.
The beach
Although overpriced low-quality fast-food on the beach promenade still is the norm, Pesaro beach offers better options: For the full-fledged beach experience including organic cocktails head for Bottega Beach within Bagni Alfredo right in front of the lower building of the Hotel Excelsior. During the high season you can party day and night indulging in vegan organic ice-cream, piadine, pizze, salads, alcoholic as well as non-alcoholic beverages and small meals. During the low season starting with a party at 3pm on the last Saturday in April this beach shack keeps open on weekends and public holidays. All food and beverages are also available to take away.
The only organic place in town calling itself a restaurant is Da Peppe Pesaro Mare located a short walk westwards next to Bagni Tina. Noisy with efficient, though not overly polite staff it serves basic, but delicious seafood dishes which are not on offer in other Da Peppe branches in addition to the regular Da Peppe fare consisting of partially organic home-made pasta, piadine, soups and salads.
Acommodation and bicycles
About half an hour by bicycle, west of Pesaro Centro a pleasant family-driven organic farm, Badia, offers bed and partially organic breakfast in clean and simply furnished rooms under the roof of the farm house. The owner, Federica, will happily help you to rent reasonably priced bicyles from the compentent Pesaro Bici workshop.
In case you plan to stay for a longer period you may try to register for the city's free bike sharing scheme C'entro in bici in the comunal information desk (Sportello Informa&Servizi del Comune di Pesaro) behind piazza del Popolo. You are required to fill in a form available from their website, pay a 10 Euro deposit and will receive a personal key for the bikes.
Both, the bike shop and the information office will provide you with a cycle map covering the Bicipolitana in Pesaro, a nicely constructed and signposted network of dedicated bicycle lanes. Number 3 (in Openstreetmap marked as Pista ciclopedonale Umberto Cardinali) leads you from the city centre alongside the banks of the river Foglia -- crossing allotments, abandoned factory buildings and a maze of six-foot tall reed -- to Centro Rossini, halfway to the Badia farm.
2015-08-28 12:35:11
[Pesaro, organic, biologico, pizza, ice-cream, supermarkets, coffee, breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks, fastfood, vegetarian, vegan, farms, accommodation, vegan, takeaway, cycling, Italian, agriturismo]
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