This little bakery has been there forever. You can do tours now where they let you practice making your own pretzels with what looks like dough, but it is really clay. First you roll it out to about a 12 inch rope, turn it into a U-shape, criss cross your hands and fold the ends over and you end up with a pretzel. The pretzel was invented by priests and monks as a treat for children when they learned their religious lesson. The U-shape represents the prayers going to heaven, the crossed arms represented the way they used to pray, and the three sections of the pretzel represent the Trinity. Mine came out really well and we all got a diploma when we were done with that part.
You then get to see the original ovens and learn about how Sturgis learned how to make hard pretzels instead of the traditional soft pretzels. He used the residual heat from the ovens in the second floor to cook them a second time on a lower temperature. When the tour was over we got a sample of hard pretzels and we bought a soft pretzel (the best I've ever had).
Across the street was a square that was anchored by a Moravian church and related buildings. It also has the oldest girls school in America--back to 1742 if I remember correctly. The school is called Linden Hall Residential School for Girls. The guy at the pretzel factory told us that Bea Arthur used to go there, but got expelled for sneaking booze in by using perfume bottles.
In the truck and down a couple of blocks brought us to Wilbur Chocolate Company. Here you could smell the chocolate in the air.
They were famous for Wilbur Buds which are kind of like unwrapped kisses, but much better. Marcia doesn't remember them, but apparently they were a big deal. Basically now it is just a store, but there is a small museum feel to it as there is a large collection of chocolate memoribilia and molds.
At the back of the store was a section where women were hand-dipping some chocolates. We talked to a woman who was dipping these HUGE dried apricots. Turns out that she is from Tampa. Kind of a funny coincidence.
After a quick lunch we headed back to where we had been in the morning and did a visit at the Lititz Historical Museum. It was a nice little place. Our favorite piece was a very large clock that was made of 50,000 pieces of inlaid wood. It was gorgeous. I can't imagine the work that went into that.
Next, we headed off to Manheim in search of a winery. It's kind of funny looking for a winery in the midst of all the field corn and barley. We found it though and it was a very nice place. We did the tasting of six wines, with the cheese plate with it. Marcia wasn't impressed with the cheeses, but I liked most of them, except for the mushroom and leek cheese (which I did try, but didn't like). The wine, however, was actually very good. We ended up buying two bottles, a white for Marcia and a rose for us to share.
When we were leaving the tasting room, we were met by the family dog, who was waiting by the door and who had her tennis ball and wanted to play. We threw the ball for her for about ten minutes before we headed back to the hotel.
We actually did go out to dinner after all of that, but it's amazing around here: every restaurant we've gone to has been PACKED. We had to wait over half an hour to get a seat at the Olive Garden, on a Monday night.
More fun scheduled for tomorrow.
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