We had heard so many stories about the German history in the Texas Hill country and the town of Fredericksburg that this was a definitive stop on our list. And we were not disappointed.
Das Peach Haus greeted us on the outskirts before we had even entered the city
German settlers started a peach orchard and the kids started selling jam on the street after school. Soon the business took off and they sold more than the stand could hold. Now it is a peach jam, marmalade, schnapps shop, motel, cooking school and everything else that revolves around peaches
City limits is not far away
And the German history is neither – town square and church
Settler’s life the way it was
But that was basically it, the rest is a town overcrowded by tourists, T-shirt and Cowboy hat shops, and every other trinket a tourist could want. No German restaurant, the only German baker sold out by noon, no German butcher. But lots of Germans in the cemetery
Like somebody told me a while back – during WW II not a lot of Germans wanted to be Germans, so this generation tried very hard to assimilate.
Too sad, as the next generation does not know what they are missing.
Our drive back to San Antonio took us through the Texas hill country and its beauty
And through Boerne, another German heritage town – down Main Street
Past the obligatory German church
Town square
And bakery, build by Joe Vogt in 1912
Enough German heritage for one day