The Blue Pot

If you know me in real life (and I imagine that everyone who reads this does), you know that we've been back from Germany for several days, and you also probably know that I always fall behind on this kind of thing.  I am determined to finish blogging about our trip, though!

Our next stop was Ulm, but right after our train got in, we made a side trip to the Ulm suburb of Blaubeuren. Blaubeuren is probably not a place you've heard of, and we weren't able to find it in any tourist books.  I discovered it by accident when I was looking for Ulm hotels.  When I was searching, I saw a few adorable-looking hotels, then saw the distance was something like "9 miles from city center."  Without a car, that wouldn't really work for us in Ulm, but what was this Blaubeuren place with these quaint hotels?

If you bothered clicking on the Wikipedia link above, you saw that the Blaubeuren was pretty much non-existent.  Truthfully, this site is much better, but you have to have your Google Translate installed and ready to go.

Anyway, Blaubeuren is a small, quiet town just outside of Ulm.  Their main attraction is the Blautopf, or "Blue Pot," which is a deep, bubbling spring that is a startling shade of blue.  We didn't quite see the vibrant blue at first, and attributed it to being an overcast day.

I mean, the water is definitely a nice shade, and that mill is quite quaint and picturesque, but the "Blue Pot" is supposed to B L U E.  Like this:

Not my photo.

You might have noticed that these photos are taken at different angles...as we also realized that the B L U E part of the Blautopf was not in front of the mill, but behind it.

My photo.

Definitely a lot bluer.  The Blautopf is tucked back in what seems to be preserved nature/historic area.  After passing through the town on our way there, we came across the Blaubeuren Abbey.

 

 It's not necessarily captured in these photos, but this whole compound was very expansive and peaceful.

Blaubeuren was the first of our side-trips, and a very pleasant one.  We were there on Saturday and much was closed, but there still didn't seem to be many shops.  A few restaurants and hotels, though.  Ulm is only a 10 minute train ride away, so I could see this being a quiet alternative if you were traveling through the area.