"Claims to be oldest Gasthaus" Miltenberg Things to Do Tip by Trekki

This is again something for our soon-to-be-Germans, Richie and Doreen. It is called “Riesen” (giant) and claims to be the oldest inn of Germany. Gasthaus or inn in the old sense of housing guests. The claims are that it was mentioned as early as 1158, but by then it was another building (style) of course. The first publician mentioned was “Trestam zum Riesen” in 1411. I have read that famous people like Barbarossa, other emperors, Tilly, Luther and even Elvis (thes, THE Elvis) have stayed here. Whatever is true, this building is a gem! And it is located at a “strategically” good street crossing so that hardly anyone can avoid passing it. The facade is marvellous and when I walked around it I realised that it must have been extended quite often. Given the limited space to do so on the ground, it has many gables and corners and additional space in the upper floors. Haha, and then I honestly stood in front of it and dreamt to stay there for a day or two, preferably inone of the rooms in the upper floors’ gables. If you look close you will realise that the ground floor facade has actually no bricks but it is painted. Our guide said that this was done during the recent renovation and has caused many controversy among the locals.
Riesen is still a guest house and a restaurant. It is being run by Faust brewery and offers several choices of beer. I didn’t have lunch there but from the menu outside I saw that they had a lot of vegetarian dishes available. From what I could see when I passed by the tables outside, the dishes looked delicious.

© Ingrid D., March 2010 (just in case, RS or others come along and think they can steal texts).

Website: http://www.riesen-miltenberg.de/inhaltsseiten/home.html