Considering move to Bamberg for career change

I have to decide very soon (in a few days) whether I want to take a position up in Germany and move over from the UK. I will be working outside of bamberg around 30mins away but I thought bamberg will be the biggest/sociable place to live.

Although not sure what living the that part of Bavaria is like, I have been told many times by several different german friends and colleagues to expect quite a change from living in the major cities in UK. Alot less people, shorter opening times for stores, less night life, etc.

I also dont speak german at all but will learn when I am there (which should be interesting)

So what is living in Bamberg or the surrounding area like?

I am also not too sure about moving to work in Germany either, the tax seems very high 40+% to start with! although I guess cost of living is lower but looking at the salary band I was offered, initially I thought not bad number but did quick calculation and realised actually its possibly a pay cut! Then the state pension system is nowhere as good as the UK company system which I will have to change to german since will be employed by german division/company.

last concern is not sure how bad the roads get in winter time, since motorbike is my main transport, in london area is OK since it doesnt really freeze so stil safe to ride.

on the plus side, bamberg is meant to be awesomely beautiful. I didnt get to go there when I was in the area but the surrounding areas were beautiful, helped that it was nice and sunny (which apparently is quite rare....)

Franco alps is very appealing to me for riding and climbing. the people so far have been nice-ish, possibly a bit more non-communicative than I am used to when you usually smile or acknowledge strangers walking past/near you.

anything else I should think about? or other peoples experiences moving over?

starting my life over again, friends, job, etc should be quite a challenge!

Bamberg is a very pretty town: allegedly one of Germany's top 10. Also the surrounding area is lovely (villages/towns and countryside).

Winters can be a shock, but not every winter has (much) lying snow. However, Bamberg and F-Schweiz are on higher ground, so would get more than their fair share. Cars need winter tyres: would presume that motorbikes need the same. The German concept is that "snow happens", and they grit the snow, but don't generally salt it or totally clear it. Hopefully one of the resident TT bikers will chip in with more specifics.

Point of order: whilst "legally", Bamberg etc is in Bavaria, the area is actually Franconia (Franken). The difference is important to the locals: it's like calling a Scotsman British - correct, but (generally) unpopular!

Opening times: wow, are you in for a shock! Big towns (and I think Bamberg just fits into this category) have opening hours of 8 til 8, Monday to Saturday. Sunday: no, apart from ~2 days per year (surrounding towns have theirs on different Sundays). Banks: typically worse, though ATMs are widespread and internet banking is common (though, naturally, only in German). Don't expect phone helplines to be any different to shops. Typically 8-8, that's you're lot.

On Sundays you have cafés, bars and restaurants (which then some of them close another weekday instead - Rühetag, they call it). Otherwise it's a trip to the garage or train station (with associated price hike). Hopefully you're more organised than me!

Learning German while you are here:
Pro - you won't be learning Hochdeutsch ("The Kaiser's German", if you will), so the local accent/dialect won't come as such a shock (it's the Glaswegian of German ) as it can if you think you can already speak German...
Con - Bamberg is quite touristy, so whilst most locals should have a smattering of English, typically it won't be when you really need them to! You'll need to be up to speed pretty quick.

Smiling at strangers: use the search function above, there's been plenty written on that subject here...

The main thing that you'll have to contend with is the demeanour of the locals and their (comparative, and not meant particularly pejoratively) grumpiness/insularity. Arriving as a single person into (smallish town) Franken and then trying to integrate into groups which have existed since primary school... that could be your biggest challenge (and why many people use TT as a way of finding other expats to meet up with).

Must go to work now, so maybe I'll add more tonight. Trying to be balanced, and not my usual doom/gloom self!

I don´t know much or better any biker who rides his/her bike in winter here. It´s simply too dangerous.

Since when did the Kaiser speak "Hochdeutsch"? He spoke with classical stage pronunciation. The thrilling R is the most obvious difference.

I didn't realise it was that exciting.

oops "trilling" I guess is the right word

Corrrrrect.

That's because there's a humungous welfare state. You get the benefits of it but (if employed and particularly unmarried and kid-free) you jolly well pay for it as well.

Compared to the UK, if you have kids, you wil be paid more directly for for reproducing. Ditto if you decide to get married. If you lose your job, you will get better unemployment pay because you've paid 6% of your income as insurance. You may find your town has more swimming pools that you can use as much as you like for 80 Eur a year (although the quality of them may not be wonderful) but they sure ain't supplied by the money fairy. That's how it works. Simple maths. And good old "mutuality" of a sort a lot of us Brits seem to hate.

See this is what we UK "ex-pats" do, our great double standard . We moan about UK tax (much lower than Germany / France etc) then we move here and drone on and one about how great the "infrastructure" is.....without telling you we only get it by paying rates of tax we'd find appalling in the UK (20 or 30% more)!!

Bamberg is a beautiful town and in case you weren't aware, you'll be within 50 miles of about 15% of the world's breweries, which should help pass the time. But for now forget about the difference between England and Germany; moving from a city of 7 million to one of 70,000 will be as big a change. Although the university means that Bamberg has a relatively young population, there isn't a big expat scene outside of the American army, so fellow countrymen will be fairly thin on the ground. This is something to consider, since it can be hard work befriending a German. If you're the kind of guy who can make friends hanging around in a pub, then there is an Irish pub in town, although the beer is obviously poor compared to what you'd get elsewhere.

I live near Bamberg and quite like it considering it was my husbands dream to move here. Yes it is quite a shock to the system and German people can seem very rude but hey thats their culture, once you get your head around that you will be ok. I love the weather here nice and sunny all summer and wintery in the winter unlike the the constant rain in the UK. Dont know about Bikes but my husband is always saying "they must be nuts" while speeding along the motorways when its freezing. My husband commuts 90km a day and he thinks its worthit.
If you need anymore info let me know.

This was my poor play on words based on "The Queen's English". I ran out of smileys

You can listen to him here ... speaking a perfectly normal "Prussian Hochdeutsch" without the "thrilling R" of the artificial Bühnendeutsch

Besides:

He spoke a pretty decent English ... hardly surprising as he was Queen Victoria´s favourite grandson

Listen to Reichsgründung, Erfolg, Arbeit. That´s certainly stage pronunciation.

Another thing to remember on money is relative salaries. The average here is c. 42000 Eur for a full-time job. In the UK I think it's about 28000 GBP. At the moment, that 42k Eur equates to about 37k GBP (2 years ago it was about the same when GBP = 1,5 Eur). So you need a 30% "uprate" here on what you get in the UK to maintain your position in the pecking order. If you just convert your current salary and set that as your salary expectation in Germany, you will soon feel a whole lot poorer and be so relatively even allowing for low living costs (which are a bit of a myth anyway for thnigs like housing, in the place people actually want to live and work in, anyway).

(But quite a lot of that 30% extra will just go in extra tax of course - so all a bit "smoke and mirrors", higher comparative salary but more tax paid from it).

On the language thing, it really doesn't matter how you speak it. The "hochdeutsch" thing is over-rated and out of date imho. Even if you went to a place where it is supposedly "common", there is absolutely no guarantee that teachers / colleagues etc speak it. I have a local accent...big deal. What would you say to someone coming to the UK who was worried about "speaking the Queen's English?". You'd tell them nobody else does that (and they would probably be considered odd if they did), to forget it and just get on with learning.

It's always difficult to compare income when you have to consider different tax levels and cost of living, but the current exchange rate changes the figures by 40%, which is massive. Put it this way – Germans don't need to resort to a credit card when they want to buy something.

Small misunderstanding here: this is kind of what I meant.

If you learn in England (or wherever) then you learn "Hochdeutsch" or probably more accurately "Ausländerdeutsch", i.e. your ear becomes attuned to an accent / dialect that in reality (in the wild) doesn't exist. So, you think to yourself "Hey, I should be okay... I know a little German!".

So the first time you venture out into the wild, you try using your little German... and then the answer comes back... and you think to yourself "Fuck! That's not German!!!"

Analogy the other way round: a German learns English in Germany and then gets a job in Glasgow, or Belfast, or (heaven forbid) Sir John's Fiefdom of Newcastle...

Eric: Hello, vould you be so kiynd as to zell me one ticket, zere änd bäck, in Lon-don.
Response: Way-aye, bnny laird, that'll be 155 poond n 28 puhnce. Y've not gorra ree-y'l caard, ah tekkit?
Eric: Scheiße, ich hab' mich in Skandenavien gefunden!

So, my poorly laboured point is: if our friend is moving to Franken, learning German with a fränkisch flavour from scratch is absolutely not a bad thing! And certainly only possible locally in Franken. They never move more than 50km from their birthplace...