Willkommen

We sit by the Chattahoochee River and take in the scene. After the Chattahoochee is done meandering through Georgia, it is a slow southern river, broad, but here, it is nimble, bright and clear. A few feet downstream, a handful of kids explore the edges of the river.

My wife and I are outside at the aptly named Troll Tavern, which sits feet from a bridge spanning the river.

In a way, Troll Tavern is located at the intersection of everything Helen. Fishermen will take to the water in hopes of catching trout. In summer, thousands of kids and families tube down this river. 

Above us, along the main street, every building looks like it was transplanted here from southern Germany, ornate trim and steeples against steep mountains. 

Out comes the food. There is spicy brown mustard at every table. This is Helen, Georgia, a mountain town in Georgia that celebrates Bavaria. You gotta eat a bratwurst here—or at least some kind of German food—so I order a Combo Wurst Platter, which comes with a bratwurst and a knockwurst. 

As the river and Motown music played counterpoint, the sour of the kraut swirled with the creaminess of the mashed potatoes while the bite of the mustard danced a schuhplattler with the traditional German sausage. 

It is perfect rustic fare to spend the day exploring the rest of this mountain town. 

Not always a German town

Helen didn’t become the Helen of today until almost 50 years ago. The former logging town became all that because of some ambitious town leaders, an artist and one crazy brainstorm. 

But in the late 60s several town leaders wondered how to boost their town. Many tourists were zipping through the town on their way deeper into the mountains. What could they do to make them tap the breaks, linger for a little while?

John Kollock, an artist, visited one morning. Like many mountain towns, the mist hung in the air. The feeling was similar to that of many of the quaint villages of Bavaria, Germany, that he had known while in the Army.

Kollock had experience in set design. He casually mentioned the idea to the town leaders. What if the town became a giant set? What could have been a passing brainstorm, something that ends up crumpled in the wastebasket of history became reality. They repainted buildings, installed new trim. The town went German. 

Today, hotels sit on the eastern edge of town and even the Wendy’s has a Bavarian feel on the outside. Here, there are shops that sell fried dough and t-shirts printed to look like dirndls, that traditional German dress. And on one hill overlooking they town, they are building a roller coaster. 

Live music—banjo, drum and vocals—float over the streets. Tulips bloom in flower beds and horse drawn carriages clip-clop down the street, with bags of carrots next to the driver’s feet. 

One of the most exciting parts of Helen is the exploration: small shops nestled next to each other, shops you’d miss if simply driving through. 

In Lindenhaus Imports, you can peruse old world items, everything from smooth-moving clocks to Swiss Army Knives to pewter drinking steins. Other shops, like Tim’s Wooden Toys, make the goods right before your eyes with laser engravers and other woodworking equipment. The smell of pine greets visitors walking into the shop that sells signs, toy wooden cell phones and swords.  

A trip to the falls

The outdoors around Helen are known for waterfalls, and probably one of the most popular is Anna Ruby Falls, which is managed by the U.S. Forest Service. Anna Ruby Falls is both remote and easy to get to—a good family excursion. First, the car winds through the hills before stopping at a booth to pay a nominal fee. 

The walk in follows Smith Creek, a roaring mountain stream. While the path becomes steep at times, it is paved all the way to the twin falls where York and Curtis Creeks meet after flowing off Tray Mountain. It’s cooler here than the valley below—and the cell signal is lost.

Coming out of the mountains, my wife and I head down the road to Habersham Winery. 

A vinous experience

The winery sits outside Alpine Helen; gone is the Bavarian feel. You’re once again in North Georgia, with red roofs and white, clapboard siding. And what a vinous experience it is. 

Habersham sits in the midst of North Georgia wine country. Indeed, in the 1980s it was one of the first wineries in the state to plant vineyards. The wines they produce range from native muscadines to grape varieties you’d find in the local grocery store to hybrids. 

The flavors blossom on the tongue, from a butterscotchy chardonnay to a southern take on a port-like wine.  

“There’s trout fishing right now,” said David Jones, owners of Hansel and Gretel Candy Kitchen. “Trout’s big. The first weekend in June we’ll have a balloon race, Helen to the Atlantic. So there’s something going on all the time. Oktoberfest of course in the Fall, there’s car shows, all kinds of things. There’s a lot of things to come here for. You don’t come just for a few hours, you come and you stay a few days.”

As we point our car towards home, we pass a native American mound, its sloped sides and flat top covered in grass—one of the remnants of the Mississippian Culture. They decided to linger here. Just the way that people will be coming to these mountains for decades to come.

Perfect in Every Way

Walk inside Hofers Bakery and you might as well have walked through a portal to Germany. The light fixtures, the hardware, they are all German. The bakery brings in its flour and its butter from the old world, too. 

“Of course it’s German,” said Ralph Hofer, owner of the bakery. “Everything you see in there from the items that are on the shelves to what’s in the display cases to the store fixtures, everything is German. That’s what we’re looking for. We’re in a German town, we want it as authentic as possible for the visitors.”

The bakery wafts through every day German life, Hofer said. Besides bread being a “staple of existence,” many Germans eat cake and sip coffee in the afternoons and a traditional Deutschland breakfast calls for breads and rolls. 

In the mornings, visitors are greeted with the yeasty smell of fresh bread as Hofers sets out linzer cookies and apple strudel. The bakery offers a café and a deck where people can enjoy breakfast and lunch. 

Christmastime rolls around and from out of the ovens come traditional German sweets – Stollen, Springerle. 

Meanwhile, Hansel and Gretel Candy Kitchen has filled its shop with the nostalgic smell of coca butter since 1973. By now, even the walls are probably good enough to eat. But why would you, with the 100s of varieties of candies sitting behind the counters?

“What we make is amazing: truffles and cremes and fudge and caramels and divinity, all kinds of chocolate molded items,” said David Jones, owner of the kitchen. “It’s just quite an array of things. It’s very representative of what the people at the time wanted Helen to be.”

Round pans full of peanut brittle cool behind the counter. Jones and his wife started selling candy in Helen using a tackle box for a cash register. That has grown into two locations where candy-covered apples cool behind the store-front windows. 

Jones’ break came when he learned how to make peanut brittle. The timing couldn’t have been better, because everything peanuts was in vogue, thanks to peanut farmer and then-president Jimmy Carter. 

His grandkids say the pecan brittle is the best thing the kitchen makes. But that is a hard pronouncement to make: Every candy is handmade, every chocolate hand dipped. 

Clay Country

For generations, people living around Helen have been potters thanks to the area’s natural clay deposits. The local streams pulverized stone from the mountains above in such a fine form that the earth from this area could be turned and fired into earthen vessels.

The efforts of these folk potters are immortalized in the award-winning Folk Pottery Museum of Northeast Georgia at the Sautee Nacoochee Cultural Center.

“A lot of people made their own pottery so that they could store different farm goods in their pantries and in their barns,” said Patrick Brennan, executive director at the center. “And then gradually, as technology moved forward, it became less expensive to buy glass jars. And so, as a result of the introduction of glass jars, a lot of the folk potters decided to change their milieu, if you will, and really do artistry on the pottery.”

The museum is not the only thing that the center offers visitors. Its black box theater seats 100 people and offers theatrical performances in the evenings. The center hosts musical performances that range from classical to bluegrass.  

Besides the pottery museum, the center offers a history museum of the area and has a juried art gallery featuring artists from the area. “It’s a unique shopping experience,” Brennan said.  

Husband-and-wife team Ben Dockins and Betsy Ledbetter have continued the legacy of those old potters in a similar way. Their Willows Pottery is one-third active pottery studio and two-thirds art gallery.

Dockins said their goal is not dissimilar from the old potters of the area—to create functional pieces by hand. He wants people to realize how affordable and how possible it is to use a custom, handmade piece of stoneware every day—art made utilitarian. 

Today, the 15-year-old Willows Pottery features the works of about 40 artists. Which beg the question, what makes this area such a good place for artists?

“For me, personally,” Dockins said, “what attracts me to living in this area is that I notice that I get to experience all four seasons and I get a complete heavy dose of spring, summer, fall and winter. My inspiration is, there’s so much beauty around us.”