ROTHENBURG, RIEMENSCHNEIDER AND NEW FRIENDS

Rothenburg is what I would imagine The North Pole looks like, with it’s sloping old town square and perfect gingerbread style houses lining the streets. Even the shop signs and lampposts are beautifully adorned with intricate detail.

They say that Rothenburg is the perfect town for your entire souvenir shopping needs with its Kathe Wohlfahrt Christmas Shop, countless teddy bear boutiques brimming with cuteness as well as the typical gift shops, so we hit the ground running with a scan through all of these delights.

As we entered the main square we joined locals and tourists alike congregating around the school music band setting up to perform. Chairs had been arranged around the makeshift stage and we sat down to listen to the Music Ambassadors from Florida who had been touring around Europe, perform a few pieces, a nice surprise.

After a while we moved on to Saint Jacob’s Lutheran Church, special because it houses the famous Altar of the Holy Blood, carved in wood by Tilman Riemenschneider, Germany’s own Michelangelo. After admiring this piece for a while we moved on the find another piece of Riemenschneider’s work in the nearby town of Detwang.

A short walk down one of the steepest hills we’ve come across to Detwang was broken only to eat the Schneeballen we’d purchased along the way. Snowballs in English, these doughy delights were originally created by bakers to use up all the leftover dough they had created making other things. Offcuts of dough all rolled together into a ball originally coming in one flavor, sugar, although now there are many different variations to choose from. Quite nice though super sweet and very hard to eat, we didn’t race back to the shop for more.

In Detwang we found the small chapel where we saw a second piece of Riemenschneider’s work, altered to fit into the small space it now occupies and made our way back up the hill to Rothenburg.

Walking through town at the end of the day we were eventually attracted to a small quiet shop showcasing glasswork for sale. The lady in the shop explained in as best she could in hand gestures that her husband was the glassblower who created the work. The glass was exquisite and we could have bought the whole shop if we had been able to get it home! Glass of various colours, sizes and shapes turned into lamps where what caught our eye first.

The glass was just gorgeous once the light was inside and still lovely and very different when turned off. Sadly we could not risk buying the huge lamps as travel back to Australia would be quite impossible but we did manage to shop for many gifts and a few little treasures for ourselves. The lady was laughing at us trying to make our decisions but as we gave her quite a bundle to wrap up she gave us all a gift, such a lovely shop and lovely lady.

We spent another hour exploring the Kathe Wohlfahrt Christmas shop, a special wonderland of all things you could possible imagine for adorning the home at Christmas. Once again we had to restrain ourselves as sending things home would be difficult. Just window-shopping and exploring all the nooks and crannies here was great fun.

We reluctantly left this absolutely gorgeous town and headed off toward the Black Forrest. We found a little parking spot and then, quite unexpectedly, a new adventure began. We were all ready for bed about 8 pm and just eating dinner when a very large tractor and plough pulled up beside us.

A man approached the car and was surprised to find three females only, where is the man? He proceeded to tell us that we should come back to his farm to stay the night, much safer and very interesting, as he was an organic farmer. We said we would be fine and he said he was still working but would be finished in about an hour.

Sure enough a little over an hour passed and Daniel was knocking on the door again and would not take no for an answer. We followed him back to his farm, went on a guided tour of his high tech barn and met his dairy cows all the while dressed in our PJ’s and jackets. Then up to the house, along the way meeting the goats, chickens, pigs and calves, cute.

We sat around the kitchen table while he ate his dinner and we helped him drink a beer or two and wine, whilst discussing numerous different topics from religion to politics and especially his organic farming and his family. At about 2am we settled back into Vincent and slept “late”, until 7am.

We rose early to see his wife finish milking the cows and then picked berries before going in to breakfast. Here we met their son, Jonas, 2 and Anna, 6 months, gorgeous little kids. Mum managed to make great friends with Anna much to the surprise of her parents and I think Jonas thought we were from Mars, as we could only talk to him in a strange language.

After taking them up on their offer of a shower we moved on about 11am towards The Black Forest having thoroughly enjoyed our farming experience with Daniel and his family. We were so touched by their generosity and kindness and hope we can keep in touch with such lovely people.

Photos can be found on our Facebook page in the album GERMANY.

TIME IN GERMANY WITH OUR LOVELY FRIEND LENA

As we left Austria to move into Germany we started to get excited to see one of our dear friends Lena. This beautiful young woman was one of our Help X friends who we have not seen since 2012.

On our way to her home in Plattling we stopped in the town of Passau. This is a really charming old town that once again delivers a special feature to us, a spectacular glass museum. Entering this building is a step back in time, a delightful hotel and also an extraordinary collection of over 30000 pieces of glass in over 5000 display cases; a variety of pieces dating back to the very first of this special art form created in 1650.

The changes of design of the different eras imprint into this magical medium. They are all spectacular and it is quite amazing that this is only one persons collection. We leave the building knowing we have seen enough glass to last a lifetime.

As we stroll across the square we note the markings on the Town Hall showing the flood heights that have hit this town over the years, 2013 being the second highest in recorded history after the early 1800’s. We stroll on to the Cathedral, the noteworthy difference, the coffins and crypt are metal and not stone. Every Cathedral seems to offer something new, one of the reasons the girls let me drag them to every single one we see!

Time to move on to Plattling and we arrive about 5pm at the address Lena had given, an apartment block. We were just wondering how we would locate her when she came walking along the street on her way home. How lovely it was to see her again.

This began five days of laughs and fun. On our first evening Lena introduced us to a new game, Dix It. The beautifully illustrated cards are a pleasure to discover and the game of making up a word to describe them was great fun. Our first morning there Lena cooked some special German sausages that we all loved.

We then went off to explore Plattling, a charming spot for Lena to live whilst she attends a Music school here. Our walk took us around the river seeing horses, an NFL game and also to the town Volksfest, a small fair. It was so lovely to watch children having such fun and to see the locals dressed in National costume.

The next day we took Lena for her first ride in Vincent to go to Spiegelau, a spot in the Bavarian Forrest National Park. We explored the forest on our 3 hour walk, just gorgeous. On this very hot day Lena had decided to stop and lay in the middle of the road for a moments rest, just as a bus came flying along, a very near miss.

We were all exhausted that evening so decided on Japanese take away for dinner and a movie. After the meal we settled down on the sofa bed to watch a movie, all sitting in a row, and within minutes the whole bed collapsed. We felt so guilty that we had destroyed Lena’s furniture, that had held up fine the night before, but she has since decided that it is better at ground level, phew.

Our next day was a very special treat as we joined Lena at her school and went to her singing lesson. She has such a lovely voice and a very lovely teacher who welcomed us as spectators. The afternoon saw Lena free so we ventured off to the local swimming pool, complete with water slides and diving boards. A great fun time had by all and so lovely to be soaking in water.

It goes without saying that to have been in a flat with a toilet and shower was absolutely divine and the pool experience just made it all that much more special. Our final full day was spent again at the school, this time with 3 other young singers. What a treat to hear all their beautiful voices. We also got to meet more of the students, particularly a couple of young men who were particularly lovely and welcoming. We sat in on a conducting class with them and enjoyed it very much.

We spent our last afternoon together window-shopping in the nearby town of Deggendorf. Our valuable time with Lena had to come to an end with us having to say goodbye early the next morning as Lena set off to school. We were so sad to part from her and look forward to our next meeting. Thank you so much Lena for a wonderful stay in your gorgeous flat.

Our next stop on our German journey was in Nuremburg, infamous as one of the main stages of the War Crime Trials. We centered our visit at the Hitler Rise Museum at the Nazi Party Rally Grounds, with a very well presented audio guide through the rise of Hitler and his power over the German people. A horror story of one man managing to destroy the individual identity of the people, always organizing group events of a huge magnitude, making membership of the Nazi Party or Hitler Youth, for young people, compulsory and using copious amounts of propaganda.

The whole tour and museum were very interesting and give insight into the mentality of the people at that time. The effect of Hitler’s clever ploy made everyone proud to be a part of the whole and any freethinking became a rarity.

Individual accounts spoke of being shocked to hear of the atrocities that were being committed, not being able to believe that their Fuhrer would allow such things, let alone instigate them.

His preparation for power and the horrors he committed started a long time before the rest of the world realized what was happing. He was an evil maniac that managed to hood wink generations of people into believing he was a savior and that the German race was superior to all. Thankfully the eventual Second World War put his madness to an end, lest we forget.

Drained and enlightened by another integral part of never forgetting this awful history we made our way towards Rothenburg, the perfect happy place to spend the next day.

Photos can be found on our Facebook page in the album GERMANY.