Monday in Germany. Wow! Only a week to go! It has gone so fast and we have seen so much I can barely remember it all! Thank goodness for the written blog and photos to refer to. I must get them scrapbooked asap. Dawn, Rhia, Gin, sounds like winter get-togethers to me!
Today dawned misty and grey in Villingen, but our spirits were bright and expectations high! I had breakfast early with the Millers and Courtney and an interesting gentleman from Australia who is spending 6 weeks roaming around Europe after taking an early retirement. What a great way to live life, just buying a EuroPass and stopping when you want and hopping on another train when you want to move on. Sure sounds like fun!
The 18 of us were met by a lovely lady named Lisa. Lisa was our city tour guide and she was one interesting gal! She is an American citizen living in Germany. She was married after WWII to an American and moved to Alaska with her hubby and raised her children. She is now living in Germany but refuses to give up her American citizenship because that is where her children are, and proudly said she votes in every US election! Lisa pointed out where the underground shelters were located around the city, which have been dismantled now. Her brother was a prisoner of war, and her sister was in a Russian concentration camp and Lisa teared up and wiped her nose, remembering her sister looking like a skeleton when she was released. Both siblings died at very early ages because of the trauma they suffered as a result of the war and Lisa commented several times, “I wish there could be no more war!” We all heartily agreed. This trip, as with every trip I take, reminds me how much alike we people are. We all just want to raise our families, enjoy life, be happy and see our children be happy. Sorry, getting sappy here I know, back to the trip.
As we toured the city we learned that the city was founded in the year 999. It is one of many walled cities in Germany, 3 of the gates are still visible along with most of the walls. The fourth was torn down to use the stones to build a public building in the 1800’s. We visited a monastery that was used during WWII as a refugee camp. Lisa imagined it being like after hurricane Katrina and everyone was in the super dome. I tried to imagine the building in 1945 filled with starving, homeless refugees being cared for by the monks. What stories these walls could tell!
There are fountains everywhere in this city and 27 horse watering troughs. The troughs are made out of stone, filled from a faucet, and most of them are decorated with a statue of some sort. The water is from a spring and you are able to drink it straight from the faucet as it tested regularly to assure the public of its pure quality. Because Villingen had a reliable water supply, during times of trouble they were able to wait out their enemies inside the strong walls. Lisa teased Judy Rehder that once the very stubborn Swedes tried to overtake the city but Villingen had plenty of food and animals stored inside and so thirty days later, the hungry and tired Swedes finally gave up and went home.
There is decoration and color everywhere here! I am seeing elaborate building architecture, colorful paintings, manhole covers adorned with scenes, and of course, flowers everywhere! America needs to take a few lessons from Germany and spend more money at their local florist! Often I see folks carrying around fresh flowers while heading home, and there are fuchsias, marigolds, geraniums, begonias, sunflowers, petunias, dusty miller, daisies, and more simply everywhere! Gardens, lawns, porches, windows, fences, and even bridges are adorned with flowers. It is truly quite beautiful!
There are fountains all over the city. They are adorned with so many different scenes. On the fountains I have seen ladies carrying flowers, dogs, gargoyles, a woman watering flowers with a watering can, a man being doused with water, a little boy peeing, a man smoking, a woman washing her hair, a man and a woman showering together, modern abstract art, and more. It is truly quite amazing!
We visited a couple of churches and they were magnificent! The money spent to create and maintain these works of art is staggering to my mind. Just the organs alone would have been small fortunes! And the bells! Bells are in every town we have visited! I am listening to some ring right now! Every 15 minutes some bell is ringing somewhere. There is even a small column of several bells donated by a local lawyer, that plays assorted songs at appointed times. I found myself wondering where Orion could put a bell column and who would pay for it! Oh, damn the practical part of life!
After the city tour we wandered around the city on our own before meeting again to pile into the vans for a sort ride to a small deserted castle ruins. This was only the beginning of our climbs for the day! It was up a large hill with precarious footing but we all made it to the top and back down again in one piece! The castle was built at the top of a pass and was used by the builder to collect a toll from those who wished to pass. I imagine that 850 years ago many dragons and knights in shining armor passed by and had to pay the toll on their way to save the princess as it was completed in 1185. This place sure does have some old stuff! Wow!
As we drove through the Black Forest on our way to the city of Triberg, we saw tall stately pines and understood why it was called the Black Forest. Very little light reaches down to the ground and moss grows everywhere. The trees were literally growing out of a carpet of beautiful green moss.
In Triberg is the tallest waterfall in Germany. To get to the top you have to climb about a zillion steps. Thank goodness there are stopping and resting spots ‘cause this gal was huffing and puffing most of the nearly straight up climb. But it really is a gorgeous scenic climb and was glad I did it and made it to the top! Until it was time to go back down that is! That was almost as hard as the climb up because it is so steep and the knees really had to absorb quite a lot of stress. It was misting heavily and we were really careful because a torn ACL in Germany would not have been a good thing! After the falls, we shopped the town a bit and if you like cuckoo clocks this be the cuckoo clock capital of the world! Awesome to see thousands of them in the same place all at once!
Again, we piled into the vans to head back to Villingen and our current home. But first we must make a stop. Where you might wonder? Well, at Kaufland, of course! It is Germany’s answer to WalMart and was certainly interesting! It was as big as a super store in the states and carried just about everything. We were wanting a few snacks for our room and settled on M&M’s, Snickers, (hey, we needed something sorta familiar) and for the salty purchased Cheese Flips, which were corn curls, and Zwiebel Ringes, which are FunYuns.
What a day! I am certain that my feet will be killing me tomorrow, after walking nearly 2 zillion steps today, but it was worth it and I will be ready to do it all over again tomorrow! Bring it on!
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