Telgen
Vacation Report
Germany, June 2000
We
began our German tour by driving south from Cologne and heading for the Mosel
valley. The Mosel runs throughout the Rhineland-Palatinate and is famed for its
vineyards (particularly those that produce Rieslings). The province is also one
of those that celebrate the festival of Corpus Christi, and we found our
journey delayed slightly when we drove through one town where a parade was
taking place. Eventually we found our way to Burg Eltz, one of only three
unaltered and undamaged medieval castles in the state. It was begun in the 12th
century and built up over the next four hundred years. Most of the towers you
can see in the photograph date to the 1400s, and the interior is filled with
original furniture and decorations, including a room of ancient armor and
weaponry. As you might be able to tell from the picture to the right, the
castle is perched on top of a steep hill, accessible either by a bridge from
another steep hill, or through a steep path in the surrounding forest. (Did I
mention it was steep? We were beginning to think at this point that we'd be
climbing every day.) At first I wasn't sure why someone would build a castle in
the middle of nowhere, even if it was on an advantageously steep hill, but then
I caught sight of the river that runs right next to it. So it wasn't so
inaccessible as it seemed at first, and actually came under attack a couple of
times.
We left Burg Eltz and the valley of the
Mosel for the valley of the Rhine and traveled further south. We spent a day in
the city of Speyer, which was founded as a Roman infantry camp over 2000 years
ago. The city was a favorite of emperors near the mid-11th century, and so has
a lovely Dom (church) in the center of the town. Once the largest church in
Western Europe, it was almost completely destroyed by the French in the 1680s.
Luckily the residents rebuilt it, and since the city isn't that big, the
cream-and-rust stone exterior is unblemished by pollution. The crypt contains
the coffins of several emperors and kings, and further interesting artifacts
could be found at the Historical Museum, including what is supposedly the
world's oldest bottle of wine, dating to 300 AD. (By now it looks like vinegar
in a bad refrigerator experiment.)
We
continued south from Speyer, stopping for a little fun at an automotive/technical
museum in Sinsheim. This took us into the state of Baden-Wüttemberg and the
Black Forest area. There we found one of the prettiest little cities I've seen,
Freiburg im Bresgau. Perhaps I liked it so much because the atmosphere reminded
me a bit of home—Freiburg is a university town and was very colorful and
lively. There was a busy market in the little square in front of the Münster,
and many streets were festooned with green garlands and large hanging baskets
of flowers, besides having many trees around. The best feature of the city, at
least in David's opinion, were the bächle that ran throughout the old
part of the city. These little canals are fed by the River Dreisam and were
previously used for watering livestock and fighting fires. Now they provide a
bit of cooling for the city in the warm summer months, as well as a bit of fun
for local children. The girl in the picture thought David was getting in the
way of her boating, but I liked this shot with the very lovely Münster in the
background. For the remainder of the trip (and for many weeks afterward), David
talked about building a canal like this one in our back yard. Of course, his
canal will have traps built into it.
Anyway, we headed east after Freiburg,
taking a route very near the southern border with Switzerland and Austria. We
stopped in Unteruhldingen, which has a very interesting Pfahlbaumuseum on the
shores of the Bodensee, aka Lake Constance. Here they have re-created Stone Age
stilt dwellings on the very site where remains of the real thing have been
excavated. The re-creations extend even to the interiors, which are filled with
items the stilt-dwellers might have used in everyday life. Quite a contrast to
the exhibits we saw in nearby Friedrichshafen, where we visited the Zeppelin
Museum. Lots of details about flying airships, as well as their own
re-creation, a walk-through small-scale model of the lounge of the Hindenburg.
(Interestingly enough, they don't refer to its 1937 destruction as the
"Hindenburg disaster," as we do; instead, it's the "Lakehurst
incident," Lakehurst being the place where it happened.)
We
continued our circumnavigation by going eastward into Bavaria. There, in the
Allgäu region, we began seeing some really spectacular scenery. This area
borders Austria and has a "pre-Alpine" landscape that is filled with
lakes, hills, and even mountains. (One hotel we stayed in had balconies with
lovely mountain views.) The main attraction in this area, and one of the most
popular in all of Germany, is the Schloss Neuschwanstein, the fantasy castle
ordered by the Bavarian King Ludwig II. The castle was left unfinished after
Ludwig's untimely (and suspicious) death, less than a year after he moved in.
It immediately became a tourist attraction (they had to pay for it somehow) and
is set among some breath-taking scenery, including a forest, a waterfall, and a
gorge spanned by a bridge. Climbing was involved yet again, but the views were
absolutely worth it. The interior of the castle was just as beautiful, as
Ludwig pulled out all the stops to build something that would express his
romantic ideals of German chivalry. The throne room is filled with marble and
has images of Christian saints; Ludwig's bedroom has an ornately carved bed
frame and a washstand with a golden swan for a faucet; there is even a room
made to look like an underground grotto. The most interesting room, however,
was the music hall, which is covered with paintings inspired by the works of
Richard Wagner, Ludwig's great favorite.
After Neuschwanstein we turned north and
east and traveled along the "Romantic Road" for a while, bypassing
Munich altogether. Along the way we found the Teufelshöhle, or "Devil's
Cave," which was first discovered in 1922. Along with several skeletons of
cave bears and other prehistoric animals, a tour through the caves takes you by
many striking formations of stalactites and stalagmites. (If you have trouble
remembering which is which, try this helpful device: stalaCtites grow from the
Ceiling, while stalaGmites grow from the Ground.)
We
continued north through Bavaria and hung a right into Saxony, that part of the
country that borders the Czech Republic. Although they call that southern area
"Saxon Switzerland," the landscape isn't really mountainous; the
scenery is pleasant, however, with the River Elbe cutting through forests and
rocky outcroppings. On one such outcropping we found the Königstein ("King
Rock") Fortress, a virtual city atop a mesa 240 meters above the Elbe.
Königstein has barracks, a church, a couple of armories, a 152-meter-deep well,
a prison, a pavilion for the nobility—in short, everything you and your army
might need for a long fight against besiegers.
We continued north into Brandenburg
province, in what used to be East Germany. There we found a beautiful area
called the Spreewald, a large forest of some 500 square kilometers that
surrounds the River Spree. There are numerous man-made canals running through
the area, making a trip through the forest a relatively simple event. We took a
lovely hour-plus tour by punting boat, which is propelled by pole since motors
are banned in most areas of the canal. (Those aren't strange people sitting in
the boat in front of our hotel in the picture—well, they aren't just any
strange people; they're my parents.) The boat trip made a nice, peaceful break
in our touring schedule of drive and visit, which after ten days was getting a
bit tiresome.
It
was time for us to turn west once again, and so we proceeded to Potsdam, our
next-to-last stop. We had avoided the larger cities during our trip (too hard
to navigate), but since Berlin is only a 30-minute train trip from Potsdam, we
thought we'd spend an afternoon there. The biggest legacy you see left over
from the Communist era is construction! Government and businesses are investing
heavily in rebuilding parts of the former East Germany, and so new building and
refurbishment was taking place almost everywhere we looked. But other than
that, there is almost no evidence any more of the division of Berlin—even though
just a couple years ago, when Bill was there on business, you could look down a
street and see differences in things like traffic signals, street lights, and
phone booths. Now about the only reminders of the Communist era are the signs
from Checkpoint Charlie, which you can see in the picture above. This was taken
just outside the very fine "peace" museum near Checkpoint Charlie,
and you can see the portrait of a Soviet soldier and the sign indicating that
"you are leaving the American sector." The museum itself was full of
stories and exhibits on the ingenious ways people tried to escape from East to
West Berlin, serving as a poignant reminder of the oppression that existed
there just over a decade ago.
Potsdam held its own attractions as well,
and so we returned for a tour of the Park and Schloss Sanssouci, the retreat of
Frederick (II) the Great, who ruled Prussia in the mid-1700s. Frederick wasn't
particularly found of court life in Berlin, nor of his wife the Queen, so he
built several buildings in this parkland as a way to get away from both. He
hosted Voltaire in his palace (and later redecorated the writer's room with
parrots and monkeys after Voltaire left because of Frederick's strange
behavior), and many musicians also visited there, as Frederick played the flute
and wrote his own compositions as well as commissioning many others. He later
built a second (and bigger) palace among the extensive gardens, which were
lovely to visit. We had to return to Cologne's train station and then back home,
however, so our trip came to an end after some two weeks and several hundred
kilometers. There is still plenty we didn't see, and Bill does need to maintain
his fluency in German, so perhaps we'll return again in the next two years.
Copyright
© 2000 by Diane Telgen. All rights reserved.