Friday 15 August 2014

Germany's Smallest Town

Many years ago (from 1986 to 1988, to be precise), along with about 50 other girls (and a handful boys) I attended Librarian School in a small town in the Black Forest, Calw. It was a great time; we learned lots and had even more fun, and I am still in touch with a few of my former class mates. Five years or so ago, three of us started to meet up again once or twice a year. We have been back to Calw and revisited some of our old haunts. The first time back there felt very strange; it was a mixture of nostalgia and relief. Now we’ve been back a few times, and focus more on the friendship we have now than on reminiscing. (I have written about last year's meeting here.) 

On the first Saturday in August, we met again. This time, we went a little further afield, to a village a few miles from Calw, where we had been on several afternoon trips during our time at Librarian School.

Zavelstein is only the size of a village, but it has been holding town rights for centuries by some quirk in history. It is very picturesque, as you will see from my photos.

Its main feature is the ruin of an old castle, crumbling walls of red sandstone and a high tower to climb up and enjoy spectacular views from. Originally built around the year 1200, the castle saw several changes of ownership and the political unrest of nearly five centuries before it was destroyed by French troops in 1692. It was left ruined and never again rebuilt. By now, the town wasn’t important enough anymore; there was no strategical need for a castle in that place any longer. Until the mid-1970s, when communal administration was widely reformed in Baden-Württemberg, Zavelstein was Germany’s smallest town – no other place with so few inhabitants had town rights.

The houses along the main road show the typical style of the area, and we were pleased to see everything so well cared for. Every house and garden was spic & span, and every person we spoke to was friendly. 
Still, we were unlucky in that the entire village (there are only about 700 inhabitants, so I rather call it a village than a town) was taken over by a wedding. One family in the village owns the hotel, a wine restaurant and a café, and it was their son and heir getting married on that Saturday. We hardly found a space for the car, and there were people in wedding party clothes everywhere, plus an entourage of photographers, caterers and other service people swarming around. It wasn’t easy to take pictures without dozens of people on them, but I succeeded in taking the ones you can see here.

More important than getting people-less pictures was finding something to eat and drink! It was way past lunchtime when we finally managed to find a venue where we could not only sit down, but also expect to be served – the hotel, café and restaurant “downtown” were bursting at the seams, and we were told (in a manner that could have been more polite) that there was no way they’d be able to serve anyone who was not part of the wedding party. 
A friendly elderly couple pointed us towards the “Wanderheim”, an inn a mile or so outside the village, at the rim of the forest. The plum cake I had was excellent, the way my Mum would make it, and a sizeable piece, too – not the tiny “model” portions you get in the inner-city cafés of Ludwigsburg! Only when we left the Wanderheim did we see the notice by the door that from 6.00 pm onwards, the house would be closed to anyone not part of the wedding party… And as we were walking back towards the car, the first guests were beginning to arrive, and the newlyweds passed us in an old sky-blue VW Beetle with a beautiful garland of roses strung across the front.

We drove the short distance to Calw, walked around the town as we usually do when we are there, and eventually sat down in a street café on the still sunny high street. It was busy, but there wasn’t anyone looking as if they had just been to a wedding! Altogether, it had been a lovely day, and we are already planning our next meeting – possibly in December, visiting the Christmas Market in one of the girls’ hometown.

20 comments:

  1. What a nice way to keep close to old friends!

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    1. Yes, we enjoy our meetings, too. We wanted to include another one of our former class mates but she is not interested, so we have given up on inviting her.

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  2. Its so charming and picturesque, I can hardly contain my enthusiasm~ How lucky you were to attend Library school there, be able to have education in such a remote and lovely place, almost like one time has forgot, with the castle as the cake icing!xx

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    1. The school wasn't at that tiny town/village, but a few miles from it in a bigger town (still small compared to my hometown, which is not huge, either). We went there a few times after school, and one visit in winter was particularly atmospheric - it felt like stepping into a Christmas card!

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  3. Lovely! I learnt a lot from your get together.

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    1. Thank you, Ali, and welcome to my blog - I think this is your first visit here (or at least your first comment).

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  4. What a pretty little place! but rather unfortunate to clash with the wedding party. They would have been glad of your custom any other time, I suppose - I don't imagine they get much passing trade. What an unusual name Calw is, it sounds Welsh not German!

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    1. They get tourists as they are not so far out from bigger places with more hotels and guest houses, and they are popular with hikers and walkers, but they surely don't get such large groups every weekend.
      You are right, Calw is an unusual place name for Germany. I have had a quick look at wikipedia but although I found a lot about Calw's history, the etymology of its name was not explained.

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  5. I enjoyed this post - revealing one of Germany's hidden treasures. Looking back to the time you were at Librarian School, I imagine that "handful of boys" on the course being chased around the Calw countryside by hordes of screaming librarian girls competing to win their hearts. Poor lads! They must have been very tired with all the attention.

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    1. Dear gods, no! None of those boys were even remotely attractive or interesting - they were nerds, but not the sexy kind, just plain nerds. Besides, it was the other way round - the female librarian students were being chased by groups of young men from Sicily. One of them became my first husband two years later. Ah well, those were the days...

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  6. I'm terrible, I know, but I'm wondering if I might have been tempted to "crash" that wedding! I like the sound of the VW with garland of flowers on it, were the roses red against the sky blue car? It's just, I have a thing for color and bright red with a medium blue just looks so pretty!
    I clicked on the photos to make them larger, all of them are so lovely, thanks for sharing!

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    1. No way we could (and would) have crashed that wedding, Kay! We were in hiking/walking clothes and looked completely out of place among the elegant crowd.
      The roses were a blushy pink, very beautiful. Of the bride, we only caught a brief glimpse as the couple rode by, she was blonde and slim and young.

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  7. Looks like a charming village, and I really love wandering about in old ruins... So thanks for sharing! :)

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    1. You are welcome, Monica - and thanks for reading! :-)

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  8. Wow, that sure looked like an interesting trip to that lovely village. Imagine living in that castle those long years ago!! I enjoyed looking, thanks for sharing your trip with us!
    ~Dorothy

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    1. You are welcome, Dorothy! I enjoyed walking around and taking pictures - with my blog in mind, of course, hoping that you all would like them!

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  9. I'm back and just in time to see this interesting post! What a charming little village. I really enjoyed seeing the photos. It takes me back to my days of being young and having so much fun hiking around German villages with, was it called fachwerk? or something similar, and old castle ruins. I think you must have had a lot of fun! And though you arrived on perhaps an unlucky (for you) day, you did find someplace nice to have your lunch, or kaffe und kuchen. We often hiked in the Black Forest with my bil, Joshi.

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    1. Welcome back, dear Kristi! You are spot on - Fachwerk it is, and Kaffee und Kuchen it was for us, too :-)
      I am looking forward to reading your posts about the past few weeks.

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  10. Oddly I recall that in one of your visits to Calw there was a long-deserted café for sale. Is it still there and for sale or has it been resurrected? Did you notice? You mentioned the tiny "mode" portions of cake served in the town centre cafés of Ludwigsburg. I have to say that in the UK (and NZ) I find the very large pieces of cake which are served so often far too large so I just don't have a piece because I wouldn't like to be wasteful (nor insult the baker).

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    1. You are right about the deserted café, although it wasn't in Calw but in neighbouring Hirsau, where we didn't go this time. Therefore I can't tell you what has become of it since my post.
      I find the pieces of cake I've been served in the UK just right! Especially if one's main course has been only a sandwich. I probably wouldn't be able to eat a huge piece of cake after a full meal, either.

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