This year, both O.K. and I had to work on the Friday, meaning we were each on our own for the 21st of May and saw each other only on the weekend. We have had this situation a few times in the past years, and it has become something like a tradition for my sister and I to spend that day together, like we did here, for instance.
We took advantage of the sunny weather and went for a walk, on a circuit that my sister chose from a book she has.
The first leg of the round trip was by train, starting in Ludwigsburg; just two stops until Freiberg (wearing our masks, of course), where we took our time exploring the old part of the small town (without masks).
You can find Freiberg's wikipedia entry in English here. If you scroll down to the headline "Notable buildings", you will find information on the buildings we looked at:
Beihingen Old Castle:
I found this view towards the church rather picturesque:
New Castle, on the other side of the road from the Old Castle:
Tithe barn:
Wine press:
Amandus church:
View from the church (which was locked) towards the Old Castle:
Eventually, we left the town and walked towards the river, where the route from my sister's book took us along the "Old Neckar", an abandoned arm of the river not suited for ships and nowadays a nature reserve:
After several kilometers of walking, we saw the small town of Ingersheim ahead:
We decided it was time for a break, and had our picnic (provided by my sister) near here, not far from the river but away from the endless stream of cyclists on the paved path:
Ingersheim is, as you can see, similar in character to Freiberg. I loved the Renaissance banister on the staircase outside the church. (Sorry about the foggy picture - it definitely was NOT foggy that day! I guess the sun played tricks with my mobile phone's camera.)
A short way after Ingersheim, we entered the forest of Bietigheim. No pictures from there, I'm afraid. At one time we came across a pond so full of frogs we could hear them from far away - it never ceases to amaze me how those small animals can make such a racket!
After the woods, the route was across fields (look how dry everything is round here) until we reached the outskirts of Bietigheim.
In Bietigheim, we took the train back to Ludwigsburg, of course once again wearing our masks as required by law these days.
In Ludwigsburg, "my" Irish pub (where I used to go to the pub quiz "before Corona" and had my 50th birthday party two years ago) was open - seating and serving was only happening outdoors on the market square, though. We gladly took the opportunity to have a refreshing cider (me) and beer (my sister); it was nice to do something so normal - even though the waiters wear masks and I had to put mine on, too, when I briefly went inside for the toilet.
My sister came back to my place with me, where we had coffee at the table in the corner under the cherry tree.
What a nice day it had been! We already have plans for a different walk in the same area for some time later this year.
I think we are all hoping that this is the beginning of the road back to normality. Your walk sounds - and looks - so lovely - I love the architecture - so differentfrom ours over here.
ReplyDeleteA lot over here has reverted more or less back to normal here, Pat; a bit too fast for my liking, I must admit. But then again of course I am neither in the situation of having to look after children nor is my financial situation as precarious as that of many others.
DeleteYou live in a nice part of the world. I get Freiburg and Freiberg mixed up as we have stayed near Freiburg in both Colmar and Kirchzarten.
ReplyDeleteThere are several Freibergs in Germany, but 'ours' is only a small town, hardly more than a large village. Freiburg, the one you mean, is about 65 km from where OK lives and where I spend most of my weekends. Freiburg is known here for being a rather 'green' city.
DeleteWhat a lovely walk. I can feel the warmth and imagine the country smells. If you're not careful we are all going to be booking holidays there and asking you to be our unpaid walking guide.
ReplyDeleteIt was a rather warm day, too, with the shade of trees being welcome.
DeleteI would gladly act as walking guide for my friends from blogland, but I'd expect payment in the shape of a nice meal, refeshing drinks and/or delicious ice cream.
How lovely to spend this day with our sister, and to be able to do so much.
ReplyDeleteIt was indeed lovely, Cathy.
DeleteThis was a very beautiful and interesting walk...I was a bit confused for a while as I had friends in the university in Freiburg and this did not look similar. Then I realized it is not the same place. I think it would be an excellent idea to do this walk again in different times and seasons. You are so lucky to have a sister! I always wanted one. At least my daughters do, and are very close.
ReplyDeleteYes, Freiberg and Freiburg are worlds apart - see also my reply to Dave's comment above.
DeleteI always enjoy reading about the things you and your son and daughters do as a family, it is so precious to have good relationships with our kin.
This past Thursday (Ascension Day) we were walking near the Monastery and we heard the bells and they rang much more than usual! I should have known that the monks do that for Ascension Day but I did not. It was lovely to hear them.
ReplyDeleteYour walk with your sister looks wonderful! I would love to see Freiburg! I just looked up just a bit about it and I was very taken with some of the photos of the places to eat there and I think I would try some local wine. My son would love the beer, of course!
Freiburg is a city several hours away from Freiberg, where my sister and I were on May 21st, and where I can actually walk to in just under an hour from my house. The beer and cider we had at the end of our walk was in Ludwigsburg, at 'my' Irish pub :-)
DeleteNice you heard the bells from the monastery during your walk! I so love the sound of bells.
I would love to wander around Freiberg and see all the classic buildings! It is very special that you and your sister are close enough to one another to do things like this together. I enjoyed your pictures!
ReplyDeleteThank you, Bonnie! If it wasn't for corona, my sister and I would be going on our annual Yorkshire holiday together in three weeks' time... We can't go, of course, and have no idea when staying at 'our' cottage in Ripon will be possible again for us, but in the meantime, we take local walks together when we can.
DeleteAgain it sounds as though you had a pretty long walk. Interesting pictures to illustrate. By the way, I had no idea that you work for NASA in your spare time!
ReplyDeleteIt was a nice walk but not very long, as the first and last parts were by train. We did enjoy it a lot, and my part-time employer, NASA, was happy to provide me with some equipment.
DeleteHow lovely! it all looks quite charming. Quite right to wear masks by law. I wish we had your government - it seems to have got managing the virus under control. These days it feels as if Britain is being run by a kind of anglo saxon version of the Mafia. Really shady people all slipping deals under the table and benefiting themselves.
ReplyDeleteMany people over here would not agree with your opinion of our government. Personally, I am glad it is not I who has to take such far-reaching decisions!
DeleteWie wunderschön viele kleine deutsche Städte doch sind. Was mache ich bloss immer noch hier?
ReplyDeleteThat was a log walk again, but definitely worth it. I envy you, as so many times.
Ja, sehr malerisch!
DeleteIt was a beautiful walk, not all that long, but with the sun being rather hot it was wise not to overdo it.
Castles look so great, I wish to visit one days.
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing story of going out and beautiful photos.
You are welcome, Tanza. I believe I have not seen you here before; thank you for reading and commenting.
DeleteWhat a lovely walk. You live in a beautiful part of the world! X
ReplyDeleteAna
Thank you, Ana! I know I do, and consider myself very lucky for living where I do.
DeleteThis is your first visit, or at least your first comment, on my blog, isn't it? Welcome!
Well that was a very satisfying way to finish my glass of Sav. Thank you!
ReplyDeleteYou are welcome, Graham. I am glad I was able to provide matching company for your glass of wine.
DeleteGermany is outstanding in its vast green landscapes. All these places you have photographed ought to be considered Unicef world heritage sites. These churches, castles, gabled residences, tithe barns, and Renaissance bannisters are what you Germany will leave to the next generation. I thought I was walking through an early Herman Hesse story. But you must stop telling lies about your age, Librarian. Judging from the photographs you can only be in your thirties.
ReplyDeleteJohn Haggerty
Yes, it is a beautiful part of the world where I live - but of course I only show those beautiful parts; I do not take pictures of the rubbish strewn about the train station or the endless row of cars, both moving and standing, blocking up the city roads.
DeleteHermann Hesse - now there is an author I have not read in a long time, but who will always hold a special place in my heart. I have attended Librarian School for two years at his place of birth (Calw) and read some of his works in the years before that, in my mid-to-late teens.
As for my age, you'd believe it instantly if you saw me with my true hair colour (grey/white) or early in the morning, before my first coffee!
Ah, fragrant coffee in a cafe in Heidelberg and the Odenwald, whose countryside reminded me of central Scotland, around Aberfoyle. I remember thinking, *If only I spoke German this would be my second home.* I followed Willy Brandt in those days, my political hero, and Gunter Grass's subtle study of Brandt.
DeleteWhat a coincidence that you studied librarianship in Calw! The place-name itself is legendary. In my youth *Steppenwolf* and *Siddhartha* were seminal texts. I am not sure we understood Hesse, we read him through the lens of California Dreaming. Bernard Zeller's biography suggested a trauma in his early life, similar to Jung's. I am now reading *Jakob von Gunten* by Robert Walser; we will never know what trauma Walser suffered, so great that it cast a shadow over much of his life.
Many years ago I attempted an essay on Hesse and Karl Barth, both the sons of Protestant ministers; both with Swabian pietist ancestry; both with connections to Baden-Wurttemberg and the Black Forest. They took very different spiritual paths, Barth influencing Protestant and Catholic theology with his post-1918 book on Paul's Letter to the Romans. Later he refused to take his oath of allegiance to the Third Reich, and a Nazi judge forbade him to teach in Germany.
In time I chose Barth's spiritual road, though most of my contemporaries, whom I think of as old hippies, chose Hesse's road. Karl enjoyed a glass or two of beer in his cafe in Basle, where he taught theology. Not until I acquired my laptop was I able to hear old Karl talking on YouTube, a thrilling experience. There are good videos too on Hesse.
John Haggerty
I have never read "Steppenwolf", but others of Hesse's books; "Unterm Rad" was mandatory at school, but I enjoyed it nonetheless.
DeleteHeidelberg is beautiful but oh so touristy, and there are so many beautiful towns and villages off the beaten track.
Unterm Rad was translated as Beneath the Wheel, then reissued as The Prodigy. The young man in the novel is expelled from his seminary then finds satisfaction in working with his hands as a locksmith. His drowning in the river haunted me. Maulbronn, the setting of his post-seminary life, has a very deep lake. In my day Steppenwolf was read as an LSD novel, a trip into the lake of *deep inner space* as we used to say in the early 1970s.
ReplyDeleteThose villages and towns off the beaten track, away from Heidelberg, are the places I want to visit. I shall look at them on a map. The vertiginous slopes of the Moselle Valley I have only ever read about, but I would like to see the Jugendstil villas, and enjoy a glass or two in the wine warehouses. I could pretend I am Settembrini in The Magic Mountain, enjoying the cold delicate taste of the Moselle with a half corona cigar!
John Haggerty
Maulbronn is impressive - the place is beautiful and haunting at the same time. I have often been there on Sunday afternoon trips with my parents as a kid, and much later. It is difficult to reach by public transport, and so I have not been there often in recent years, but it is well worth a visit.
DeleteMuch of Unterm Rad is based on Hesse's own experience as a child and teenager, but of course you know that. I always felt I could relate to the book quite clearly during and after visiting Maulbronn.
Calw has a good Hesse museum, by the way.
Calw and Maulbronn will be my destinations once international travel is resumed. They will revive my early interest in German writing which I only know in translation - Max Weber, the Mann brothers, Brecht, Herman Broch, Kafka, Robert Musil, Heidegger, Walser, Kurt Weil, Hannah Arendt, Paul Celan, Grass.
DeleteAfter an early crisis Hesse fled his Evangelical seminary which he would have found too narrow. *One religion is about as good as another,* he said in maturity. *There is not one in which one could not become wise, and not one which could not also be practised as the stupidest idol-worship.*
The first sentence is invalid, though it is popular with New Age spirituality, but the second sentence has much truth. Hesse's rejection of Swabian piety led him in the direction of Gnosticism, which is why he was so popular in my day. There is a useful blog *PostBarthian* which looks at Barth's rejection of Teilhard de Chardin's scientific gnosticism.
Hesse said he considered converting to Rome, but Catholicism smelled to him of blood and history. In some ways Archbishop Georg Ganswein, Prefect of the Papal Household, is like a Hesse character. *The Glass Bead Game* introduces us to an intricate world of learning, a secular mirror image of Catholic ritual, Canon Law, and Thomist theology.
Hesse's rejection of systems makes me think of Gert Hoffmann's novel *Der Blindensturz*. Gert's son Michael Hoffmann is a poet and translator in London.
See *Metric Conversion: Why poet Michael Hoffmann stopped wreaking destruction on his family in verse.* The Independent online, 2008, Stephen Knight.
John Haggerty
Thanks for printing my comment. Your glorious photographs make me think of German language writers I forgot: Ingeborg Bachman, Walter Benjamin, Thomas Bernhard, Heinrich Boll, Alfred Doblin, Jennifer Erpenbeck, Theodore Fontane, Uta Ranke-Heinemann, Rosa Luxembourg, Jurgen Moltmann, Herta Muller, Erich Maria Remarque, Nelly Sachs, WG Sebald, Christa Wolf, Eva Zeller ...
ReplyDeleteJules Michelet described Germany as the India of Europe, contemplating its huge landmass. As a boy I devoured the Brothers Grimm and Erich Kastner's Emile And The Detectives, and became fascinated with Germany. Patrick White wrote of a German explorer in his novel Voss, and described his pre-War stay in Hanover in another novel, The Riders in the Chariot. The French novelist Michelle Tournier was a Germanist (read his memoirs The Wind Spirit) and set one of his best novels, The Erl King, in Germany. Jay Parini wrote a novel about Walter Benjamin (Benjamin's Crossing) about the time Benjamin's massive posthumous book The Arcades Project was published. Walter Abish topped everyone with his strange work of fiction, How German Is It.
Two English novelists, Sybille Bedford and Eva Figes were born in Germany, and much of their work is coloured by their consciousness of Europe. I love the songs of Lotte Lenya and the paintings of Kathe Kollwitz, both of whom make me wish I spoke German. In a biography of Kollwitz, there is an encounter she had with an elderly woman who spoke in a dialect of high German; the way she expressed herself seemed to reflect Kollwitz's drawings. As a teenager I saw Fritz Lang's German films M and The Threepenny Opera; German Expressionist Cinema has remained in my imagination ever since.
I mourned the death in a road accident of Max Sebald and have read his last novel, Austerlitz, four or five times. The title refers to an historic battle, a railway station in Paris, and the eponymous hero. There is a good documentary on Sebald on DVD.
John Haggerty
Of your list of German language writers, I have read only very few, although I am familiar with almost all the names. Have you ever read Walter Kempowski? He is my favourite contemporary German author, and I have met him once in Marbach when he was reading at the Deutsche Literatur-Archiv (where I now work as Data Protection Officer). Erich Kästner comes a close second, I would say. He was brilliant.
DeleteGerman having a "huge landmass"?! That is the first time I ever hear Germany described as "huge"! A look at the map shows many countries much larger than Germany, and the comparison with India is rather odd; THAT is a huge country!