Castle, Cross and Crocuses

Last Friday (the 3rd of March) was another sunny day, and the start of our mini break to celebrate the 7th anniversary of our being together earlier that week.

I began and wrapped up work very early and rushed through my cleaning routine in order to leave home shortly after 12:30. The two trains I took were both on time, and I arrived at the tiny station of Bad Teinach-Neubulach at 20 to 2:00 pm.

O.K. arrived soon afterwards, and drove us the 4.5 km up the steep hill to Zavelstein, a village of just under 800 inhabitants. (Clicking on the underlined word will take you to its short wikipedia entry.)

From 1986 to 1988, I attended Librarian School in the nearby town of Calw, and with my friends visited Zavelstein a few times; we loved the picturesque place. In 2014, I returned for a day trip with two of my friends from Librarian School, and blogged about it here. The photos I took then are different from the ones I am showing you today, as it was summer. Please refer to my old post for information about the castle and the village itself; there is no need to repeat it all here.

Checking in at the hotel took longer than expected, but eventually, we were shown to our room. It was exactly the room I had wanted, and with the sun streaming in, it looked very nice - I could easily imagine us staying for more than just a short weekend.

The hut overlooking the valley is a sauna.

Nobody was in the outdoor pool at that moment.

We were just in time to grab coffees and cake before the buffet closed at 4:00 pm, but the beautiful afternoon light was beckoning, and so we were soon on our way to the castle ruins, just along the road from the hotel:

The next few are views from the top of the tower:

Our hotel is just behind the church.

We then walked across the village, following the sign posts to the crocus meadows Zavelstein is famous for. Although there were many buds visible, we came at the wrong time to see the meadows in their full glory - it was too cold, and too late in the day. Still, we could imagine what it must be like when the crocuses are out in full force. Busloads of tourists come up to Zavelstein then, so we were actually lucky to escape that.

On our way back down towards the village and our hotel, we came past a stone cross, erected in 1447. The story behind it is sad: In January of that year, a spinstress by the name Margret Meyr was visiting her cousin in Zavelstein. The cousin's child fell ill, and Margret walked to nearby Calw to get the doctor's advice and medicine. On the way back through the woods, she was caught up in a snowstorm. She would have still made it back to her cousin, but unfortunately, she fell into a wolf trap along the way (such traps were quite common in the woods in those days), where she froze to death.

View of Zavelstein from the other side of the village,

Touching as it was, we were not weighed down by sadness for long; the evening was just too beautiful, and we had a delicious four-course meal to look forward to. Before sitting down at our table in the restaurant, we clinked our glasses of sparkling wine at the hotel bar, observing other guests (and some of them were quite eye-catching - one man with flowing grey locks was dressed all in black and white, wearing a Versace shirt under a boldly patterned knee-length cardigan, ordering a bottle of champagne for just himself and the quiet lady at his side) and talking about what we wanted to do the next day.

The meal was excellent, the service friendly and attentive. The rest of the evening was quietly spent in our beautiful room.