Read in 2012 - 15: Neben der Spur

A German book for a change, written by Ella Theiss, a German author who is an email friend of my Mum's and sent her this, her latest work, with a personal message for her in the front:

"Neben der Spur" is crime fiction against a backdrop of a topic of current interest for many German readers: biological (vegetarian) food, how it is produced, and the ethics and morals behind it.

Set in and around the German town of Mainz, with an excursion to the Czech Republic, the story starts with the 100th birthday of Hermann Hepp, whose company has been producing bio-vegetarian soups and condiments since before WWII.

Journalists gather for the celebration, one of them being young Karoline Rosenkranz, and it does not look as if any exciting story could come out of this, but then a bomb explodes and a chain of events is set in motion that leads to said journalist investigating the matter on her own accord, nearly resulting in her being murdered.

Both the past and the present bear many secrets, some of them just very sad, others really dangerous, and while for a long time Karoline's suspicions are partly wrong, in the end she does manage to uncover the plot and finds love along the way where she never sought it.

I must admit I would not have read this book had it not been lent to me by my Mum, and while it is a pleasant and fun enough story, I wouldn't call it a "must read". The story is well told, with the chapters jumping in perspective mostly between Karoline and old Hermann (with some other characters getting their own chapter every now and then), but I always find it difficult to get "into" a book when I can not really relate to the main character which is, in this case, Karoline. I am not very fond of her with her silly obsession about dieting and her rather chaotic approach of life in general and her work in particular, but I am sure a lot of readers will like her exactly for that.

Early into the story, it becomes obvious who is behind the strange goings-on, but that person's relationship to another character in the book is only revealed at the end and came as a surprise to me.

The whole setting is well researched, and the author thanks those who helped with her research into such varied topics as preparing for a piano concert, living with an autistic child, and communication in and with the Czech Republic.

It had its gripping moments, and some funny bits, and there is a recipe for home-made vegetarian condiment by Ella Theiss herself.

Now it will go back to my Mum's, and I'll decide what book to read next - I have so much choice these days with my Kindle and the books I was given while in England.

Arco (Lago di Garda)

Earlier this year, thanks to Graham, I learnt the term "Gabion Walls" (see this post for the context), and here I mentioned that stone walls have almost the same tugging appeal to me as doors and doorways.

Therefore, you can probably imagine how much I enjoyed the climb up to the Castello di Arco, in spite of it being quite steep in places and there for us at the end of a walk that had already been at least 7 km long, most of it in the bright sun at temperatures of around 27 Celsius or more.

The sight of these olive orchards with flowers and stone walls was so beautiful, I wasn't even that interested in getting to the actual castle anymore.

We still did, of course, and were rewarded with magnificent views across the small old town of Arco, which sits right next to Riva, separated from it by Monte Brioni, a nature reserve.

Already around the year 1000, the castle was mentioned in documents, but most of what is visible today received its characteristic shape about two centuries later. The castle was abandoned in the early 1700s and made accessible to the public only in the 1980s.

On our way back from Arco to Riva, we decided to walk a different route... which took us longer than expected and wasn't quite as pleasant as the way there, because it wasn't on foot paths but along roads which, although there was not much traffic, were a little dangerous at times with their many curves and drivers of the few cars clearly not expecting any walkers.

Had we not chosen that route, though, we would not have come across this unusual house, partly built into and onto the rock; it is a restaurant, and we would have certainly gone there one evening for dinner if we had stayed longer than the one week.

Does anyone know what this beetle is?

It was about half as long as my thumb, and just as thick, and we were very careful not to step on it.

The following day, we were in the mood for slightly less walking and drove to Verona, but that is certainly worth its own post :-)

Riva del Garda

Although I have been travelling the whole length of the Italian "boot" many times (see my Souvenirs from Sicily), up until very recently, I had never stopped in the northern part of the country before.

A week ago today, RJ and I returned from our holiday in Riva del Garda, and I am going to show you some pictures of the town and tell you about the time we spent there.

When I told people that we were going to go to Lake Garda, they often said I was going to find it rather "German", compared to those parts of Italy I know better (namely Sicily); "German" not only because of my co-nationals being the largest group of tourists there, but also in terms of how tidy, neat and organized everything is.

Now, when I travel, my aim is not to spend my free time among crowds of other Germans, nor to eat German food in a foreign country and speak only German; I am fluent in Italian, I like Italian food (who doesn't?!) and am glad to report that, in spite of there really being many, many other German tourists in the area, it did not really "feel" like Germany.

But let me get back to the original intention of this post: to tell you a bit more about Riva and show you some pictures.

According to the guide book my sister kindly lent me, Riva is the third biggest town on Lake Garda at about 16.000 inhabitants. It is also its northern-most town, with the mountains right up to the rim of the lake, surrounding the town so closely that, once the heavy clouds are there, they stay put for a while... as we were to find out during the 2nd half of our week.

 

When we arrived, the view was beautiful with blue sky and the evening sun across the lake.

Already a settlement in Roman times, Riva gained some importance in the 11th and 12th century. Some of the buildings from that time are still there, such as the Torre Apponale (Apponale-tower), built in 1220, and the Rocca, a sturdy castle surrounded by water on all sides.

The medieval town centre is full of more or less narrow, curved streets, most of them cobbled and paved, and there are many restaurants, bars and shops to choose from; really something for every taste and every budget.

Just a bit further out, newer and larger houses, private residences as well as palace-like hotels, show that this used to be a popular place for European aristocracy and celebrities when they were in need of a rest; many well-known German names from art and literature have once been inscribed in the guest books of hotels. pensions and sanatoriums.

Many of these places are now empty; if you have been reading my blog for a while, maybe you know that I have a thing for abandoned houses and neglected, overgrown gardens. It was sad to look at them but exciting at the same time, trying to imagine what they once were like, and what I would find there now if I went inside to explore.

We did not stay in Riva during the day but usually went somewhere else, either on foot or by car, and returned to the town in the evening.

More about our excursions will follow in the next posts. 
Since I won't put all the pictures on my blog, if you are interested in seeing them, simply click here for my photobucket album.

A Proper Holiday

At the end of this post, I mentioned looking forward to mine and RJ's holiday in Italy, and this innocent little remark caused some comment and discussion (mostly behind the scenes).

It made me think about what constitutes a "proper" holiday for me.

Let me try and explain - or else, skip this post and wait for the next one.

England - and by that I mean mainly Yorkshire - is not a holiday for me, but a necessity. It is necessary for my wellbeing, for my mental health, if you want, to spend some time every year in the country I consider my second home, seeing the people that are just as much family to me as the blood-relations here in Germany, even though technically speaking we are not related at all, and our original link - my husband Steve - died 2 1/2 years ago.

In England, and with family and friends there, I feel so much at home, so welcome and so at ease that it simply does not feel like "being away" from home, even though I go to places I have not seen before every time.

A "proper" holiday is something else for me; it means (again: for ME! It might be entirely different for other people)  really going AWAY from familiar surroundings, discovering different places, different sights, sounds, smells and tastes, speaking a different language (not always) and then, at the end of it, enjoying to go back home and return to the "at home" feeling that I love about both my town here in Germany and Ripon in Yorkshire.

The holiday RJ and I went on together was spent in Riva del Garda, a small town on the northern edge of Lake Garda. We had booked ten days in a hotel and stayed only a week, deciding to break off because of the weather taking a turn for the worse as well as the hotel staff and service going continuously downhill in the course of the second half of the week.

We did a lot of hiking and spent a day in Verona and one in Sirmione; we went dancing on the piazza at a huge street party in the heart of the old town centre of Riva, had delicious meals and generally a really good time - and we wanted to leave while we still had more good than bad memories.

There will, of course, be pictures of some of the places we explored and accounts of what we saw, did and ate.

In the meantime, I am still officially on vacation and will take up work again on Monday.

Read in 2012 - 14: Afoot in England

Another free ebook found its way to my Kindle during the time when I downloaded over 80 books in the space of a few weeks in March and April. 

This one is "Afoot in England" by W. H. Hudson (the initials standing for William Henry) and is certainly NOT a guide book - something the author explicitly wants the reader to understand from the first page on.

Originally written in 1909, Mr. Hudson describes walks, buildings, people, villages, paths, trees, animals - most of all birds - he saw, observed or met during the early 1900s. 

There is mention of places we can actually see for ourselves, such as Calleva (now Silchester), which at the time of the author's visits was just beginning to attract public interest and a lonely place free of tourists, or Stonehenge, where he spends some very cold, dark hours along with several hundred men wanting to observe the sunrise, only to go back at a later date to repeat the experience on his own, which he then finds very rewarding.

Some rivers and villages are named, but by no means all of them, and so it would be quite a difficult undertaking if anyone wished to walk on Hudson's traces.

At one point, he despairs of the weather - "has there ever been a June as cold and wet as that of 1906?" - something that made me think of what I have been hearing from my relatives and friends in England as well as reading on some of the blogs I follow.

Everything he writes about is neatly wrapped up into a chapter; some chapters talk about a particular place (such as Salisbury Cathedral) or a particular person (such as an elderly lady who told him the story of his life over the weeks he stayed at her cottage), while there is another chapter entirely dedicated to Robert Bloomfield's novel-length poem "The Famer's Boy", with many quotations.

As an ornithologist, the author knows and writes a great deal about the birds he observes during his walks, but this is never boring. The book does have its lengths (for instance, the aforementioned chapter about "The Famer's Boy"), but it is entertaining, interesting and not without humour. If nothing else, it shows how more than a 100 years ago, people dealt with early forms of tourism, from the mass to the individual kind.

Some of the words the author uses are naturally different to how a writer would express similar ideas now, but that only adds to the charm of this book.

From the variety of topics Mr. Hudson covers in the 25 chapters, I guess he'd be a well-read blogger if he lived today.

International Street Music Festival

This festival is firmly established in my personal diary as something I will attend in any case, provided I am not travelling or ill or the weather is really, really awful.

It was held for the 9th time in Ludwigsburg on the last weekend in May, from Friday to Sunday.

What makes this festival so special?

For one thing, it is the setting: the beautiful park and gardens surrounding Ludwigsburg palace. You've seen pictures of it several times on my blog already; for instance here and here. The whole grounds are practically turned into one big party for three days, filled with cheerful people and music, music, music!

Then, you have about 40 groups and solo artists, almost all of them playing very different styles of music. One simply strolls through the park and stops at those stages where the music is according to one's taste and passes by those who are less so.

The mood is usually great, especially as it gets later and people have "warmed up", so to speak; not so much for the beer or sparkling wine etc. they can buy at various spots throughout the park, but simply because it takes a while for many people to come out of their usual reserved state and before they start clapping, singing along and dancing.

The festival's website is here; I'm afraid there is no English version of the site, but you can look at videos (and listen to the music, of course) of all the bands when you click here.

We were lucky with the weather this year, and even more lucky to find our favourite for 2012 very soon into the festival: The Dapper Dan Men.

I took some pictures while they were on stage:

Bluegrass is a style I much like, although I'm afraid I would not want to listen to a whole album at home or go to a venue where nothing but this kind of music is played all evening. But it was great there and then; the band were really good with their instruments and the singing, and we enjoyed ourselves very much.

The Dapper Dan Men were of course not the only band we were listening to, but I only took a few more pictures elsewhere; it was getting too dark then and besides I was trying to avoid anyone feeling "stalked" by me taking pictures (impossible to take any without people on them).

Years ago, I befriended some of the musicians; we are in touch by email throughout the year and I bought this painting from one of them in 2009 as a birthday present to myself.

Unfortunately, out of the 40 artists to perform during the 3 days of the festival, the festival committee never allow the same group or artist to play for more than two or three consecutive years, so as to give new groups a chance to enter the festival. This means that a lot of people, including myself, miss their favourites; after a gap of one or two years, they are usually allowed back and I am already looking forward to next year's festival, with hopefully my two favourite bands being back on stage there.

PS: I will post about our holiday in Italy soon; in the meantime, if you want to look at the pictures, my photobucket album is here.

Believe it or not: That's It!

Yes, that's it, the last post about our week in Yorkshire.

Of course, there would be plenty more to tell (there always is - usually, my blog posts only skim the surface of all the things I want to tell you about and show you), but I've been writing a lot more already than what you'll ever want to know, and so I shall leave it at this.

Returning from Thirsk mid-afternoon, we retreated to our room at the B&B for a while to warm up with steaming mugs of tea. Not very long until I grew restless and wanted to be out again, and so I went for a walk, exploring a part of Ripon I had not seen before but only read about in one of the leaflets at the B&B.

This is the leper chapel, or, to be more precise, St. Mary Magdalen, built in the year 1115 and still looking pretty much as it was back then (no additions or alterations).

You can find out about its history and look at more pictures on their website.

When I was there, the chapel was locked, and I didn't know of the possibility to ask for the key at one of the nearby houses; anyway, I enjoyed the walk there and the peace and quiet surrounding the chapel before I headed back into town.

The Saturday was spent with the family - a big gathering of around 25 people, some of which I met for the first time. We had a meal at Pastures Lodge, and we all greatly enjoyed it - this time, not for a funeral, as had been the case too many times in the past two years, but simply to be together.

Sunday morning at breakfast - it was to be our last Full English for the time being! - we chatted to the two couples who were at the table with us. It turned out they were in Ripon for the classic cars show, and were going to exhibit their cars as well. One of the proud owners kindly went out with us to the car park and showed us their beauties:

Don't ask me about models and year of build and all that - Graham knows!
The red car, the owner told us, is sometimes used in film or TV productions; it appears for instance in the Agatha Christie TV adaption of "The Moving Finger".

The rest of Sunday was spent travelling. My sister-in-law kindly took us to Harrogate station, where we boarded the train to Leeds. There, we got onto the Transpennine "Express" (as usual, it was packed, and once again, I spent the journey sat on my suitcase, just like I have done before.) Our flight was punctual, even landed in Stuttgart a bit early, and almost precisely at 7.30 pm, I unlocked my front door and was back home.
On flying in, for the first time ever, my sister and I were able to identify our home town! It was a beautiful and welcome sight.

(This is not my picture; I shamelessly nicked this one from somewhere on the internet.)

It had been a very good week. Yes, the weather could have been better (mainly warmer!), but I still think we were lucky compared to other parts of England where apparently it never stopped raining at that time.

Mary gave me so many presents (it was my birthday parcel, actually) that I had to enlist my sister's help and she put some of my things in her suitcase to fit it all in:

Books and choccies and a necklace and more choccies and small gifts for my parents and more books and more choccies... Just what I like!

Well, that's it, as I said. No more England travelling posts for about a year, I guess.

My next trip will be on Monday morning: RJ and I are going to spend 10 days in Italy, Lake Garda. For me, it will be the first time since 1998 for my feet to touch Italian soil again, after I used to spend almost every summer on Sicily for 10 years (you can read about my first trip to Sicily on my blog, simply put "Sicily" in the search box on the top left corner).
We are both very much looking forward to our holiday, and I am sure some pictures will find their way on here in due time.