An Accidental Adventure: Mühltal
OK, so I thought I'd be clever and go visit the Frankenstein Castle on my own. There are sources on getting to it from the train station, and hey, I can walk. So I get off in Mühltal. I walk down to the town, and there's nothing. Can't even find any signs, except for the closet approximation: Frankenhausen. Well, it sounds about right, doesn't it? It was about 7 km away, so I reshouldered my bag and set off.
The path went through the town. Through huge fields, some of which I laid around in for awhile; deep gorgeous forest, some of which I laid around in for awhile. More fields, me feeling like I was lost and climbing onto bales of hay to get my bearings, climbing strange watchtower-like structures they've got all over the place.
Finally, I get to my destination-- except that, it turns out, Frankenhausen is a town. Definitely not the castle. Yeah, you can laugh if you saw that coming. And, of course, it's a town without a train station. So I had to walk all 7 km back to make sure I'd get home all right.
Oh, well. It was a very tiring, but certainly peaceful day. And
pictures.
Strasbourg
After Wittlich, Emily and I took a late weekend in Strasbourg. After getting only slightly lost on the autobahn system, we arrived, and proceeded to get slightly lost in Strasbourg-- a city of one ways and narrow cobblestone roads and dead ends (we actually had to drive over the city train tracks and over the sidewalk for a dozen yards before we could get into the parking garage!). The best part of Strasbourg, though, is the river.
Our first night, we wandered through Petit France, the old part of town, which includes a cathedral. The specialty of the region is tartes flambées-- a sort of very thin-crusted pizza, with créme fraîche and various toppings (we split a cheese and ham and mushroom as well as a vegetarian one that was covered with gobs of melted brie). Oh, wow.
The next morning, we picked up breakfast from the supermarket: bread, cheese, ham, juice, and champagne. We sat on a wall right by the river watching the tourist boats pass by. Then we did some more touristing-- hopscotch by the carousel, and looking at the astronomical clock in the cathedral. After a nap, we had some more tarte flambée, watched a movie, and walked around the city at night, checking out the bridges.
A final cool thing about Strasbourg: since it's pretty much on the border of France and Germany, it's a strange mix of the two countries. While I got to finally feel useful using my French, everybody seemed to speak German as well. The region is also famous for its cranes, and while we didn't see any nests, we did get to see one flying, which was pretty cool.
Pictures are up
here.
Wittlich and Trier
So a couple weeks ago I went up to visit Emily. She lives in Wittlich, a fairly small town a ways west of Frankfurt. We went to a Greek restaurant near her apartment, where the owner came to talk to us, and tried to convince us to stay longer. And May first is their labor day, so there was a cute little festival in the town square. Some sort of raffle, a guy doing balloon art, kids running around with labor party flags, and, of course, a stand selling bratwurst, and one selling beer. We just sat around enjoying the beautiful weather and the people watching.
On Friday, we went down to Trier, the oldest city in Germany. There are still some Roman ruins, the throne room of Constantine. We did most of our walking on Saturday, down the main market street. It was just lined with people selling jewelry and all sorts of things. There was a guy that made wire sculptures right there on the street (I'll put a picture of the one I got up-- only two euros!), right next to the guy carving wooden statues. A woman making wire jewelry, a guy making those wire hanging ornaments. And, of course, the ubiquitous gelato stands. Good times.
Heidelberg Cemetery
This is between downtown and Robin's place. It's quite the interesting place-- first of all, because there are two different gravestone stores across the street (it reminds me of the line of bail bond businesses across the street from the LA jail). Also, graveyards in Germany are very much living places. It's common on Sundays for families to go out and tend the graves-- most are actually small garden plots, constantly evolving.
Pictures are
here.
Heidelberg Castle
It's been busy here!
So I've got the pictures from the castle up
here. It is perhaps my favorite castle so far. This might be because there were birds singing constantly-- or because most of it's free, so it's like being in a gorgeous park you can just wander around. There's even a path that runs from an upper courtyard around the base of the outer wall, past a flock of sheep and back up to the castle. It goes through some great woods, this little path that I'd imagine not many people even find.
You have to pay to get into the Inner Courtyard-- that's where the Museum of Pharmacy is (which I spent way too much time in-- if anyone wants a picture of every single placard in it, then let me know), and the largest wine barrel in the world (or something like that-- if it's not, I won't believe it).
From almost every rampart, you could see all of the city. Plus, I got a picture of the elusive European squirrel-- definitely worth the 300-plus steps to get there!
