Germany Day 11

Sept. 20, 2011. I'm having a really hard time making myself concentrate enough to write tonight. I just want to listen to music and eat junk food and play games on the computer! I think it's because this is the first night we have had free before dark in forever and it is soooooo relaxing! I know I'm lame - most people on vacation would probably be out on the town hitting all the biergartens, but aren't you supposed to relax on vacation? Just a little? I think I deserve it!

The first book I'm going to read when I get home is The Walking Drum by Louis L'Amour. It is a historical novel set in 12th century Europe in which the main character takes a dangerous journey from city to city looking for his father. I've read it before, but now I feel I can better understand it: the marching merchant caravan, the sword fights on the battlefields in full armor, the inns and castles, the food, drinks, medicine and clothing, the daily way of life. This was a time that existed only in storybooks for me, but now it feels real - very real - and I can't wait to read more about it!

It's the castles that are bringing The Middle Ages to life. We saw another today in yet another charming medieval city, Meersburg, Alte Burg, the oldest inhabited castle in Germany, stands on a rocky outcropping on the northern shore of Lake Constance; Switzerland is visible on the opposite side. The view over the city and across the lake was magnificent! View of Switzerland over Lake Constance from Merrsburg Castle wall

Parts of the castle date from the 7th century and as is typical of castles, later additions have been made with very different styles. The rooms have been furnished with items authentic to the time period, and it was easy to imagine how the inhabitants lived. Some of the highlights I enjoyed were a cooking area with the first garbage disposal - a slot behind the kitchen sink where refuse was pushed into the moat, a deep well dug all the way down to the surface of Lake Constance so the castle had a ready supply of water during sieges, and a tunnel dug beneath the castle that allowed access outside for supplies if the castle was surrounded by enemies.

Knight's dining room

Other memorable sights were a vaulted chamber where knights gathered at a long table for meals, a room full of armor and weapons, and a prison inside the old tower where prisoners were lowered by rope to serve out their sentences. They also had some more of those shiny tile stoves I find so irresistible! However romantic is seems, though, those people had to be tough as nails. Cold stone, open gaps for windows, and open fires for cooking every meal made for a rough life. I'm glad I have modern amenities!

We had lunch at the castle restaurant. Their specialties was Pfannkuchen, basically a pancake with different fillings. I ordered zwiebel und speck, which means onions and cheese; Deb ordered apfel und speck (apples and bacon). Although we thought it would be kind of like pizza, it was really more like a thick crepe batter. Deb thought hers was underdone. It was a little doughy but I never met anything with bacon I couldn't eat! We shopped a little after lunch, and I fell in love with a shop called Chapeau. It had clothing and hats; I totally adored all the clothes! Cute tops, adorable jackets, funky jewelry, sassy shoes - it's a good thing I'm poor or I would have spent like a drunken sailor! The cheapest thing was 89 euros so it was completely out of my budget. Damn!

The Meersburg vineyards on the northern banks of Lake Constance are famous within Germany. We saw field after field of grapevines, heavy with luscious, ripe fruit. This area is lower than Villingen, and out of the Black Forest, so the climate is warmer which allows grapes to flourish. We had just enough time after leaving the castle for a quick stop at Basilika Birnau along Lake Constance. OMG! This pink Baroque church (yes, pink!) is so ornate and gilded and frescoed and gaudy that you could sit at mass every Sunday for a year and find new things to look at every time. Vineyards slope downward from the church to the lake below. What a beautiful sight!

Basilika Birnau

We arrived back at the hotel by 4:00 and had the rest of the evening free. Deb left to try to find a manicurist and I headed off in search of the cemetery. What?! Don't you always check out the cemeteries when you're in another country? You know you're curious! Anyway, after about 15 minutes of walking, I found it in the shadow of an old church. I searched in vain for the "old section". Apparently, plots are rented for a certain period of time, usually 20 to 30 years, with the possibility of an extension. Eventually, though, the plot will be used for another burial, once the mourners themselves have passed away. (What the heck do they do with the remains then for Pete's sakes?) I saw a few older ones here and there, but on the whole the burials were only a couple decades old. The graves were well-tended, with lots of permanent plantings of flowers and bushes, fresh cut flowers, memorabilia and lit candles. Who lights these things every day? Or do they last for a few days? Inquiring minds want to know! I took lots of pics, hoping I wasn't doing anything disrespectful that some little old German lady was going to yell at me for. It was an interesting side trip that I'm glad I had time for!

Headstone, Villingen cemetery

All Deb and I wanted to do for the rest of the evening was eat dinner and crash at the hotel. We chose a restaurant in the center of town with a few outdoor tables and no English on the menu. We're feeling pretty brave by now and don't even need English subtitles! The menu had a short history of the building - in German, of couse - and I think it said it dates back to 1514. How cool is that?! The sun was setting behind a beautiful church with colorful mosaic tiles on the steeple roof and every other building surrounding us was from a much earlier time. One of the nightly specials was Rinderhacksteak mit gebratenen zwiebeln, grillsosse, pommes und salat. We think we have this all figured out! I knew rind was beef, hack must mean chopped (hack, get it?), steak is steak, gebratenen - well, who cares?, zwiebel we already know are onions because Deb bought some Funyuns last night which are called Zwiebel Rings, grill sosse must be grill sauce of course, pommes are potatoes and salat is salad. It turns out it is Salisbury Steak with grilled onions and french fries, and green salad. Not bad! The church bells serenaded us every 15 minutes while we dined al fresco in this ancient city. Awesome!

My productivity once we arrived back at the room has been...sketchy. Earlier the people in the room above us were doing it - you could hear the bedsprings bouncing up and down. I ate a Snickers bar and listened to my MP3 player. Deb keeps finding ways to distract me so she doesn't have to blog. My feet still hurt. I want to play on Facebook. I am almost to the end of this day's journal though! So, until tomorrow - Guten abend!