Christmas in Germany: Part 1

We LOVE Christmas time in Germany! It is our FAVORITE place to be at Christmas! We let our families know before moving here that they were not to expect us home for the holidays...we were not going to pass up this opportunity to spend Christmas in Germany!

By mid- to late-November Germans start preparing for Christmas. The first real sign that the holiday is finally upon us is the opening of the Weihnactsmarkt...the Christmas Market.

Every German city and town has a Christmas Market. Somewhere in the center of town, often around an old church, little wooden booths are set up and vendors sell all kinds of good things: Christmas decorations, candles, and handmade crafts. You'll also find yummy food...like chocolate or wurst with bread or warm drinks like Glühwein (a warm red wine with spices, or the non-alcoholic version for children of warm red grape juice punch with spices). Often, markets also have music performers or merry-go-rounds for kids. The market is typically open daily through December and it is especially lovely in the evenings, with Christmas lights all around the market.



My other favorite thing about Christmas here, are the traditional decorations:

Räuchermännchen ...the name means "little smoking men" and they are little men made from wood. You place a little cone-shaped peice of incense to burn inside him, and curls of smoke drift out of his mouth. Charming! Click here for an example.

Schwibbogen...these are decorative wooden arches that hold candles. They are usually placed on window sills. Click here for an example.

Nussknacker...or Nutcrackers, are of course well-known to you all. But click here if you need an example.

Pyramiden...these are my favorite! Named for their pyramid-like shape, these wooden decorative carousels hold candles at their base. The heat from the candles turn the propellers at the top, which turn the decorative figures on the pyramid. It's just not Christmas without a pyramid! Here's an example.

Although these decorations are well-established German traditions...you will find them in EVERY German home...they all originate from one small, specific region of Germany: the Erzgebirge (or Ore Mountains) found on the Czech border.

And then there's my other favorite thing about Christmas in Germany...St. Nikolaus Tag (St. Nicholas Day)! This is like a little pre-Christmas Christmas. On the evening of December 5th, all the children shine their shoes then leave them outside their bedroom doors. During the night, St. Nikolaus comes and gives candy and nuts and little toys to all the good boys and girls enjoyed by them the next morning, December 6th, St. Nicholas Day! This is what he looks like.

Some other important days before Christmas in German are the Advents...each of the four Sundays before Christmas are the advents. Each advent a candle is lit in anticipation of the coming of the Christ child: on the first advent, one candle is lit, on the second two candles are lit, the the third...you get the idea. Often Germans will celebrate each advent by eating Lebkuchen and drinking tea or coffee. You can read more about this tradition here.

But one of my favorite things about Christmas in Germany is that it lasts for THREE DAYS! The most important day of Christmas for the Germans is Christmas Eve (December 24th) or Heilige Abend (Holy Evening). On this evening, the family gathers for a simple humble meal (often sausages and potato salad) which symbolizes the humility of Christ's birth. Then the gifts are opened. Santa Claus...or the Weihnachtsmann (Christmas Man) isn't usually as generous as he tends to be in the US. Gifts are meaningful but not necessarily plentiful. I've also learned that in this region of Germany, which is strongly Catholic, many Germans receive their gifts from the Christkind...or Christ Child. The Weihnactsmann tradition really comes from the United States image of Santa Claus. But the Christkind represents Christ as a child. The Christ child is represented by a young woman with golden curls and an angelic robe. Here's an example. After Heilige Abend, Christmas continues on the first day of Christmas (December 25th) and the second day of Christmas (December 26th) with lots of big meals and family gatherings.

Karl and I hope all of you have a wonderful Christmas! We miss all of our friends and family at this special time of year, and we wish we could be with all of you...but rest assured we are loving our traditional German Christmas!

(By the way...if you have any questions about these or other German Christmas traditions, or if you have any Christmas traditions you'd like to share...please feel free to leave a comment!)

(And if you're interested in adding some wonderful wooden German Christmas ornaments to your holiday, here's a good place to start. Or for more information on German Christmas traditions and ornaments click here.)

A Return to the Vaterland

Karl's parents, Ann and Joe, came to visit for the Thanksgiving holiday! This was a return to Germany for Joe who had both served a church mission in Munich and also served in the military in German. However, this was Ann's first ever visit to Germany. Her father and her mother's mother were both born here so it was a special trip for her. We had a lovely time with them!

France



They arrived on Sunday, November 19th, and on Monday, while Karl was at work, I took them to France. We visited the beautiful city of Strasbourg, France. The city is located in the Alsace region of France. This region was once German, then it became French, then German again, then French...you get the idea. Although it is now solidly part of France, there are many German-named towns, German architecture and they speak a dilect that sounds like a cross between French and German.

Besides being the seat of the European Parliment, Strasbourg also has an absolutely huge and beautifully stunning gothic cathedral. The cathedral was built mostly in the 1200s and is espcially known for its astronomical clock. The first clock in the cathedral was installed in the 13oos, replaced in 1574 and in about 1840 that clock was expanded to the clock that stands now. At 12:30 pm daily the clock strikes. After looking through the rest of the cathedral, we attending the fascinating ringing of the clock: a child turns an hourglass, apostles file past a figure of Christ, and a cock crows three times.

After eating lunch in Strasbourg we drove about 40 minutes south to the tiny village of Riquewihr. This little town was founded in the 6th century...and it hasn't changed much since! We could have thrown up from all the quaintness if it weren't just too beautiful!! Not only did we fall in love with the narrow streets, the colored timberhouses, and the cobblestones but they had just decorated the town for Christmas...it was all a fairy tale come to life!

Frankfurt, Wasserkuppe, and Bad Kissingen



The next couple of days we took a trip into Joe's past. On Tuesday we all drove up to Frankfurt am Main at the church's temple where Joe met an old friend of his from when he was a young missionary, Erna. She was a darling woman! We spent the evening with her then spent the night in a small pension. On Wednesday we drove up to Wasserkuppe where Joe had served in the military. The old base was at the peak of a hill, but unfortunately it was a very foggy day and there was no view...although the drive up and down was gorgeous. We drove on to Bad Kissingen where Joe spent much of his mission. We arrived after nightfall but it was still a very charming town. As its name suggests (Bad = Bath) it is a spa town. We walked around the park near the spa and around the beautify, charming city center before heading back to Buehl.

Burgs and a Biergarten

We had a German-style Thanksgiving starting with visiting a couple of ruined castles along the edge of the Black Forest. We spotted one off of the autobahn at the top of a hill in the middle of a grape wineyard. Then we visited Oberkirch and Schauenburg. We decided to eat our Thanksgiving dinner at our neighborhood biergarten (biergarten = beer garden, an open air drinking house with a yummy menu) up the street from us in Oberweier. It was a very traditional German meal in a traditional German atmosphere...all very un-American!

Baden-Baden

On Friday, we visited Baden-Baden. It was the first day of the city's Christmas Market, so we spend some time enjoying the market with yummy food, crafts, candles, and Christmas decorations. We walked through the old Trinkhalle (Drinking Hall) where people can enjoy the natural spring water, and through a beautiful city park then finally walked through the shopping area as night fell.

Windeck and Karlsruhe

On Friday we made a morning visit to Burg Windeck. Ann and Joe had a view of the burg out their bedroom window all week, so we finally visited it. But not before playing on the playground next to the ruin! We then drove up to Karlsruhe and walked around the Botanical gardens next to the palace. We walked around the palace and the city center, then ate dinner back at the resturant looking over the Botanical gardens. It was beautiful!

On Sunday, we thought we were saying goodbye to them, but Sunday afternoon, Ann and Joe were back again after a mix-up with their stand-by airline tickets when they found out they wouldn't be able to leave until Tuesday. One Monday we all ended our week as it began by visiting Strasbourg and their newly opened Christmas market. It was beautiful! There were gorgeous lights everywhere and booths all around the cathedral and Ann and I ice skated!

Click here for many more photos!

We have Stuff!!

Yesterday, Tuesday, November 28th, we got STUFF!!



We have been waiting for 8 weeks for our stuff from America to arrive...it all came by ship...which was suppose to arrive 2 weeks ago...and yesterday it all finally came!



We were very happy...until we started to unpack everything...and suddenly our apartment started to feel smaller and smaller...and all our storage space shrunk...and we began to wonder why we needed all this stuff...until we decided to watch a movie and we had 100 to choose from instead of like 2...and then I opened up my closet this morning to find I actually had a million choices of what to wear today instead of the same like 3 outfits! Yay for stuff!

Berlin is still Berlin!

A couple of Tuesdays ago (November 7th) Karl called me from work to tell me that he had found a VERY cheap train ticket to Berlin and that I should go...so on Thursday (November 9th) I hopped on a train and I spent my weekend in Berlin! I had not been able to return to that fair city of my mission since my mission, 9 1/2 years ago, so it was a very exciting trip for me! I stayed with a friend of ours, Michaela Müller, whom Karl knew from his misison in Berlin.

Berlin is an amazing and unique city. It is constantly evolving...it is very much a microcasm of Germany itself...German history is reflected in its captial. You can experience the old Hohenzollern palaces at Unter den Linden, the modern 21st century at Potsdammer Platz, the communist remains of the Wall and even Nazi shadows here and there. The city is at once ugly and beautiful, old and modern, united, yet still divided.



As we walked the streets and saw the sights of Berlin I had two reacurring thoughts: "Of course I'm in Berlin! Did I ever leave?" and "Where the heck am I?! This is NOT Berlin!"

Brandenburger Tor (Brandenburg Gate)



In 1788-1791, Carl Langhans built 14 gates around Berlin for King Frederick Wilhelm II. This is the only surviving gate, which has Victory riding her chariot toward the city. The Berlin Wall ran just on the other side of the gate from where you see Michaela and I standing. The gate now separates the streets Unter den Linden and Strasse des 17. Juni going into Tiergarten (a large park...think New York's Central Park) behind us. During my mission, the #100 Bus drove back and forth under the gate and a black market was located just off to the right in this photo where you could buy Nazi, Soviet, and East German memorabila. Now the buses drive around the block and the black market has moved down Unter den Linden near the Dom. But still beautiful!

Potsdamer Platz



During my mission, Potsdamer Platz was simply known has Europe's largets construction site. It was nothing but a famous pile of dirt and a collection of cranes (the cranes had become so permanent feeling that an artist had created an installation of neon lights for them). Today, Potsdamer Platz is all shiny and new! The plaza had once been Berlin's busiest city centers, but WWII left it desolate and the Berlin Wall was built right through the plaza. After reunification, construction began and today it is a collection of hotels, theaters, and shopping centers, the best known of which is the Sony center shown above. But it was all foreign to me.

The Holocaust Memorial



Between Brandenburger Tor and Potsdamer Platz is the new Holocaust Memorial, or Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. Karl and Michaela happened to be able to visit the memorial the week it first open last May 2005. I loved this memorial...it was amazing. It is a large square with stone blocks of various sizes. They begin quite short...even flush with the ground...and grow taller and taller as you walk through them. We are free to explore the grid between all the blocks and the only rule is that you do not sit or climb on top of the blocks. As you get deeper into the blocks they become higher and higher so cannot see over them and you become in danger of walking right into someone walking down a perpindicular path. You could almost become lost in them...it begins to feel almost like a labirynth. I got the feeling that is presented a simple, logical grid that became more confusing and disorienting as you explored it as link to the twisted logic of the Final Solution.

Gedächtniskirche and Ku'damm



As my train rolled into Berlin Thursday night, I looked out the window into the darkness and city lights for anything recognizable...and suddenly, for a brief moment between buildings, I saw the Gedächtniskirche! The Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church (as its known in English) was built in the 1890s as a memorial to Kaiser Wilhelm I from his grandson Kaiser Wilhelm II. During World War II it suffered heavy damage, nearly completely destroyed. Instead of tearing down what little remained, the church remained as it was as a memorial to the horrors of war. Two modern structures were added flanking it in the 1950s, a tall bell tower and a circular chapel (knicknamed by Berliners as the lipstick and powderbox...or the the disco church by us missionaries 10 years ago). Along one side of the church runs a long street with a long name: Kurfürstendamm...but no one calls it that. Whether from affection or ease, the street is simple known as Ku'damm. This street was obviously located in the capitalistic West Berlin because it is a shopper's heaven: you'll find everything from H&M to Laura Ashley, from Pizza Hut to Hard Rock Cafe. My favoriate is Kaufhause des Westens (Shopping House of the West)...but again, noone actually calls it that. Its known simply as KaDeWe (say "Kah-Day-Vay") and its huge and expensive and sells American food and expensive pens and fashionable clothes and pretty buttons!

Unter den Linden and Palast der Republik



Perhaps the heart of Berlin...or at least one of them...is the street Unter den Linden. The name means "under the lindens" after the linden trees that have always lined the street (except for during the Third Reich when Hitler knocked them down to make the street more parade-friendly). It was created during the 1600s for the palaces of the Prussian royalty. The royalty wanted a grand boulevard to ride down to Tiergarten...the large park in the center of Berlin that use to be a royal hunting ground. Now the palaces have became museums and opera houses...and former communist parliment buildings. This street lay in former East Berlin and the communists torn down the 15th century Hohenzollern palace for ideological reasons, bulding their parliment building on top of the foundation in 1976 calling it Palast der Republik (Palace of the Republic). After reunification in 1990, the debate began over what to do with the building...the biggest problem being that it was full of asbestos. So it has been closed up and gated off, sitting in limbo for the past 16 years...until now when the building is finally begin gradually and carefully (because of the asbestos) demolished. It was strange to see this familiar building being finally stripped.

Pergamon Museum



Along Unter den Linden is one of my personal favorite spots in Berlin...Museuminsel=Museum Island! A little island of one world-class museum after another! Michaela and I visited the Pergamon Museum. A giant ancient Greek temple built around 180 BC known as the Pergamon Altar was relocated to this museum in Berlin...and it is stunning! I love the dramatic Hellenistic relief sculptures surrounding the temple depicting the Greek gods in battle against the Giants (with legs of snakes!). There is also a wonderful collection of Greek art through the centuries as well as an ancient Babylonian gate. It was all as wonderful as I remembered it...happiness!

Reichstag



The Reichstag building was built in 1894 to house Germany's imperial parliament. Although it had been damaged by fire a few times (the last being in 1933 giving Hitler an opportunity to rise in power) and was damaged in WWII, the building still stands. During my mission it was also a construction site, I saw it only from afar. Now it boasts a new glass dome and again houses Germany democratic parliament. Michaela and I stood in a line for an hour for the opporunity to go up into the glass dome. The dome looks down over the parliment at work and has a winding walk way that looks out over all of Berlin in a gorgeous panoramic view. It was strange to finally get a close-up view of this historic, important building!

Although so much was still my Berlin, the city had changed tremendously in less than a decade. But that's Berlin...a city that is constantly changing. Marlene Dietrich said it best when she sang:

"As long as the old linden trees stil bloom, Berlin is still Berlin!"

Listen to Marlene sing a few lines from this song here: scroll down the song list to Disc 2, song #25, click on "Solang noch Unter'n Linden (Berlin Bleibt Doch Berlin)".

Click here for lots more photos of my weekend in Berlin!

And click here for a good 1999 newpaper article written as the German parliment was about to move from Bonn back to Berlin. It gives a good point of view on the unique characteristics of Berlin and a little of its unique history and may help give you a sense of why this city holds me spellbound!

Grüße aus...Rastatt & Speyer!

Two weekends ago, on Oct 28 & 29, Karl and I visited a palace and some churches.



On Saturday, Oct 28, we visited the nearby town of Rastatt. We explored the city center and the grounds of the impressive Rastatt palace. Although we didn't tour through the impressive apartments of the palace that was once home to the margraves of Baden, we did visit the interesting museum in one corner of the palace about various freedom movements over the course of German history. Click here for more photos.

On Sunday, Oct 29, we journyed to the ancient city of Speyer. The city was founded by the Celts in about 500 BC and in 10 BC the Romans took over. Christianity was firmly established in the region by 350 AD and both the Catholic and Protestant churches have a rich history in Speyer.

After visiting the town's gorgeous Catholic cathedral (built 1680-1762) and Protestant cathedral(built 1883-1904), we went through the old city gate and walked through the pedestrian-only streets lined with shops that were suprisingly open! Germany has laws on when stores are allowed to be opened, and apparently, in Speyer, the shops are opened on an occasional Sunday! The streets were flooded with people and street entertainers. We made our way down to the building we had come to see...



In 1030 AD the construction of the Speyer Imperial Cathdral was begun. It was this church that drew us to Speyer...and it was amazing! The building is in a simple Romanesque syle...in fact it is probably the best example of Romanesque architecture in existance. Emperors and Empresses that contributed to the building of the church are buried in its crypt. It is a very simple, but very grand and beautiful church...even after a thousand years! Click here for more photos.

As we walked slowly back over the cobblestones along the pedestrian street, we ate one of our favorite German foods--the Turkish Doenner Kebab--with the streets still full of people enjoying an extra day of shopping. We stopped to watch a one-man-band street musician sing a folk song (joined by an old Frau taking over his song) with little children prancing around him like horses. We were surrounded by this festive atmosphere, having just filled our eyes with ancient and spectacular beauty, filling our tummies with our favorite local food...life just doesn't get better!

Happy Halloween and All Saints Day!

The holiday Halloween is also known as All Hallow's Eve, which is the day before the holiday All Hallow's Day, also known as All Saints Day. The holiday we now celebrate as Halloween originated as a pagan festival when spirits contact the living and magic is especially potent. All Saints Day celebrates the dead as well, but insteads honors the Virgin Mary and Christian martyrs.

In the US Halloween is, of course, a widely-celebrated holiday. Germany has gradually felt the influence of the US and Great Britain celebrations of Halloween so that it is now a tentatively celebrated day...not an official holiday but you'll see people throwing Halloween parties and a handful of carved pumpkins here and there.

Karl and I have never really done much to celebrate Halloween. Usually we'd stay at home with a movie and a bowl full of candy. And since we never got any trick-or-treaters in the apartment buildings we lived in, we'd eat all the candy ourselves. This year for Halloween we are in a country that really doesn't do much for the holiday so we had a yummy dinner at our local Biergarten, learned how to play our new board game, Carcassonne, and watched episodes of Lost we had downloaded off of the internet. And then imagine our surprise when we got trick-or-treaters at the door! Actually, they were just the kids who live downstairs who had been having a little Halloween party with some friends. They were dressed in warm clothing, scarves, and some homemade, non-descript masks...and we didn't have any candy! (We ended up giving them some oranges!)

But, although, Halloween is not an official German holiday, November 1st, All Saints Day, is a holiday! So today, Karl had the day off! We decided to do a little more exploring in the Black Forest.

We first visited a ruined castle I discovered last week overlooking a town about 20 minutes south of us: Schauenburg. This ancient fortress was founded in the 11th century and overlooks the German town of Oberkirch. The lord of the fortress oversaw trade passing from Strasbourg (now in France) into the Black Forest. We could just see the tall church spire of the huge Strasbourg cathedral in the distance. But as we explored the grounds surrounding the old castle, we discovered a plaque at the foot of a path with a very Halloween appropriate legend about the castle and the White Lady of Schauenburg...



There was once a Knight of Schauenburg who wanted a son for his heir. His wife, however, bore him a daughter. He was very upset, and soon after his wife died of neglect. He gave the infant daughter to a maidservant and left. The knight returned 20 years later and invited his daughter to return with him to Schauenburg where she would be married to a wealthy cousin. The daughter, who had no idea of her true identity, accepted her father's offer, and left her husband, a poor miller. After a few years, she saw her first husband, whom she had treated so badly, at a festival and she instantly feel down dead.

Since then, she appears every 50 years as a women all in white in an effort to redeem herself. Those who see her must do whatever she asks of them, or else they will die after three days! Once she appeared to a young herdsman and asked him to fetch her some water with her shoe...he ran in fright and died three days later. Another time she appeared to a man, asking him to show her the way to Schauenburg. He obeyed and she rewarded him with an old coin that later disappeared from his pocket.



The Schauenburg was very neat! Click here to see more of the ruins.

After leaving Schauenburg (seeing no sign of the White Lady!) we drove deep into the Black Forest (a beautiful drive!) until we came to the ruins of a monastery called Allerheiligen...the word means All Saints, so it was the perfect way to celebrate All Saints Day!

The monastery was founded in about 1200 when hermit monks were looking for a place to open their remote monastery and a donkey found a water source and tossed a bag of money off his back. This was the place! The monks thrived deep in the forest until the monastery was secularized in 1803. The monks were forced to leave and plans were made to turn the monastery into a prison, but before the prison could be created, lightening struck, and a fire burned it to the ground leaving only ruins of the cathedral. (Locals claimed it was divine intervention!) Now the ruins, set in a forest valley with a pretty stream and waterfalls, enjoy the visits of tourists like us! The weather was cold and we had to hang out in the little museum about the monastery to avoid a short hail storm, but it was beautiful! It was easy to see why, for hundreds of years, the hermit monks felt closer to God here. We will definitely return in warmer weather to explore the many paths and eat in the Biergarten next door to the ruins. Click here for more photos.



Happy Halloween and All Saints Day!

Call me Hena.

I have a very common, unextraordinary name.

The name Heather is so basic, so average, so normal...so blah, in fact, that the name has absolutely no real meaning. I envy my friends and loved ones with names that have fascinating (and often amazingly appropriate) meanings: Karl = manly and strong; Sarah = princess; Susan = lily; Joseph = God will increase; Erik = honorable ruler; Ava = like a bird; Diana = divine;...and Heather = a flowering plant. Just a plain ol' plant.

I have never found a pop song with the name Heather in it, there are no great literary characters with the name Heather (although I was always delighted to occasionally read about characters walking through the heather on the moor, or lying down in the soft heather), and, of course, the only movie I know with the name Heather prominently featured is the 1989 cult classic Heathers, a "delightfully dark and deranged take on adolescent angst and isolation." Throughout high school and college my name was constantly being associated with a film about murder and teen suicide...("Hi! I'm so-and-so." - "Hello, I'm Heather." - "Heather? Hey! Have you seen that movie Heathers?! It was so cool when that one Heather drank the cleaning fluid and died!")...oh, yay.

However, I now find myself here in Germany with the most exotic-sounding name imaginable...Heather! Noone seems to have ever heard it before! It is so uncommon, I am often asked to repeat it once or twice! And now I am faced with a new problem...noone can pronounce it!! "Hallo! Ich heisse Heather." - (a confused look) - "Hea-ther." - "Heva?" - "Hea-THer" - "Hena?" - "Hea-THHHer" - "Heta?" - "um.....ok."

It's that nasty TH sound that gets them. Very few languages have that sound, and German is certainly not one of them. Earlier this week I got a ride to a church function from a German family that live near us. On the way home from Karlsruhe, I tried to teach the three children how to say my name. I had them put their tongue between their teeth and blow...after we spit all over each other, they repeated my name over and over again..."Heva, Hetah, Heterr, Henar"...and asked me over and over again if they were saying it right. I introduced myself to one of the older women who was riding with us, telling her (in German), "My name is Heather. It's kind of difficult to say." - "Oh, no! Hena...that's an easy name to say! Hena."

And don't get me started on how people pronounce my last name! ("Hairvoot?")

Ah, well...I still can't pronounce the name of my own town right. "Ich wohne in Bühl." - "Bohl?" - "Bühl." - "Bohl?" - "Büühl" - "Ach so! Bühl!" Those two little dots are hard to pronounce!



(My apologies to my wonderful parents, Don = world leader, and Kathleen = pure, who lovingly gave me my beautiful name. Of course, they were expecting me to be a boy and had planned to name me David = beloved, but upon receiving a daughter instead, took the suggestion of my aunt DeeDee [Dorothy] = gift of God, and named me Heather. Honestly, thank you for my beautiful [if meaningless] name!)

Grüße aus...beautiful Baden-Baden!

Our hometown of Bühl lies just a 10 minute drive from the beautiful city of Baden-Baden. Its name means "bathe-bathe" and that's exactly what people have been doing in Baden-Baden for two thousand years!

Underground hot springs were discoverd by the Romans under the rule of Emperor Caracalla (186-217 AD) and they named the area Aquae (water). The Germans of the Middle Ages renamed the city simply Baden and it received its repeated name of Baden-Baden (as in the city of Baden in the state of Baden) in 1931. The springs were rediscovered in the 19th century by the upper-class and the city became the unofficial summer residence for European royalty. The city thankfully managed to escape destruction in the World Wars. Baden-Baden is nestled in the Black Forest foothills so there is a lot of walking up and down hills through the city.



The city today is still best known for the life of lesiure it offers. There is a famous casino (Germany's oldest) that opened in 1855, decorated by the Parisians (beautiful!); the 19th century Theater modeled after the Paris Opera offering ballet, opera and dramatic performances and the Festspielhaus, a theater offering ballet, opera and music (a beautiful building that was once the central train station); a fantasitc pedestrian area with shopping galore; and, of course, there are the spas! People still come to Baden-Baden to bathe! The two spas in the city are Friedrichsbad and Caracalla. Friedrichsbad was built on top of the original Roman bath ruins (which have been excavated and can still be viewed today in the spa's basement) and opened its doors in 1877.



Mark Twain visited the spa during his journey through Germany and famously said of it: "Here at the Friedrichsbad you lose track of time within 10 minutes and track of the world within 20." Most Americans, however, don't feel very comfortable visiting Friedrichsbad because everyone is required to bathe naked (most days men and women bathe together but twice a week the sexes are separated for most of the bathing stages). At the nearby Caracalla spa, however, bathers wear a bathing suit. As you can see, people really just come to Baden-Baden to relax (the city is home to a lot of retirees).

There are, of course, castles and churchs to see as well. The Altes Schloss ("Old Castle") was built in 1102 and sits high in the hills overlooking the city--we haven't gotten to visit yet--and the Neues Schloss ("New Castle") sits on a hill within the city--but noone is able to visit it.



The Neues Scholss is privately owned and currently under renovation. But there are lovely pathways up and down the hill it sits on and it offers a lovely view of Baden-Baden as well as a nice place to eat your lunch (which I did last week).

Grüße aus...Karlsruhe!

Each Sunday we drive about 30 minutes north on the Autobahn to Karlsruhe for church. This past Sunday we packed a lunch with us and after church we did a little exploring of Karl's namesake.

Karlsruhe is a young city (young, at least, for Europe) being founded in 1715 by Margrave Karl Wilhelm. The name Karlsruhe means "Karl's Rest". Today the city makes its mark on Germany's map as the seat of the German Supreme Court. The ciy grew around the palace in the center of the city. Thirty-two avenues fan out from the palace (hence Karlruhe's nickname as the Fächerstadt or "fan city")--23 of the avenues extend into the palace gardens while the others form the grid of the oldest part of the city.



Karl and I ate our lunch in the beautiful palace gardens. It was a gorgeous day (unlike the typical fog and rain that we've been getting) and the gardens were crowded. A fun steam-engine train makes its way through the gardens for passengers. Visitors are also welcome inside the palace as well as in the botanical gardens on the grounds, but we saved those treasures for another day!

Another Burg and the Black Forest

Bühl is located very conveniently off of the A5 - the freeway that will take us straight up to Northern Germany, or south to Switzerland. We are just east of the Rhine river, thus just minutes away from all lovely things French, and just west of the gorgeous hills of the Black Forest. We are quite centrally located in the middle of all of Europe! But this past Sunday Karl and I explored the Europe a little closer to home.

The ruins of what was once Burg Windeck stands in the Black Forest looking down onto Bühl. It is not nearly as impressive as the castles we saw up in the Rhineland, but it was far closer to home. The burg is really nothing but a few ruined walls and a couple of tall towers that were originally built around 1200, but there is a hotel and restaurant, a playground for children, and a few paths winding through the forest nearby...so Windeck becomes a busy place on a Sunday afternoon.



We explored the burg including it's two remaining towers. One tower is completely empty and you can look up and out into the sky. The other has stairs to climb up to the top and from there you can look out over Bühl and over to France...unfortunately it was a foggy day and France was just a haze.





After our visit to Windeck, we drove up farther into the Black Forest. The Black Forest begins north of us at about the city of Pforzheim (between the larger cities of Karlsruhe and Stuttgart) and spreads south all the way to the Swiss border. It's a beautiful forest that seems to have a lot to offer. There are, of course, a lot of hiking trails and biking trails, and there are also ski slopes, hotels (big and small), horseback riding, hang gliding, fishing, castles, wineries, lakes, saunas, Black Forest cake (chocolate, cherries, whipped cream...and schnapps!...but here's a schnapps-free version of the recipe), and of course the city Rottweil...the hometown of the Rottweiler dog (oh, yeah...and I guess they've got some pretty annoying cuckoo clocks) . Karl and I found the Schwarzwaldhochstrasse (Black Forest High street) which winds through the forest and made a short walk down one of the footpaths near a motorcycle hang-out before driving back home.



We're excited to live so close to such a beautiful part of the world and look forward to exploring the forest much more!

Grüße aus...Burg Eltz & Burg Thurant!

On Saturday, October 14th, Karl and I drove north to the Rhineland...a beautiful stretch of the Rhine and Mosel rivers surrounded by hills, vineyards and castles! I especially wanted to see Burg Eltz (burg=fortress). It's a rare castle because, not only has it never been destroyed, it has also remained in the Eltz family since it was founded 850 years ago! By 1472 it looked like it does today. To reach the castle we drove down the Mosel river (which branches off of the Rhine and eventually makes its way to Luxembourg), then away from the river through a few little dorfs (villages) until, suddenly we came to a parking lot in the middle of the forest. We walked through the forest until we suddenly came around a corner and saw this:



The castle is stunning! The path winds down the hillside into this beautiful valley with nothing but trees and tourists in sight. Down the path we walked alongside a family with four children with toy swords and bows, pretending to storm the castle! Actually the castle had only one serious attack in the 1300s when Baldwin of Luxembourg built a smaller fortress at the top of the hill (there are only ruins today) and laid siege to Burg Eltz...after five years he gave up. We took a tour through the interoir of the castle, but unfortunately we were not allowed to take any photos. But click here to see more of the exterior of the castle.

After visiting the Eltz, we drove back to the Mosel river and stopped at another burg we had noticed on the way in:



Burg Thurant was built around 1200 overlooking the Mosel River, became a ruin in the 19th century, then was rebuilt in the 20th century. Although this castle had been ruined, there were still some wonderful original details such as the Roseneck (Rose Corner) in the courtyard where roses had been growing since the middle ages as well as a human skeleton in the dungeon that also dates from the middle ages! Click here for more photos.

We had a beautiful day!

Grüße aus...Deutschland!

As Karl has mentioned to most of you, I had been hoping to develop a website while we lived our 2 years here in Germany. After much research, I have decided that a blog would be a more speedy and cost-efficient beginning to what may eventually become a website (we'll see how much interest I can keep in the project and how much interest I can keep you, our readers, in the project!).

This blog is still under development and I'm still learning how to use it, but I plan to add updates at least weekly (if not more often) including photos and descriptions of our everyday lives and our travels around Germany and Europe! Thus, I hope to help keep our long-long distance phone bills down, and help all of you feel that, although Karl and I are on the other side of the globe, we are really not that far away!