our new apartment in Poltringen

Our backyard

OK.  I have been enjoying our new place in too much to write a blog post –my apologies to all our readers. 

…so as you know, we just moved.  Our new place is in Poltringen.  And our new apartment is soooo much better than the old one!  Amazingly it is about 15km upstream of the apartment we used to live.  And unlike stream’s open-sewer-likeness at the old place, it is rather lovely at our new place.  Check out this picture of the stream and our backyard.

 

We also live 2 houses away from a castle.  It is not Neuschwanstein, but it does have a mote!  Here is the view of the castle from our back deck.

Our neighborhood castle

 In fact we live within 5km of 2 other castles and one hill-top church, all of which also have great views as we have checked out in the last 2 weeks.

So we are now 10km west from Betsy’s building, and it is a nearly flat bike ride, a key selling point.  That means we are deep in Schwabish country, which is the local, traditional culture.  Within a few days of moving in, I was being taught some local Schwäbish words.  And we have noticed a big difference in the service we get at the local bakery --the people are so friendly here, unlike the “big” town of Tübingen.

We are much more in touch with the local happenings.  Like the recent Maibaum (May pole) festivities, seen in this picture.

This past Saturday we went to a play in the neighboring village (Oberndorf) –which is less than 2miles away, and we walked there.  It happened to be titled “Frau Schwab and Miss Smith”, which was a comparison of Schwäbish and American culture.  We got about half of the jokes, and most of the play was in German or Schwäbish.  …so Germans think that Americans are superficial and somewhat vulgar, but they still retain a lot of affinity for us.

Maibaum (May pole)

And halfway between Oberndorf and Poltringen is where I usually play bagpipes.  I am sure that people in both villages can hear me.  Those that have come across me practicing have been indifferent or very receptive.  I chose the location because 1) I shouldn’t disturb anyone, and 2) it is very picturesque –I am among wheat and canola (rape seed) fields.

wheat field over the Nekar (Tubingen) valley

 So today I was working on our deck, and while thinking about off shore wind turbines, this was my view.

Today's view of our backyard

That is right there are horses in our back yard!  And check out those clouds.  Later in the day there was a proper storm right over us.  I have a modest weather station, and I was so excited for the stormy weather.

And before I finish this blogpost, check out this picture, which is a relic of WWII style military. 

bridge capacity for trucks and tanks

Reisen mit Eltern, Teil 2: Rheintal

Our second mini-trip with my parents during their visit was to the Rhine Valley. While in Bavaria, we experienced German beer culture, and in the Rhine Valley we got to experience German wine culture.

Slumping tower of Heidelberg Castle

Prior to their trip, my parents expressed an interest in the Rhine Valley based on hearing relatives relate their experiences of river cruises up and down the romantic Rhine. We obliged them, but first we made a stopover in Heidelberg. I remember stopping in this university town along the Neckar River (same river as Tübingen) as a teenager on my first trip to Germany, and so I was eager to see it with older eyes. We packed a picnic lunch and hiked/took the funicular to the castle looming over town. We had a gorgeous view and our picnic was the envy of the other tourists. We spent a while longer wandering through old town, which dates back only a few hundred years, and ended our afternoon by traversing the "Philosophenweg" (Philosopher's path) - a path incised on the hillside and framed by stone walls - it was a famous place for professors to walk and talk (who has time for that now?).

Mäuseturm through grapevines

Rüdesheim, a wine-growing town on the Rhine, was recommended to us by a colleague. We arrived in the rain hungry after our hike in Heidelberg. The food was bland compared to the culinary highlights of Bavaria, but the wine was excellent! The next day my parents boarded the "Seilbahn" (chairlift) to the top of the wine hills and the "Niederwalderdenkmal" (monument commemorating a German-French war). We hiked along the sloping wine hills in the rain, with views of the Mäuseturm (Mouse Tower), a famous toll-station of the Middle Rhine in the Middle Ages. My parents boarded a second "Seilbahn" down to the adjacent wine village of Assmanhausen, and we met them at the bottom. We caught a ferry back to Rüdesheim and continued our journey North to Koblenz by car.

Cruising the Rhine

The wine excitement didn't stop there, because we stayed two nights at a family-run in and winery of sorts located on the Moselle River just upstream of it's confluence with Rhine in Koblenz. Joe and I got to try the wine and it was delicious. The next day we hopped onto a historic paddle boat for a day-long boat ride to Rudesheim and back. There is a castle about every two miles on this stretch of river, so we spent the day viewing castles from the boat deck while sipping Rhine wine. A nice repose after all of the hiking we'd done. The highlight for most Germans was the famous Lorelei Rock of lore. I actually thought the boat would tip as we went past it because all of the Germans moved to the Lorelei side.

We ended our second trip with a stop in the spa town of Bad Kreuznach, where we took a relaxing dip in some healing spa waters. It was good we got that little bit of relaxation in, because once we got back to Tübingen we were fully focused on moving into our new apartment. We expected help from my parents, of course, in exchange for all the travel planning. Up next: Joe's account of our new apartment.

Reisen mit Eltern, Teil 1: Bayern

During the last two weeks of April we had a visit from my (Betsy's) parents from Minnesota. It was their first trip to Germany and I had two shorter 4-day trips planned, punctuated by time in Tübingen, and followed by them getting to help us move to a new, permanent apartment. Here is a recap of our first trip.

Mom at Kloster Bebenhausen

We got ready for the parental visit by joining our local carshare program, "TeilAuto". Joe and I took a car to the airport one Sunday morning to "practice" driving on the Autobahn with a manual transmission. The big day came and things went mostly smoothly picking up my parents from the airport in Stuttgart. The first two days we stayed in Tübingen to get them acclimated to the time change, give them a chance to see town, and for me to finish up some unavoidable work obligations. We took a nice trip to our local Kloster Bebenhausen (former monastery) followed by my parent's first "Kaffee und Küchen" (coffee and cake). They loved it.

View over Neuschwanstein

We couldn't resist taking a detour to Schloss Neuschwanstein, possibly the most famous castle in the world, on our way to Munich. Joe and I had both been to crazy Ludwig's digs as teenagers (separately, of course), but it was fun to go back. We had a lovely day in Munich that alternated between seeing the famous churches, drinking coffee, watching the Glockenspiel, drinking beer, a bit of shopping and walking along the river, more coffee. Finally we tired and hopped on a streetcar and saw everything that way with our public transport day pass. It was kind of awesome. We ended the day with Schweinshaxen (pork knuckle) at the Schneiderweisse Brewhouse our friends Chris and Rachel tipped us onto. We got our fill of "Hopfenweisse", one of the few hoppy beers we've found in Deutschland, and took a 6-er for the road.

Famous Nazi camp greeting

We stopped off in Dachau for a more reflective day at the memorial. We learned a lot through our guided tour with a German historian of the "1968 generation", or the generation that began to talk about the Holocaust and question their parents' active or passive role in it. I had not known before that it was mostly a camp for political prisoners, and was not one of the "death camps" that were later established at places like Auschwitz. It was a good experience to put the pieces of history together in terms of events and situations that led to the founding of these types of camps.

View of Rothenburg from wall

We then headed toward Franconia, the region in Northern Bavaria. We spent the night at a wonderful family-run brewery hotel, where I taught my family to play an Italian card game (much to their dismay). We had a great time and finished our tour with a trip to Rothenburg ob der Tauber, a gorgeous, medieval walled city on the Tauber River. I'd heard it's quite touristy, but since it's not high tourist time yet it didn't feel so overrun. We climbed to the top of the Rathaus (town hall) bell tower for a beautiful view of the region, circumnavigated part of the city in the wall itself, and ended the day by poking around a 700-year old "Fachwerkhaus" (Half-timbered house) that had never been renovated. Once again I am thankful to be alive now and not in the middle ages!