Kandel und Konzert

Although every other store in all of Germany is closed on Sundays (including Ikea and the Home Depot equivalent), the locally-owned bakery on the corner is open, and we're trying to endear ourselves to the shopkeeper. Yesterday we bought three day-old pieces of Zwetchgenschnitte: sugared sliced plums baked on a yeast dough, a tart summer treat that we're learning no longer to call by the fun Bavarian name Zwetschgendatschi. So as not to appear cheap, we also bought a piece of Sachertorte. Oh, and a snazzy banana, sliced lengthwise and layered over vanilla cream and sponge cake and encased in chocolate. The Zwetschgenschnitte were so good that after lunch, Elias and Stefan ran across the street to buy the last three pieces before the bakery closed. The shopkeeper was sufficiently impressed by their enthusiasm that she tossed in two croissants and a raisin bun for Elias, gratis.

This reminds me to mention that people in Baden like to give children food. You can't buy cheese from the supermarket without the deli person offering your child a Wurstl; when you politely decline, explaining your child is a vegetarian, she gives him a quarter-pound hunk of Emmenthaler instead. At the Farmers' Market, mothers routinely ask if their "little angels" (who have surreptitiously been snapping the tips off all the fresh carrots) can taste the plums; who can deny a child such a simple thing?

Fortified by Zwetschgenschnitte, in the afternoon we hiked most of the way up the Kandel, one of the mountains near Freiburg. Most of the hike up was on steep gravel roads that took us through grazing land, meadows, and the occasional wooded grove. We headed down before reaching the top in order to make it in time to an organ concert at the nearby Kloster St. Peter. The Kloster dates to the 11th century; the ornate Baroque church that stands there now was built in the 1720s. The concert featured Ludo Geloen of Belgium playing Buxtehude, Bach, La Fosse, van den Gheyn, Mendelssohn, Mascagni, Borowski, and an improvised encore. No fuzzy acoustic here: the organ (a 1967 tracker by Klais) was light, clear, and thoroughly charming.