Chickens on tour

As I don't yet have access to an organ to practice on, and as the local pottery co-op is closed due to summer vacation, and as my excuse to strike up casual conversations with complete strangers in the park is busy attending summer camp, I'm on the lookout for ways to keep myself busy. Today I went on a short walking tour of the Altstadt, revisiting some of the sights Frau H. showed us last week.

The "Haus zum Walfisch" (Whale House, left) was built 1514-1516 and acquired its name because at the time it was, figuratively, the biggest fish in the pond. When nearby Basel went Protestant during the Reformation, several of Basel's university professors fled to Catholic Freiburg, including the Dutch humanist Desiderius Erasmus von Rotterdam. Erasmus lived in the Haus zum Walfisch from 1529 to 1531.




Two American chickens (right) imagine the view Erasmus might have enjoyed from his front door.





Guarding the door of the house are two waterspout gargoyles. Evil spirits trying to enter the house would have seen these kindred figures, realized the house was already claimed, and moved on to another place to haunt. One of the gargoyles has goiter (left), an illness endemic to the Schwarzwald.



Freiburg has official "sister cities" around the world, including lovely Madison, Wisconsin. Each of the sister cities is represented with a mosaic shield on the cobblestone street in front of one of the two Rathaeuser (right).


The chickens appreciate the hard work and artistic challenges that must go into laying down all those stones, so they don't mind that the mosaic of the Wisconsin State Capitol building doesn't clearly depict the golden badger atop Lady Forward's helmet (left).

No tour of the Altstadt would be complete without a visit to the Muenster. The entrance to the Gothic cathedral is decorated with hundreds of small statues, variously depicting scenes from Christ's life, the triumph of good over evil, important medieval residents, and a range of fantastical creatures. The chickens were unable to get a closer look at the nose trumpeter (right) due to the protective wire installed to keep pigeons away from the statuary.

After wrapping up their brief visit to the Altstadt, the chickens pause at the "Verschmutzung verboten" fountain in Herdern and contemplate the unthinkable (left).