Walk to Breisach

I interrupt the Bayern hike photo dump yet again to blog about walking just short of France the other day for the sole purpose of being able to say (eventually) that I walked all the way across southern Germany.

Why not cross the border, when I was so close? Because I've done it before, and it wasn't exactly scenic. But my route from Freiburg to Breisach had varied and appealing scenery to offer.

I started from our home-away-from-home-away-from-home in the Vauban neighborhood of Freiburg:

Trash cans! I photographed this to note that in Germany, trash is separated into paper/cardboard, lightweight packaging (plastic wrappers, composite materials, aluminum foil, etc.), residual waste, and COMPOST. People compost here--and not just people with space in their backyards. Glass and plastic bottles usually have a cash deposit, so people return them to stores for recycling.

Have I already mentioned that Germans take water management seriously? Why yes, yes I have.

Komoot had a really really hard time pronouncing Zum Tiergehege Strasse (roughly, tzoom teer-geh-hay-geh shtrahsseh) as though it were English, so it said "zumm teersh strass" and then gave up.

Bicyclists for scale. These were tall trees. 

The dandelions were tall too. Several were over two feet tall. 

Wood art by sculpture artist Thomas Rees, near Waltershofen. I happened upon a trail near our apartment yesterday with a whole slew of his work, and will include photos of those in a later post.  

Exiting the woods, I learned that flowers are the smile of the Earth:

I stopped in Waltershofen to tank up: strawberry cake and a pumpkin-seed roll. I forgot that rolls in Baden-Wuerttemberg are called Broetchen rather than the Bavarian word Semmel, but the proprietor politely clarified by asking if I wanted the pretzel shape or one of these here **>>Broetchen<<**.

I ate it before I thought to photograph it.

From Waltershofen, I hiked over the Tuniberg, through terraced vineyards... 

The first trail sign I saw for Breisach...

According to tourist signage, archeological evidence dates viticulture on the Tuniberg at least as far back as Merovingian and Carolingian times (6th-9th c. CE), likely introduced by Romans expanding the empire north of the Alps.

The first view of Breisach--that hazy hill on the horizon in the center of the photo below. This was actually the only view until I was in Breisach itself, since trees and hills are hard to see over...

Past Merdingen, I passed this prepped farm field. As a kid from central Illinois, fresh from watching field prep in Bayern, I was struck by how light and sandy the soil is here.

Outside of Ihringen, I thought I must be passing a farm where pigs were being abused, but it turned out to just be a ditch full of horny frogs:

I was facing west for most of my hike. When I eventually turned around to look east, I understood why rain was in the forecast.

Bayern is beer country; Baden-Wuerttemberg is wine country:

In Breisach:

Before heading up to the Muenster, I spent some time outside of the old city walls looking for some Jewish history. This city website has a helpful historical summary. Much more detailed information can be found on the Blaues Haus website; the house itself was closed on the day I was there. 

A Stolperstein made of stone rather than bronze. Michael Eisemann was the last cantor in Breisach. Breisach had a long and heated debate about whether to allow Stolpersteine; the city eventually signed off on the project, but I wonder if the Blaues Haus community got tired of waiting and installed this one on their own.

Walking up the hill to the Muenster, I passed these mementos of death--artillery from wars dating back to the 1600s. Being on a hill above the Rhein makes a town a great target when empires fight.

The St. Stephen Muenster plaza...

Europa greift nach den Sternen by Helmut Lutz

Death working hard at war:

France is on the other side of the Rhein:

Breisach's Hexenturm was destroyed in 1675, but here's a lovely model of the tower where women accused of witchcraft were imprisoned, tried, tortured, and often executed. (Does it bother anyone else that many websites say "suspected of" rather than "accused of," as though some of the accused were actually witches?)

In Breisach, I hopped on a train back to Freiburg, then walked home. This fearsome dragon is hanging out on the St. Georgen bridge over the Dreisam river.

Berlin photo dump, Day 1

As usual, living life got in the way of blogging, so I'm resorting to photo dumps.

We took a side trip to Berlin last week. We set out late Tuesday night on the overnight train. If you're looking for an uncomfortable night's non-sleep, then the night train is for you! Here's a photo of E on the jungle gym ladder up to the top bunk. He's climbing up backward, because I'm occupying the rest of the space.

We happily arrived, bleary-eyed, in Berlin at 8am. After dropping our backpacks off at our hotel, we enjoyed a tasty breakfast at Brot & Butter, with some impressively confident sparrows who earned every crumb we fed them.

Berlin is a mix of beautiful old buildings interspersed with newer ones, presumably largely a function of where bombs did and didn't land during WWII. This magnificent Jugendstil door was near the intersection of Herderstrasse and Goethestrasse.

A friend's book auf Deutsch on the first floor at a Hugendubel bookstore. We already have a copy auf Deutsch, so we went for a Berlin guidebook instead.

The Stolpersteine project began in Berlin.

The Kaiser Wilhelm Church, built in the 1890s, was bombed in 1943. It remains as a memorial; a new church, edging into the right in this photo, was built in 1959-63.

The mosaic ceiling inside the remains of the Kaiser Wilhelm memorial church are stunning.

Wikipedia says the new church has 21,292 stained glass inlays. During the day, from the outside, the church looks gray; at night, it's lit from the inside and glows blue.

The 1962 organ, designed by Karl Schuke, has ~5000 pipes.

The manhole covers let you know you're in Berlin.

We took a bus to Alexanderplatz, then meandered back toward the Museumsinsel. Here's the obligatory photo of the Alexanderplatz TV tower (built 1965-69). We didn't go up.

We took a look inside the Rotes Rathaus (Red City Hall).

Here's a sign out front, pointing people with disabilities to another entrance. Stefan says there's no story here, as the entrance can't help that it's located on a street called "Jews' Street" (Jüden is middle high German for Juden; the street and the street name date to the 13th century). The sign makes me think of Holocaust atrocities anyway.

Stained glass turkey in the Rotes Rathaus.

Our path took us through the Nikolaiviertel. Here's the Nikolaikirche, where Johann Crüger served as cantor for 40 years.

Lutherans, name that tune.

This impressive dragon is being slaughtered in the Nikolaiviertel by St. George and St. George's impressive steed. The statue was built in 1863 by August Kiss.

A plaque featuring Marx and the revolutionary Volk, across the bridge from the Berliner Dom.

The Dom (Protestant) is large and imposing. We didn't have the energy to wait in line to go inside.

No lines at the Antiquities Museum, so we went inside there instead.

Neigh.

Stefan and I have had a framed postcard of this statue in our bathroom for about 20 years. We thought it was "Young Boy on the John Examining His Athlete's Foot," but it turns out it's "Statue of Boy with Thorn." Boys with thorns in their feet were a popular Hellenistic sculpture motif dating from the 3rd century BCE. The one in the Antiquities Museum is a Roman copy from 150 CE.

Proof that fleas have been around for millennia.

The first time I visited Berlin was in 1991 with Stefan. For me, it was no big deal to walk through the Brandenburg Tor. For him, it was a momentous change. Twenty four years later, it's normal.

The highpoint of our first day in Berlin was the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. An info center underground provides cold stats and puts human names and stories to faces, while visually echoing the stelae forms above.