We go East: Weimar Day 1 (21 Sep 2013)

Do you find that some places just feel right? That they have a certain vibe that captures your attention almost immediately and you feel you a going to love them? We do, and Weimar gave us this feel, even though the walk to our pension from the station at 5pm on a grey Saturday was pretty unprepossessing. But, more on Weimar anon …

German states

We didn’t explain, for those of you who, like Sue, are not up on German states and would like to know, that Biberach is in the state of Baden-Württenburg, in a cultural region known as Swabia. (By contrast, Munich is in the state of Bavaria, which is also the name of a cultural region.) Fulda, coming up below, is in Hessen, and Weimar is in Thuringia.

Fulda

Our train trip from Biberach to Weimar involved a 2-hour layover in the town of Fulda. This time, unlike Strasbourg, we found efficient lockers at the station and the weather was conducive to a little excursion. As the station pretty much opens onto the old town, it was easy to do a little explore. An old town with roots back in the 700s and before, but Fulda is now best known for its baroque era history and architecture. After grabbing a quick bite at a little cafe/takeaway place, we decided to focus on the Stadtschloss, and its gorgeous garden. We also saw the outside of the cathedral, and the attractive 1720s built Orangerie, now a hotel, which is directly opposite the Stadtschloss.

We were amused to come across, right at the bottom of the stairs to the Orangerie, a few men and one woman playing boules. Fascinating place to choose … right in a tourist path … but everyone seemed to enjoy seeing them, and it wasn’t so busy that they really got in the way.

The Stadtschloss, originally a prince-bishop’s residence, was extended and rebuilt in the early 1700s on an existing Renaissance building and its 12th century tower. Tourists can visit the Historische  Räumes (historical rooms) section which includes a bright, airy Baroque room opening onto the garden and a highly decorated reception room upstairs which is clearly still in use. We also saw its collection of fetching porcelain, mostly 18thC figurines.

Before we left the Stadtschloss, Len asked the ticketseller about the use of the building, which is huge. She explained, as we expected from what we’d seen, that part of it was used for state administration, and for ceremonial events. For  example, she said, Chancellor Angela Merkel had been there two days earlier electioneering – “Und hat blauen Himmel versprochen” (ie “making blue sky promises”). We knew what she meant.

Back to Weimar

Our trip to Weimar has taken us both into new territory, East Germany. We were probably expecting something perhaps a little grey, austere. Such is the power of movies and literature about the DDR, but Weimar is lovely. It was the home of Goethe and Schiller, among others. Our guide book calls it the spiritual capital of German culture, but more on this as we explore and write up our days.

Meanwhile, we’ll just say that our early impressions were of a relaxed and stylish city, helped no doubt by our first night’s meal in the centre of the altstadt at a cafe-restaurant called the Erbenhof Restaurant and Cafe, about which we’d read good things on Trip Advisor. We shared a delicious entree, a salad of greens with chanterelles, slices of nectarine and small slices of chorizo. It was refreshing and tasty. Len chose a fairly traditional German dish for main course, a beef dish with red cabbage and the local potato dumplings, Thüringer Klosse. Yes, they’re a bit stodgy but, like rice, they are good for soaking up the juices! For dessert Sue had the home made mango sorbet (ignore what she said about seasonal fruit the other day)! It was served nicely with one mini sponge finger, dipped in honey and mint, and with a few pieces of green and orange fruit. The green was easy to identify, grapes, but darned if we could identify the little orange fruit, though something rang a bell. When we asked, the answer – physalis – didn’t enlighten us, as we weren’t expecting a botanical name! A bit of research gave us the answer – cape gooseberry. It has many names, as some of you probably know, but this is the one that made most sense to us.

It was a lovely, peaceful, relaxing, evening … Tasty food, pleasant wine (Sue had a Sylvaner which she hasn’t drunk for years), friendly and willing service, all with live piano accompaniment. It was typical dinner music – light classics, easy listening pop and jazz, musical theatre favourites, and so on.

Reasons for travel

Over dinner, we had a go at classifying (non-work, either business or volunteer) reasons for travel. So far we’ve come up with four, not completely mutually exclusive, purposes. These are to: Use, See, Learn, Experience. For Len, Experiencing is the highest priority, while for Sue it’s equally Learning and Experiencing. Is how we travel also related to why? That is, to whether we use tours or travel independently, whether we engage in adventure travel, or eco-travel, whether we use high, middle or low end accommodation, and so on. So many decisions, so many implications. We think we’ll stop here …

Three-words

LEN: Venison, Kloss, Stadtschloss
SUE: Physalis, Piano, Peace

and the stills…

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and the movies…

Locals playing Boule at Fulda