Our home base for Germanic adventure was to be Meisenheim. A typical small country village about 1.5 hours drive from Frankfurt with a beautiful little cathedral, a hand full of stores on cobbled streets and the river Glan running peacefully through it. Our hosts were Wolfgang and Gisela Doerr, Merrilee's host parents as an exchange student in 1980, so really, they were just Mutti and Papa. We arrived at their house and out came the Kaesecuchen, Mutti's well renowned baked cheese cake.
After a day of resting from the travel and enjoying the peace and quiet of Meisenheim, (also letting the many slices of kaesecuchen settle), Mutti was adamant that we see as much as we could whilst we were there. So our first day trip in Germany was put in motion and we were off to Burg Eltz. This was the first of dozens of castles we were to see on this trip, and my God, it was certainly the most spectacular. Walking down a steep road toward the valley where the castle is perched on a rocky outcrop on the bend of a small river, the first glimpse was jaw dropping. Looking like something straight out of a Disney feature, (it is apparently the best preserved of all the German castles), one expected knights, damsels and ogres to be prancing around the surrounding hills. Inside the castle itself was a veritable maze of stairwells and passages leading from room to room and floor to floor. There were remnants of old treasures, furniture, tapestries, armoury, (there are even some arrows from enemy crossbows fired against the castle centuries ago), and some of the most amazing little window nooks that would be beyond heaven to curl up in and read fairy tales.
The main reason for our German holiday was to attend Merrilee's (host) brother Heiko's 50th birthday. So with only a couple of days in Meisenheim we set off for Berlin.
Traveling in Mutti and Papa's campervan was a bit of an adventure in itself. The ability to sit at a table and play cards on a very long journey was indeed a welcome bonus. Once on the Autobahn it was fairly easy traveling.......until it wasn't! Apparently a car, somewhere ahead, had burst into flames on the side of the road. This may not have been such a problem except that the Germans do some strange things. One of these things is to block off half of the lanes on the Autobahn, apparently in order to prolong the life of the road surface!!!!????? (Perhaps there was no mention in the meeting that decided on this peculiar measure of the distinct possibility that prolonging the life of half of the road was possibly going to shorten the life of the other half) Because of this wonderful beaurocratic decision, there was no room for traffic to pass the aforementioned roadside fireball. Eventually the slowing traffic came to a full halt. And this is where we stayed for the next two hours. The offending barbequed bomb was about 6 or 7 km in front of where we were stopped so I would hazard a guess that after 2 hours, the eventual line of stopped traffic gathering behind us must have continued for at least another 20 km if not more. People talked, played cards, listened to music, played soccer, wandered into the bushes, (mostly they were probably not looking for berries.....some particular bushy areas were obviously more popular than others judging by the slowly gathering smell), but mostly they just walked around trying to relieve the boredom.
Finally the traffic began to move and people ran everywhere in a desperate bid to get back to their vehicles that they had long forgotten that they actually owned. Our drive to Berlin had stretched out and had eventually taken 12 hours, but we were there.
Everyone in our circle of German family and friends knew that we were coming to Germany, except Heiko. Our first stop in Berlin was at a pub where everyone had gathered for drinks on the night before his birthday. The meeting of Merrilee and Heiko was just perfect. He was genuinely shocked to see us and just absolutely thrilled to bits. We had a few drinks, something to eat, I finally got to meet Heiko's 16 year old son Jorris who was named after me, and our Berlin chapter had begun.
By the time we left the pub and made our way to the hotel it was almost midnight.....so they wouldn't let us in!!! A quick re-adjustment of plans and we found a hostel down the road that would take us for the night and we hauled in for a much needed sleep.
Our stay in Berlin was excellent. So many things to see, both wonderfully uplifting and frighteningly sobering, occasionally at the same time. With such a dramatic recent history it is certainly a city for contemplation.
The architecture in Berlin was something to behold. From modern constructions like the Sony Centre with its extravagant sails to the majestic old buildings that have seen so much change in this magnificent city. To see buildings that I remember from old paintings in Art History classes was pretty special. Napoleon visiting Berlin in front of the Brandenburg Gates....and there were the very same gates, although the day we were there a different tyrant was in town.
Other notable things from our Berlin stay were going to a massive slot car track and mucking around on that for an hour.
And of course visiting the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. A magical installment that I could have happily wandered through for hours, and then the harrowing museum built underneath it. I must remember to take some tissues next time.
One of the stranger things we did in Berlin was to have a game of mini golf. Not normally all that strange, but here in Germany they of course do things just a bit differently. There is no attempt, in any shape or form, to replicate, (as we do in Australia and New Zealand), the colour, look or feel of actual grass. Each hole's surface appeared to have been lovingly and carefully created with the use of that most famous of putting surfaces....... asbestos. To strike the ball, (yes...it is the size of a golf ball but that is where the similarity ends....still not sure what they were actually made of), the competitor was expressly forbidden to stand on the putting surface and therefore forced to stand on the ground below the playing surface, reaching across to the designated starting point. (Perhaps if they let you stand on it you would be entitled to sue them for getting cancer in later life?) The regular corners, mounds, twists and turns we're all there....it just felt a bit odd. A quick look into the club room, (I kid you not), revealed a wall full of trophies and pennants celebrating their success at various championships. There were people there with their own custom designed rubber-faced putters and fancy cases full of balls of varying weight, size, colour and density ready for the challenge that each hole presented. Mutti sat down and chatted to one of them and it turned out that he was qualified for the European tour of asbestos putting competitions. What next? As much fun as it is.... I thought ten-pin bowling was nerdy. Anyway, after the parties, dinners, pretzels, sightseeing, slot cars, museums, shopping, mini-golf and of course many different beers, our time in Berlin was over, and the next part in our adventure would take us north towards Hamburg.
It would seem that it is not only Asia that has some funny things on display.
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