Rhein River Cruise

Here is our little cruise ship. Once again, we were lucky that there was a cruise running today as during the winter, you need to call ahead to reserve spots or else they may not be running a cruise up the Rhein at all.

Tangi, Luc and Anaëlle waiting for coffee and hot chocolate

During a 1 hour 15 minute cruise up the Rhein, you see dozens of castles, many built as early as the 11th century. Some are just ruins today, but many are furnished and can be toured.

The Mouse Tower

Click on this castle and you can see the stained glass windows of the chapel to the left.

It rained just a bit during the cruise, but not too hard.

Close-up of the castle

The only other passengers on the boat were about 25 Japanese tourists. We owed them a big thank you for booking the cruise.

Die Pfaltz, built at the beginning of the 14th century, is the only castle built in the middle of the river (for the purpose of levying tolls).

We passed many barges transporting materials. We waved hello to the family who lived on this one.

The Lorelei is a rock which soars some 120 meters above the water line. It is one of the narrowest parts of the river and a very strong current and rocks below the waterline have caused many boat accidents there. Lorelei is also the name of one of the beautiful Rhine Maidens who lured navigators of this river to their dooms with their alluring singing, much as the ancient Greek Sirens did.

On the train ride home, we spied a statue of the Lorelei herself perched on a rock in the river.

At St. Goarshausen, we disembarked and caught the train to take us back to Rüdesheim. There was a downpour during our train ride, but the skies miraculously cleared when we exited the train to walk a bit more about Rüdesheim.

Rüdesheim am Rhein

Today I took Anaëlle's family to Rüdesheim to take a short cruise up the Rhein. During that 1 hour 15 minute cruise, you see at least 20 castles on the hillsides that line the river. Last night I checked on cruise time on the internet and discovered that during the winter months, you need to call ahead to reserve spots, or else there may very well be no cruise. Luckily for us, a frantic phone call this morning assured us that there was a cruise already set.

Driving toward Rüdesheim, the sky ahead turned a very dark gray. If it rained, the day would be a huge disappointment. When we arrived, the sky was cloudy and we had some light rain during the boatride, but nothing we couldn't handle.

Tangi

We had some time before the cruise to walk around quiet Rüdesheim. Any other time of year, this town is a tourist mecca. Today, it was rather deserted, with only a few shops open.

Bienvenue chez nous!

Today was Anaëlle's final exam. She has been with us for 12 days now, speaking less and less French and more and more English every day. By the way, there have been several times with Anaëlle where I have unknowingly spoken English, French and German in one sentence (as my husband and kids have been quick to point out). Poor Anaëlle must have been very confused at times.

Her final exam involved accompanying Micaela on her day at the international school, where she would be expected to speak English the entire time. Reports are that Anaëlle passed and she enjoyed herself, with some of the French-speaking students taking her under their wing a bit. What she did comment on later was how everyone shook hands when greeting each other -- even the girls! In France, girls would have kissed each other on both cheeks. "You know, Anaëlle," I told her, "when little Becca arrives at the Kindergarten in the morning, the first thing she does is shake her teacher's hand, and it's the last thing she does before leaving." Not very French.

And who was waiting for us when we arrived home from school? Anaëlle's parents and brother Tangi. The whole family will spend a few days with us.

For dinner, I wanted to make something very American, something you don't see readily in Europe, like you do hamburgers. I decided to make chili and was lucky that a friend with commissary privileges was kind enough to buy some cornbread mix for me to make the meal as authentic as possible. And authentic as chili made by a Yankee in Germany can be.

We told everyone to ladle chili into their bowls and the fixings were on the table. We all sat down and everyone just sat there for a few seconds, frozen. It took a second for me to realize that la famille Quiquet did not know what to do with said fixings. What was this white stuff? (Sour cream.) What is sour cream exactly? (It's similar to crème fraiche.) What does one do with these crackers? (Crumble them up.) How much of this orange cheese (cheddar) should we put in? (As much as you'd like.) And we mix it all together? (Yes.) It was nice to be on the other side of the "Now how do I do this?" thing for once. I feel frozen like that so often here.

And I think the chili was a hit.

Maud et moi.

After dinner, it was present time. Doritos!

French wine and cake!

A French soccer jersey! (Please excuse James' lack of enthusiasm. He had a fever and wasn't feeling well.)

An Astérix book!

Astérix figurines!

My Astérix can beat up your Obélix!

A beautiful Longchamp foldable purse! Très chic! You unsnap it to make a bigger purse. Very à la mode in France. I got a purse and backpack as well.

And the gifts kept coming: Breton butter cookies or galettes, which James discovered are delicious when dipped in hot chocolate; souvenirs from Brittany (playing cards, special card sticker, caramel, hats); French cosmetics; and the one thing I asked Maud to bring me -- reusable shopping bags from a French supermarket that I'll be able to use back in the U.S.

We were overwhelmed. I just hope their stay with us justifies such generosity.

Schloss Fürstenau

A five-minute walk from the basilica brought us to Schloss Fürstenau, my new favorite European castle.

Entering the palace complex which includes old border fortifications, a 14th century moated castle, a Renaissance palace mill, a former mint, lodging for staff and guests and a new palace, among other buildings.

One of the complex residents airing out her featherbed

Schloss Fürstenau is still a dwelling, with the head of the house of the princely Counts of Erbach-Fürstenau and his family still living there.

The gigantic Renaissance-style gateway arch (1588) between the moated castle’s two western corner towers replaced the castle wall and drawbridge and opened the gloomy, dank courtyard back up to the former castle garden.

I fell in love with this castle. It has everything: towers, statues, arches, a spiral staircase, a courtyard, fountains and a moat. It's the perfect castle. I just wish we could have gone inside.

The castle in the summer, with blue skies and green ivy.

Einhard's Basilica

We made it back to the car after leaving Michelstadt's medieval center and I sighed deeply. The town was lovely, but extensive scaffolding ruined the main square and my hopes of lovely photos of the Rathaus. And again, being the middle of winter, the whole atmosphere walking around the town was extremely subdued. I opened the guide book I had brought with me to see if there was anything else we should see before we left for home and it mentioned that just a few minutes away was a basilica and a small castle. "Why not?" I said to myself.

Making that little detour made our day trip worthwhile.

This photo I found on-line shows the structure of Einhard's Basilica better than any of mine. The church had been used as a hospital and then in the 17th century as a barn, until 1873 when someone realized this old church being used to store hay and house animals, was actually Carolingian. It wasn't just a few hundred years old, it was a thousand years old, having been built in 824-827.

Einhard, a Frankish scholar who was a dedicated servant and biographer of Charlemagne, had the basilica built in the early 800s.

Anaëlle looking to see if we can explore the chambers underneath the church

In the passageways underneath the church after having jumped down to the muddy entrance to the basement.

After the completion of the basilica, Einhard sent a servant, Ratleic, to Rome to find holy relics for the new building. Once in Rome, Ratleic, with the help of a Roman deacon with a reputation as a relics-swindler, robbed a catacomb of the bones of Saints Marcellinus and Peter and brought them back to Michelstadt. Marcellinus, a priest, and Peter, an exorcist, died in the year 304, beheaded in Rome.

We were surprised to find this display in a random room amid dark passageways. Had I time and a German-English dictionary, I could no doubt tell you more about Einhard and his basilica.

One the relics were entombed in the church, Einhard's servants began experiencing nightmares and the relics “sweated blood,” making Einhard think that this arrangement was not a good one. He moved himself, his wife, the relics and his seat to to a different city, now known as Seligenstadt, which became a pilgrimage site with a new, bigger basilica. Once established there, the relics proved to be miracle workers.

Entering the church sanctuary

Inside the bare sanctuary.  The archways along the sides used to be doorways but were filled in during the 14th century.

Architectural detail

A last look back. I was very happy. Much as I enjoy touring ornate Gothic churches, I find it just as enjoyable exploring these extremely old, simple pre-Gothic churches.

Allotment Gardens

As we left the center of Michelstadt and made our way back to the car, we passed by this garden. Anaëlle asked me about these garden shacks you see all over the place outside Frankfurt. I thought people bought or rented plots of land to garden and these sheds (some are quite nice and some can be falling-down messes) were for storing tools. But Anaëlle though the sheds were too big and fancy to be just for storing tools.  Turns out she was right.

All throughout Germany outside of big cities, you will find these clusters of tiny little structures and at first glace, you may mistake them for some kind of little shanty town. A second glance reveals that, beyond the clutter of ladders and rakes leaning against the back of the structures, neatly ordered flowerbeds, well-tended fruit trees and picture-perfect picket fences are lined up like regiments of tin soldiers. The phenomenon is known as a Schrebergarten -- an area outside the city where gardening-obsessed Germans can rent out a small plot and plunge their fingers into the soil.

What looks like a slice of outdoor freedom though, is actually far from it. In 1983, the German government passed the Bundeskleingartengesetz ("Federal Small Garden Law"), which regulates just how big a small garden is allowed to be and includes nine further pages describing, in German legaleze, every other aspect of what the "Schreber-gardener" is faced with. In addition, each colony has a formal leadership structure and a book of rules that regulates everything from the exact dimensions, color and style of the shack to when one is allowed to mow the lawn or use other noisy gardening machinery. Unkempt gardens are also frowned upon.

The Schrebergarten phenomenon is not a new one. Dr. Daniel Gottlieb Moritz Schreber, a 19th century naturopath, wanted to create more athletic fields for the children in his home city of Leipzig. He died in 1861 before the plan could be realized, but his son-in-law got the ball rolling in 1864 and before long, small vegetable plots were planted in the fields as well to teach the children the basics of gardening. The idea quickly took off. But it was during World War I and World War II that the gardens rapidly rose in importance as sources of otherwise hard-to-get fresh fruit and vegetables. Furthermore, after World War II ended, a lack of housing across the country resulted in the common practice of erecting small structures on the plots so that families could find shelter.

The result today are thousands of garden colonies on the outskirts of big cities in Germany, Austria and Switzerland that look more like miniature housing developments than peaceful nature retreats. For the most part, the colonies are no longer residential, but in the summertime, they are packed with families enjoying the sunshine, crammed onto their tiny plots grilling, eating and relaxing.

With this information in hand, I decided to document the Schrebergarten that I see on a daily basis -- on my way drive to and from the kids' school.  With Micaela as my photo-journalist aid, we photographed and counted every cluster of gardens we saw.

On the 15-minute drive, we counted 13 Schrebergartens.  Many are nice, as the article I copied and pasted above described.  And some people like to add a bit of kitsch to their gardens, displaying windmills and gnomes.

 But many near the school looked delapidated and did resemble a shanty town.  When I explained to the kids that I would be blogging about these gardens, James said, "And all along I thought those were homes for poor people!"