My Spanish Sabbatical, 2007/8
Daniel W. Koon
October 21, 2007
We took advantage of Eli's recent 4-day weekend to fly to Frankfurt. D'd rented us a modest-sized car; it turned out to be a modest-sized Mercedes A180 diesel. The seats encouraged the driver to sit up straight, which is a good thing when you're flying down the autobahn at 120-150 kmh [75-90+ mph] and cars are flying past you. The engine was way too clever: it had 2 modes, one automatic, and the other sort of semi-automatic in which you could switch gears by just nudging the gear lever [there was no clutch]. The driving was easy, except that driving in a medieval city in a country where you don't understand the road signs is not something i would recommend. The one bad driving experience was running over a raccoon (D's brothers will probably wince to read that) at about 150kph.
The aforementioned medieval city is Rothenburg, where D attended the Goethe Institute decades ago during his Fulbright year. The large part of the city that was destroyed during WWII has been rebuilt, and the whole city has been well preserved. Walking along on top of the city wall, you can see stones with the names of people who've donated money for R'burg's restoration since the war; there are quite a few US names, and many Japanese. We visited one of the churches, the one that has an elaborately carved tall wooden altar (by Tilman Riemenschneider, the Michaelangelo of Medieval Franconian woodcarvers) that houses, they say, a small vial with a drop of Christ's blood. We also took an evening tour with 'The Night Watchman,' who gave a very entertaining version of R'burg's history. It grew prosperous centuries ago b/c it was at the junction of 2 major trade routes and also was in the middle of lots of fertile land. All citizens were required by law to store enough grain and salt for year in case of siege. The city was finally stopped in its tracks by the 30 Year's War (General Tilly took the city in 1631) and took centuries to recover.
As a side trip we went to Wuerzburg, Daniel's only experience of which 26 years ago was sleeping on the hillside of and following the RR tracks of in order to return to Rothenburg after missing his bus back from Oktoberfest. Ah, memories. Here dwelt one of Rothenburg's chief antagonists and beseigers, the Bishop-priest of Wuerzburg. Later, in the 17th Century, a lovely pleasure dome therein did the Bishop-priest decree. It has the largest fresco in the world, an unsupported ceiling overhanging a none too shabby staircase, and painted by Tiepolo.
We drove down almost to Austria to go to 2 castles, Schloss Hochenschwangau and Schloss Neuschwanstien. H was the summer home of King Maximilian and Queen Sophia of Bavaria--a smallish, comfortable castle with scenes from myths and history painted onto all the walls of the rooms. One room had a telescope, which M&S's son, King Ludwig (Ludovico el Loco the Spaniards would call him), used to check on the construction of his own castle nearby, S N, which looks suspicioiusly like the Disney castle. Its decor is totally over the top: a huge gilded chandelier in the throne room, delcately carved wooden spired over the bed, painted scenes on every vertical surface, etc. Ludwig must have loved all kinds of excess--he was found dead in a deep puddle at the age of 40, and the cause has never been determined.
The weather was quite cool--we could've used gloves in the evenings--but the hotel prices and small crowds made fall tourism look very good. Hessen/Franconia/Bavaria look a lot like PA or the Southern Tier, and we saw vineyards along many of the roads. We had some delicious local wines; 1 restaurant had a tasting sampler of 5 wines, all good. The Franconians boast of having the best wine in Germany (not that the Badische don't claim the same). Negotiating the language was tricky. Daniel was the translator, and his oral comprehension was pretty good, it's just that every third word or so when he spoke came out Spanish. His Spanish colleagues were amused later to hear that he had been mistaken for one of them.
Pix are attached of Schloss N, the residence at W'burg, and a detail of a building in Rothenburg that might look familiar--D has an etching of it that hangs in our dining room [it's very blue].
St. George fountain in Rothenburg
Wuerzburg Residenz
Neuschwanstein
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