Amy & Adam's European Highlights

We recently returned from two cities in the very southwest of Germany: the bath resort town of Baden-Baden and the vibrant university town of Freiburg. The main purpose of the trip was for Adam to research if there was anything of use for him in the military archive in Freiburg. Although Adam spent his days in Freiburg, we used Baden-Baden as our home base for four days as we thought it would be a more entertaining place for me to explore while Adam was working. It turned out we were right and I had a fabulous vacation from my sabbatical.

Baden-Baden
We arrived on Sunday and strolled down the Lichtentaler Allee from our hotel to the city center. Lichtentaler Allee is a beautiful 1.5 mile long stretch consisting of a gentle, highly manicured river, walking, running, driving, and horse paths all framed by gorgeous Hungarian Linden trees. We were immediately struck by the aesthetic difference of the locals here from Tübingen. Most notably women in fur coats were everywhere! The "look" of the native Baden-Baden woman is an elegant, slim Frau, made-up, wearing beautifully tailored pants with leather boots, a designer bag, an outrageous fur coat and a small pure-bred dog. The men were less distinct although also well dressed with fine black leather shoes. There were many Russian tourists in Baden-Baden as Russians have been traveling to the spa town for over a century to go to the baths and the casino. It's really interesting to travel in Europe in the off-season because you hear so little English from fellow American tourists. I think we saw only one other group of native English speakers. The rest of the tourists appeared to be Italian, Russian and German.

Photos of Lichtentaler Allee when we arrived in the sun on sunday and in the early morning on Monday after a frost. I was fascinated by this different type of duck. Adam did a quick internet search and discovered they are "Mandarin Ducks." They are really cute!

Other interesting aspects of traveling in the off season is that you often have places to yourself. You also see sights in their less-flashy cycle such as I experienced the Rose Garden in town. It's all wrapped up and shut down for winter.

We went for a hike past town to the old castle (altes schloss) on the hill above town. We were greeted with incredible views and more fabulous people watching. Although it's quite difficult to tell with this photo, the woman wearing the white coat was hiking in three inch white heels! I guess the pressure is pretty strong to look good here.

Views of town from the new castle:

On Monday, Adam woke up many hours before the sun to catch the train to Freiburg. I took a stroll through town and then went to Friedrichsbad (the Roman-Irish bath) in town. I can't possibly hope to convey what an incredible experience this was. For a mere 21 Euro, I was blessed with three hours of decadence and relaxation. The routine is to follow the 17 step system through showers, steam rooms, saunas, warm, hot and cold pools, and rejuvenation rooms. There are clocks in every titled room to help you keep track of the time as if you stay more than your alloted 3 hours, you have to pay more. Every room has a description of the room (in three languages) as well as a recommended time you should stay. The surroundings are breathtaking: painted tiled walls, statues and fountains, crisp white floors and vaulted or domed ceilings. This was undoubtedly one of the more unique and enjoyable experiences I've had in Europe. Oh, and I should mention in case it wasn't obvious: you are nude throughout this experience. Men and women use separate rooms and only meet in a central cold pool although there are days for women's use of the pool alone (I happened to go on such a day). I chatted with our hotel owner about the bath and she said that she goes at least once a week. What a life! She was happy that I told her that I went and enjoyed it as she said many Americans who come to town are turned off by the nudity. I can assure any hesitant visitors that this shouldn't turn you away as it's a very comfortable and safe environment. Clearly I couldn't take any photos inside but here is there website http://www.carasana.de/home/en/roemisch.html
I truly hope that you will have the chance to experience this as well.

Here is a photo of the exterior of the bath:

Tuesday I went for a solo hike beyond the Altes Schloss Adam and I had hiked two days prior. It was a wonderfully soulful experience as I've never hiked alone before. I found myself paying a great deal more attention to my surroundings than usual (in part to help orient myself as I didn't want to get lost)! The trail was quite well marked however so I didn't have any anxiety and the views of the city from the top were spectacular.

Example of trail markings:

Lastly, an aspect of Baden-Baden that I found particularly noteworthy is their license plates. In Germany, the first few letters of the plate are determined by which city or town you live in. So, here in Tübingen, all the license plates begin with "Tü." In Baden-Baden, their name has been abbreviated to "Bad." It looks particularly fitting with all the fancy BMWs and Mercedes...

Freiburg

Freiburg is a university town very close to the French border. It is larger than Tübingen and has a very different feel although it's relatively close by and it's a university town. The buildings are quite lovely and very influenced in style by their French neighbors. The city has trams, many more interesting (and less expensive stores) and even more bikes. I was astounded watching a busy intersection with no traffic signals as trams, cars, bikes and pedestrians all tried to maneuver through.

The impressive Münster (cathedral) in town lies at the heart of the city center. One of the gargoyles appears to be mooning people and is the focus of many postcards in town. Can you find it?

Typical Freiburg scenes. Yes, there is a little stream that runs through the city center. Although originally for transporting waste, it now appears to be rather clean, and as such is a quaint, unique feature.

Life in Tübingen

As my German class is over and the timing wasn't good for me to enroll in the next section (I'd miss a large part of the class as we're leaving town at the end of February), I'm spending my time working at the DAI and being a paid subject for experiments at The Max Planck Institute. In addition to my tuesday and thursday afternoon advising hours in the DAI library, I'm working on two presentations. The first is on "studying in the U.S," which I'll give to an audience at the end of the month in the auditorium. The second is on the U.S. presidential election process, with a focus on the '08 election. I'm working with a German political science major and have really enjoyed researching our candidates and collaborating with a bright and interested student. Our presentation will be used by the library staff when high school and middle school aged kids come to visit. While this is by no-means a "full-time" U.S. schedule, I am far from bored. I continue to be entertained and enthralled by Tübingen daily life. I am really trying to enjoy every day as I fully realize that I'll be back to "real life" in the U.S. quite soon and this will all feel like a dream.

As we will be leaving this lovely corner of Germany at the end of February, we are feeling the need to see more of it. Accordingly, on Saturday we went on a field trip with Max and Chiara in their car to three towns in the Schwäbishche Alb (Swabian Alb): Rottenburg, Haigerloch and Rottweil. The Schwäbische Alb is a beautiful plateau or small mountain range that runs southwest and southeast of Tübingen. In nicer weather, we could have taken a myriad of beautiful hikes. However we were greeted with a steady rain all day, and our exploring was limited to what we could see from the car and on foot in the town's city centers. As it was a gray day, all my photos were quite dull and flat. Accordingly, the medium of black and white seemed to capture the mood much more accurately.

Rottenburg, situated on the Neckar River (like Tübingen), has a very lovely downtown and active Saturday market. It was fun to stroll through the center as locals were out running their errands prior to the shops closing. Here in small-town Germany, most shops close at 1:00 p.m. on Saturday and don't reopen until Monday. Yes, this includes grocery stores so it is important to plan accordingly!

Here is a picture of the market and a house with an incredible wooden balcony. We don't think this would pass fire code in the States:

A cute wooden figure sitting on the bank of the Neckar River. It appeared to be a popular spot to feed the ducks:

The main square:

Haigerloch is situated dramatically within a valley and is a very picturesque town. We walked a bit through one region of the town but didn't visit the castle which was a site of Hitler's nuclear program.

A chapel crest and a statue of a saint we're calling "the patron saint of bowling":

Detail of a "fachwerk" (wooden and stucco) house:

The lovely town of Rottweil is the oldest town in southwestern Germany. It is an incredibly charming town with beautifully restored houses and two lovely churches. Yes, the only photo of this entry in color is reserved for the stained glass window.

The gang in the town center, a quiet residential street and church interior:

Rottweil was also the location of our incredibly tasty traditional Swabian lunch of Käiserspätzle and Maultaschen. Now as I type, I'm realizing that I have yet to properly document our love of these Swabian food specialties so I will do so now.

Delicious Swabian food:

Käsepätzle is cheese spätzle. And what is spätzle? Well, it's a delicious pasta-like substance that epitomizes "comfort food." You can buy spätzle in any supermarket here either dried or wet in the refrigeration section. We have also had the pleasure of eating it freshly homemade (as you can imagine this is the most tasty variety). The two best spätzle experiences we had were at Marc's house and Uli's house. Both Marc and Uli made the fresh dough and then used a grater to create small pieces of noodle which cooked for a few minutes in boiling water. They then added a variety of good melting cheeses (here the default is Gouda) and added the lightly-boiled spätzle to the cheese in a baking dish. Marc then added an additional level of decadence: a cream sauce lightly seasoned with nutmeg, salt and pepper. The dish is cooked until the cheese is melted and golden. Although you shouldn't say this to a Swabian, it tastes a bit like the best homemade mac and cheese that you can ever imagine...

Maultaschen are large ravioli (outer layer of pasta stuffed with various combinations of meats, vegetables, and spices). We are told that maultaschen are the creation of monks in the region who thought that by hiding the meat in a pasta pocket, the lord wouldn't mind their meat consumption during lent. A great story and an incredibly tasty food. They are traditionally served two ways: in a broth or fried in butter and served with a breadcrumb-butter topping.

For all of my food friends, I highly recommend experimenting with either or both of these tasty treats. It's perfect cold-weather food. Now if I have succeeded in tempting you them, I found a website with recipes complete with the American measuring system. (Silly cups)...
http://www.mpip-mainz.mpg.de/~pleiner/recipe.html#SPA

My other favorite local dish is potato salad that has been prepared with broth and apple cider vinegar. It's the dainty, sophisticated cousin to the heavy mayonnaise based salad. I watched Rose make it on New Year's Eve and will work on writing out a recipe as she is one of the advanced cooks who adds "what looks right."

Our love of German mustard has also branched out to French mustard (yes, the original) as Rose gave us four different varieties of mustard for Christmas. My favorite is the classic bitter, powerful and unlike anything else-- Dijon. Adam prefers the softer and more balanced "ancient" variety with the whole mustard grains. Our experience here has taught us that we don't eat nearly enough mustard (and for that matter far too much mayonnaise) in the U.S. We hope to import our new palate when we return.

Happy New Year to all!

love,
amy

Saturday afternoon we decided to take advantage of the sunshine and begin to work off our extra pounds (courtesy of my generous host family) by taking a hike in the Naturpark. We planned to take a 2-3 hour hike with the sights of the former chapel and a soldiers' grave as highlights along our route. We succeeded with that plan in addition to accomplishing a good deal more than we set out to...We have discovered the hard way that while the park's signage is quite good along its edges and in junctions with villages, once you trek in deep, the signs become infrequent to nonexistent, leaving us to navigate the old fashioned way, with landmarks and the sun. (Of course when I wrote "us" I really meant "Adam"). That is how our saturday stroll turned into a 5 hour, 27.5 KM hike and how we stumbled across the King's 1890's remote hunting lodge. Unfortunately, I don't have any photos of the structure (or really anything past the second hour) as at that point in the hike I was more concerned with making it home before dark. I've decided that I have a mild phobia of being out in the wilderness in the dark. I think I'm going to blame that damn "Watchers in the Woods" movie that I saw at an impressionable age. In any event, it was a spectacular hike. We are really going to miss this natural resource when we move.

Example of the park's excellent signage at the junction with Bebenhausen:

Naturpark beauty: