Art & Culture
various essays on, well, art and culture
Bookbinding & Conservation
lessons learned from this profession
Humor
ok, I'm not the guy from SNL,
but I still have a sense of humor
'Jim Downey' Stories
mostly true stories from my
adolescence
Personal Essays
more "it's all about me"
Politics
I’m at -7.13/-7.33 on The
Political Compass. Where
are you?
Society
observations on the human condition
Travel
Europe 1994
Kronach
Coburg
Vienna
Mödling
Vättis
Ramsgate
Chester
Wales 1998
Wales 2003
Wales 2006
CCGA Vignettes
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Coburg
Wednesday morning we woke up early, the sun just rising over the low mountains,
the sky clear and very blue. A good night's sleep helped to reset our
clocks to the local time. It felt like morning.
We went downstairs to breakfast, finding a table set for two among the combinations
available. As we settled in the innkeeper's wife come in, asked whether we
wanted coffee or juice, and promised us soft-boiled eggs in just a few moments.
In the meantime we turned our attention to the slices of thin-sliced ham and Swiss
cheese, the basket of that morning's brotchen (a crusty-crisp hardroll about the size
of your fist . . . the delightful German answer to the French baguette), and a
selection of single-serving tinned meats, wursts, cream cheese, butter, various
'health crackers', and preserves. Because of all these latter items, or
rather because of the containers which housed them, there was also a small
decorated tub for the 'breakfast trash'. The eggs and coffee came, both hot
and delicious, and we enjoyed breakfast there in the early sunlight, looking out
into the town and the surrounding hills.
After breakfast we gathered stuff for a daytrip,
went under the street to the bahnhof, and got tickets to Coburg. While we
waited for the train, we picked up a couple of maps of the local area and the area
around Coburg, the equivalent of county maps here, because in Coburg we would pick
up our rental car, and wanted much more detailed information about the area than
our big Rand-McNally map could offer.
Caught the local train to Lichtenfels, where
we had about half an hour wait to get the train to Coburg. Of course, this
meant that we had some time to explore. Why sit in a train station for half
an hour when there's things to see? Out of the station, across the street,
up a pedestrian walkway past big stands of cut flowers, bundled together, glowing
in the sunshine. Turn a corner, and there's the old city gate, a tower of
dark stone, roughly square, large enough to have the road running through the center
of it and not seem cramped. A smaller passageway for pedestrians on the side,
shops selling sportswear or tobacco products, their windows glinting with reflected
sunlight in the darkness of the passage. Alix got pictures of the tower, and
the old city beyond, and we shopped the windows for a bit, but turned back to the
train station before too long. Checking out the town for a few minutes was
one thing, missing our train to Coburg and being stuck there for half a day was
something else altogether.
The trip to Coburg didn't take long, maybe half
an hour, the train coming in along a small river, the station at the bottom of a
valley, in the heart of the city at the base of a mountain. The top of the
mountain is completely taken by the Veste Coburg, the site so ideal for a fortress
that the Romans used it, building a tower and walls there after their fashion.
It has been used as a fortress ever since, additions and layers of building all
through the medieval period and even up through WW II. We stopped at the
information desk, found that the Hertz office was about a mile away, and decided
that it was a pleasant day for a walk.
Out of the station and down back along the
river. There was a walking path there most of the way, sometimes blending
in with a residential street which we shared with bicyclists, a belt of grass under
the shade of old trees along the river. An old man telling a neighbor to make
sure the fellows working on the neighbor's roof did the job properly, not letting
tiles fall into his garden or leaving any of their trash behind. Cats and
small children sitting on the porches, watching us stroll by gawking at the houses
they took for granted. As we walked, we left the residential area, moving
into a more commercial/light industrial section of town, the warehouses and stores
busy with traffic, large trucks parked on the sidewalks to load or unload goods.
Soon enough we came to the street where the Hertz office was located. Seeing
a car dealership, I thought perhaps that was where it was, but that business fronted
on a different road. Likewise with the filling station across the street.
We checked the address we had. We were in
the right area. By the numbering system for the street, it seemed to be part
of another building. Walking around to the side, we went in what looked
like a suite of offices, but which turned out to be some sort of reception area
for a warehouse, the business office attached to it. Stepping up to the
service window, I asked about the Hertz office in my still very rusty German.
The nice fellow there told be that it was 'around back'. So we went out
again, figuring that we hadn't gone back far enough in the complex.
Sure enough, leaving the building and heading
to the rear of it, we could see cars that were obviously part of a rental fleet,
back in a grassy area behind the building. We figured that the office
itself was probably at the very back of the building. But when we got
there we just found some industrial equipment, and a parking area for their
trucks and pallets. No office. Nothing that even vaguely looked
like an office. Wandering over to the cars, all bright red and glistening
in the dew, we looked around some more. On what I first thought was just
an apartment-sized dumpster was a sign saying that the clerk would be right back.
Alix noticed that there was a power and telephone line going into the dumpster,
and as the thought that we had found the Hertz office started to sink in, the
clerk pulled up in her own car.
Smiling, pleasant, and not speaking a scrap
of English, she opened up the dumpster, flipped on the lights, and urged us to
come inside. OK, inside it was the size of two dumpsters, and better
outfitted for it's purpose than I expected. There were a couple of chairs,
a small desk, filing cabinets, a lamp or two, a phone, a few nondescript boxes,
and stacks of Hertz brochures piled in the corners and along the walls. Some
nice travel posters here and there helped to hide the fact that we were in a metal
box. There might have been a window on the back side of the box, but I
wouldn't bet on it. I felt like any moment we'd hear a clank and the rumble
of a diesel, and we would tumble into the back of the trash truck with all the
brochures and boxes.
We got through the hurdles of language, filled
out the necessary paperwork, and got our car. It was a little manual-shift
Ford Festiva, just the right size for both of us to crowd into, but I had my doubts
that it could carry us and our luggage. No matter, the thing was new, the
gear pattern was the same as my car, and the tank was full. Off we went into
the city, looking for a way to the Veste Coburg.
Before you leave the States, if you are thinking about driving, and certainly if
you are thinking about renting a car for any length of time at all, your travel
agent will probably recommend that you get an International Driver's Permit.
Sure, your current State Drivers License is valid all over Europe, but this permit
has some additional information about local laws, and can be of assistance if you
get a ticket or have a minor accident. And besides, it's only $10.00.
Don't do it. Take that $10 and photocopy
the section of your dictionary or encyclopedia which has the international driving
symbols in it. Better yet, buy a stamp and write the Embassy for the country
you will be visiting and ask for their publication about driving in their country.
Then use the rest of the money to buy Maalox. This will serve you better.
Much better.
At least we were driving on the same side of the
road. But beyond that, I felt like a real tourist, or like the oriental
graduate students who drive huge old American boats about 20 mph under the speed
limits in Columbia. Sure, the car was small, and peppy, but I wasn't used
to the speed limit signs, the incredibly narrow streets, or the fact that the
native drivers were whizzing around blind corners about twice as fast as I cared
to drive in the few open areas. Whoa. I wasn't yet driving when I
was a student there in the early '70's, and I doubt that even when I was a crazed
teenager I had the same gusto about driving that most of the Germans displayed,
though some of my friends may dispute this. We turned and parried, dancing
through gaps in the narrow streets between the construction crews and the oncoming
traffic, holding our breath in the tight spots, running through the gears as we
climbed the mountain to the top.
We pulled into a little parking lot, parked the
car with a sense of relief, paid the attendant, and started up the path to the
castle. Winding up the remainder of the hill, walking through the trees
just starting to show touches of red and gold, we caught glimpses of the town
laid out before us on the right, the castle emerging from the shelter of the hill
on our left. First the Red & Blue towers in the old curtain wall, rising
well above the newer outer walls, along with the high roofs of the Duchess Building
and the Residence. We came to the top of the hill, on the slight plane
outside the newer walls, and decided to walk around the outside of the castle
before going inside, examining the towers and walls with a pair of binoculars.
About halfway around the castle we came upon a
work crew installing a new walkway up to one of the bastions. The bed had
already been dug, and trenches for the curbstones ran neatly along the edges,
string lines establishing the finished level. The curbstones themselves
were just outside the trenches, sitting on the grass waiting for the workmen to
set them in place. Alix pulled out her camera and ran over to the workmen,
wanting to get a good look at how they were placing the stone.
We made it inside the castle, crossing over the stone bridge which replaced the
wooden drawbridge in the middle of the last century. The baroque gateway
(like the one in Kronach) seemed more than a little out of place even in the newer
walls. Paying the admission fee just inside the gate, we also picked up a
little book on the castle's history (from which I am cribbing notes). It's
a large ducal castle, with a long and complicated history, but has always been
considered an important component in the control of central Germany, and the
important trade route from Venice to just about everywhere north.
Just inside the outer gate we paused, admiring
the inner walls and the lush yet rambling gardens in the narrow outer courtyard.
Jogging to the left (an intentional defensive design) we entered the inner gate,
climbing up and turning left, then right. This passage was long - some 30
feet or so - and still had the portcullises in place, one on either side of a
huge heavy door, several inches thick and faced with iron plates. With the
climb, and the turns in the tunnel, there would be no place for an attacking force
to bring a battering ram to bear, and plenty of opportunities to fall prey to the
murder holes and arrow slits which lined the walls. Even after we reached
the end of the tunnel, we had to ascend a long sloping road to come into the center
of the inner courtyard.
It was beautiful. Gardens with flowers
in full bloom ran all along the walls of the buildings, broad spaces of open grass
for the kids to play on. Most of the buildings were either original, or good
restorations of building which had been there from the late middle ages, so there
was lots of stone, some half-timbering. We wandered off to the second
courtyard, past the base of the old roman tower. This courtyard was much
the same, even to the point of having a sloping tunnel entrance which led to the
bastion beyond the Red Tower. Ivy climbed over the walls of most of the
buildings here, the age of the vines evident in the size of the mass at the base
where it emerged from the cobblestones.
Several of the buildings now house art collections,
both the permanent collection of artifacts from the castle's history and travelling
collections. While we were there they had a display of art-glass from Venice
(18th & 19th century, mostly) and Japan (contemporary). We mostly passed
these by, instead spending time looking over the medieval collections, enjoying
the racks upon racks of arms & armour, the rooms full of wood- and stone-carved
religious artifacts, the paintings and illuminations. Most of the rooms were
restored completely, the wooden floors polished from years of use, the stone window
seats smooth from the resting of many butts. And there was furniture, much
of it original, some of it reproduction. Large, lengthy tables made of planks,
chests with heavy strap hinges and early iron locks, chairs of several designs,
cabinets and storage lockers, some carved or inlaid with wondrous designs.
In the small suite of rooms where Martin Luther stayed while on the run from the
Pope's agents the walls were panelled with almost black polished walnut, the beams
overhead crowding into the room and making me feel cramped, but I guess I'm rather
taller than he was, though the paintings of him indicate that he made up the
difference in mass elsewhere.
We spent some hours enjoying the collections,
looking over the details of the architecture, making mental notes of things to
tell certain friends who shared our love of things medieval. We spent some time
walking the inner walls, dodging the very enthusiastic schoolkids from the American
military base at Bamberg. One of the towers there in the walls had a walkway
around the outside of it, a waist-high wall of stone all along it. On the top
of that stone wall was a brass plate, going all the way around, some 270 degrees of
arc. Engraved into this brass plate was an outline of the horizon visible from
the tower, with names of the mountains and churches which could be seen, along with
their distances from the tower. With binoculars we could see those distant
buildings in the mists, pale images in the deep blue green of the Frankenwald.
Leaving the wall walk of the inner keep, we had
lunch at the fair-sized restaurant on one of the bastions of the outer walls,
sitting at a table overlooking the approach to the main gate. The beer
was good, the wursts hot and juicy, their skins breaking crisply when you bit
into them.
We recovered the car, driving down the mountain into the maze of the city. With
some quick guesswork we found our way out onto the road back to Kronach.
Actually we had several options, but chose one of the smaller backroads, hoping
to come across the house where I was a student. I had a vague recollection
where it was, but had forgotten to look up the address before we left the States,
so it was entirely exploration.
Over the hills, through the forests, small
villages appearing suddenly just around a bend in the road, and disappearing as
quickly with a turn or rise on the other side. Fast moving cars, slow
moving tractors, occasional hay wagons still pulled by huge, hairy horses.
Schoolchildren on their way home. The green of the fields bright and more
like spring than fall, the forests darker, the tall pines so thick that undergrowth
didn't have a chance at sunlight. Backroads gave way to even smaller roads,
turning into little more than paved trails barely big enough for our Festiva, and
those more often than not ended in a farmer's barnyard. We enjoyed the drive,
trying my intuition for the paths we took, most of the time with the Veste Rosenburg
of Kronach visible down in the valley to the southeast. But we never found
the house I stayed in, and after a couple of hours picked one of the paths and
allowed it to lead us down into the town.
It was late afternoon, getting on to evening.
We decided to have dinner in the old town, and after parking the car and dropping
off our bags, went that way. Suffice it to say that Kronach pretty much rolls
up the sidewalks on Wednesday nights out of the tourist season (is there ever a
tourist season in Kronach?). Few of the restaurants were open, and those
that were offered such fare as pizza and Chinese. Walking over every street
in the old town, and quite a few of the newer town below, we decided that it was
cold and went back to the hotel, knowing that the food there could be trusted.
Dinner, some good beer, and the writing of many postcards, and we were ready for bed.
In the morning we enjoyed another breakfast of fresh brotchen, cheeses, tinned
meats, and other delights, then settled with the landlord and packed our things in
the car. Before leaving Kronach we went downtown for one last look around,
buying some coldcuts, sweet mustard, and other such items to make a lunch on the
train. It was misty when we pulled out of the town and headed for Bamberg,
where we would catch our train to Vienna. The clouds were low, a light
drizzle now and again, keeping the limit of the world the edges of the fields,
the dark forest climbing the mountains, and the length of the road ahead.
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