I love the sun and seeing it all day yesterday and the forecast for today to reach 70 degrees is sheer delight as we rise and enjoy another breakfast in Lieselotte's wonderful apartment.
Today we are on an all day excursion into the Palatinate area of Germany through small back roads and many villages. Our first stop will be in Bad Durkheim that features a salt graduation called Gradierwerk. This is a large building, probably a hundred yards, that stands about 8 stories tall. It looks like a thin barn from the distance. Below ground there is a salt spring. The spring water is pumped up to the roof and drizzled down these long rows of stacked dead thick Polish vines that have been bundled and stacked to form walls 3 foot deep was about 8 stories tall.
These walls go all the way down both sides of this building with about a 6 foot gap between them. The salt water from the spring is dripped through a very manual control system in the roof over these branches where it eventually reaches the collection trough at the bottom. The wind then blows through this structure cooling like an evaporative cooler function but also creating a sea side like experience of a cool ocean breeze. It is a spa as it is considered to be helpful for those suffering from respiratory illness. It was wonderful with the warm breeze being cooled, the bright sunshine making the vineyards look vibrant with color, and the casual stroll was relaxing while periodically taking deep breaths.
I cannot imagine why anyone ever decided to build one, but there have built and rebuilt one here since 1594. The latest rebuild was after a fire in 2007 that completely destroyed the building.
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| You can see the salt crystals form along the branches from the evaporative effect. |
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| They get these thorn bushes from a small town in Poland. Not sure why, but they replace them about every 5 years. |
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| Kids were playing in the stream and I love the police boat stopping the pirate ship. |
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| What's a health spa without the second largest wine barrel?
Bad Durkheim (by the way Bad in a town name is the indication it is an official Health Spa city) is at the footsteps into the Palatine forest where we head next. It is a beautiful winding road up into the mountains and we drive with the windows down. Their are Castle ruins along the road and soon we are to the National Forest where Hubert's ashes are. We are so glad that Lisa brought us here as Hubert was such a joy and we loved his visits to the states with her. I have fond memories of us in our backyard enjoying wine and just talking for hours.
It is a bit of a walk from the parking lot through the woods to Hubert's tree. He had chosen a Douglas fir as it is an American tree and stands out in the woods. We walked to the spot for the ceremony and then ventured to the tree and finally a lovely bench where it is a quiet and you can listen to the wind blow through the trees and the birds singing in the distance and the leaves rustling. It is a wonderful sound of the earth. It is a beautiful spot to come and remember Hubert Bopp.
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We are headed for a wine tasting dinner but first we are stopping in small old village along the way. It is interesting as the original city is surrounded by a brick wall and within the walls it is still a very medieval city. we wonder aimlessly and encounter many wine bars for sampling the local bottling. We decide to stop and each have a wonderful glass. It is in a small courtyard and many of the patrons are coming early before catching a play nearby.
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| Walkway trough the perimeter walls to cut through streets. |
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| I know we are in the right place now! |
And finally to dinner and our wine tasting. Gunter is driving down to meet us. We are in a winery next to an old church whose real bells chime every 15 minutes. I have a schnitzel with egg while Joan has a fish cake which looks and tastes a lot like a crab roll. Both Gunter and Lieselotte have a tradition Farmers Dinner of meats and cheeses. And as Joan notes- "Stinky Cheese". We laugh and share the encounters of the past week and enjoy not just a couple of wines, but seven different wines over the course of several hours. We are sitting outside in the courtyard which is wonderful till it gets truly dark and cold. So we move inside where the restaurant has a large crowd and finish our tastings inside. I am now more familiar with German wines and realize there are a number of good whites and some excellent reds that I can now ad to our home cellar.
It is an excellent way to close out our visit to Germany and with Lieselotte. She has been an outstanding hostess and treated us both like family and royalty. We have loved the mixture of relaxation and activity. We have seen much more of Germany than we had planned all thanks to Lisa. We love you and can't wait to see you this summer.
And so we head home having had an interesting adventure which in all aspects was different from our expectations. We did see Tulips, and we did see Windmills, and we did see Lieselotte. Other than that it was different than we thought as we saw more of Germany and less of the canals of Holland. Our kids are dying for us to get home and once again remind us that we are not to be gone so long. They were the same way when we went to Italy and I assure they will say the same thing when we go to Australia and New Zealand next year. We miss them too and the Grandkids, but when you fly so far, you better make good use of the time there. We have and created wonderful new memories.
