![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Goggle-eyed with amazement
Aug. 14th, 2006 01:20 pmI've only been in Bavaria for a couple days, but I have learned one sure and certain fact:
Everything you want to get to is uphill from where you are.
The only exception is when it is downhill.
England was a series of long walks on pavement, leading to very tired legs. Germany is bootcamp. We climbed up to a castle ruin today, then back down into a valley, they up the next hill to another castle ruin and a standing castle (which was, alas, closed on Mondays - as were several other of our destinations). The views were astounding and worth the pathetic puffing and wheezing our way up the hills. Then we worked our way back down into the village and had lunch at a small tourist trap of a beergarden that nevertheless had good food and a pleasant atmosphere. After lunch, it was off to another ruin (I love ruins, and![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
wolflady26 and Wolfgang are happy to indulge my addiction.
It's really hard to describe how cool the ruins are. Unlike well-kept castles, where for a fee you are rushed through a few select rooms, in the ruins you are pretty much free to clamber about investigating every nook and cranny and you're on your own if you break your neck. You walk along trails that suddenly reveal chunks of castle wall and fortification, and even the odd pottery shard. The sense of age hangs heavily about them, as you peer into moats filled with ferns and moss or out windows where a tree now grows. They were fabulous.
After we came dow from the final ruin of the day, we wandered into the charming village of Essing. German villages are most remarkable to me for their coblestone streets that lead right up the to edge of the house, and the clean and neat feel of their lines. Tiny, neat gardens and bright flowers decorate these houses, and the whole thing really does feel like a movie set. We walked out on a bridge that spanned an abandoned channel of the river and was now a long lake, and watched ducks and swans paddling about with their young. The best were the coots. Coots are sort of an odd-looking bird, but their babies are adorable, and we watched as four...cootlings?...practiced their diving. The sun was shining and sparkling off the water, and it was the most relaxing moment of this whole trip.
Then we hiked uphill back to the car.
Everything you want to get to is uphill from where you are.
The only exception is when it is downhill.
England was a series of long walks on pavement, leading to very tired legs. Germany is bootcamp. We climbed up to a castle ruin today, then back down into a valley, they up the next hill to another castle ruin and a standing castle (which was, alas, closed on Mondays - as were several other of our destinations). The views were astounding and worth the pathetic puffing and wheezing our way up the hills. Then we worked our way back down into the village and had lunch at a small tourist trap of a beergarden that nevertheless had good food and a pleasant atmosphere. After lunch, it was off to another ruin (I love ruins, and
wolflady26 and Wolfgang are happy to indulge my addiction.It's really hard to describe how cool the ruins are. Unlike well-kept castles, where for a fee you are rushed through a few select rooms, in the ruins you are pretty much free to clamber about investigating every nook and cranny and you're on your own if you break your neck. You walk along trails that suddenly reveal chunks of castle wall and fortification, and even the odd pottery shard. The sense of age hangs heavily about them, as you peer into moats filled with ferns and moss or out windows where a tree now grows. They were fabulous.
After we came dow from the final ruin of the day, we wandered into the charming village of Essing. German villages are most remarkable to me for their coblestone streets that lead right up the to edge of the house, and the clean and neat feel of their lines. Tiny, neat gardens and bright flowers decorate these houses, and the whole thing really does feel like a movie set. We walked out on a bridge that spanned an abandoned channel of the river and was now a long lake, and watched ducks and swans paddling about with their young. The best were the coots. Coots are sort of an odd-looking bird, but their babies are adorable, and we watched as four...cootlings?...practiced their diving. The sun was shining and sparkling off the water, and it was the most relaxing moment of this whole trip.
Then we hiked uphill back to the car.
