Archives

Wutsburg – The Tale of the Stray Orange

Date:        Leave a comment on Wutsburg – The Tale of the Stray Orange  
That wretched Nicole! She gave me an Orange! I was harmlessly looking for the time and place for my ride share tomorrow and I find an orange among all the other bits and pieces she gave me!
Anyway, Wednesday morning the plan was to go into town and look around but I slept sound through a full 50% of the daylight hours so we wandered down at about 12:30. The town is so wonderful! Fairytale houses, foot wide passage ways and the mighty river Main criss crossed by cobbled streets and sloping lanes. First up we visited the castle! Which is now a mesuem about life back in the day. [[Lohr]] is the home to [[Snow White]] as well as having it’s own highway robber!
After picking Jamil up from the Kinderrgarden we wandered down to the river and back, past some wonderful buildings and had Chinese to eat, visited an old Church with memorial stones from the 1200’s and then headed to Nicoles mum’s house where she has the [[Internet]]. It’s in an annexed village south of the river, greener and with river side playgrounds. After some time on CouchSufing.org and RideShare.co.uk I decided that a bus to [[Gothenburg]] and a couch there for a day or to would be good. It took me another 2 days to get around to it, by which time the only bus was Monday evening. Good for my time in [[Germany]], but a bit more restricting in [[Sweden]]!
Tags:

Frankfurt to Lohr Am Main

Date:        Leave a comment on Frankfurt to Lohr Am Main  
That train conductor so thought I was German! Not, unfortunately, because of my language skills. On the contrary, because I only Um’d, Ah’d and Grunted my way through bits of paper and wrong tickets.
It’s nearly 8 and dark outside the train – which is far warmer than it needs to be!
I’ve spend the day wandering around [[Frankfurt]], the [[River Main]] is fabulous, about as wide and fast as the Thames but not nearly as build up and enclosed. From the high bridges you can see all the church towers and sky scrapers, plus glimpses of buildings crying out for a closer look. So I headed for one particularly enticing steeple, which turned out to be The Dom – One of the more famous sights, and with good reason.
It’s incredible, beyond words and magnificantly big! Stepping through the large but humble door you are faces with a beachy pink column, embosses in such straight vertical lines you cant help but let your eyes follow them up, and up, and up until you are craning your neck to see the ceiling high above.
The building itself is faily simple iin design and decoration. The outside is adorned with a few large, almsot hyroglyphic shapes and reliefs of people. The inside is only pinky white lines on peachy or red brick surfaces. It’s clean but not stale, and plain yet awe inspiring.
The statues and ornaments are another thing. Dramatic scenes of Jesus and the apostles vividly carved into fully formed 3d figures. Intricate golden details on wooden picture frames. The small (and entirely in German) museum houses the most incredible objects, the purpose of which I can only guess are mostly for holding candles, but these are no ordinary candle holders. Fine gold shapes surrounded crystal lenses atop gem encrusted bases. All hundreds of years old.
I only saw a few pictures on postcards, but it looks as if much of the surrounding area was destroyed and the church damaged in the war. If that was the case, a remarkable rebuild had taken place!
Tags:

Belgium – Not Your Average Monday Morning

Date:        Leave a comment on Belgium – Not Your Average Monday Morning  
Woooo! It doesn’t get much better than this! From stressing in an Internet Cafe to chilling in a pub with a Finn (Yogart), a Spaniard (Carlos) and a Bulgarian (Sofia). I got a lift with an Italian (Who’s name I mis-remembered and wrote down somewhere) from Waterloo: having squeezed in through a gap in the fence, climbed the grass pyramid and stopped for some humous as I gazed into the blackness which was a historic view just hours ago (Before the sun set…), and then had to jump a fence to get out.
So the Italian dropped me right at the station and, joy of joys, I caught the first train to Brussels. A little nervous because although I had a ticket from Waterloo to Brussels I was getting on the train a stop early, and the train didn’t even stop at Waterloo. Which is a totally unnecessary balagan since I had a train pass for all of Belgium. Unfortunately I left that in the luggage locker.
The lift back and good fortune with the trains left me with enough time to wander a little. I enquired about how the [[Boris Bikes]] work (about the same as ours but with a week pass also) and to find an awesome pub and meet the above mentioned awesomes. It was, curiously enough, a smoking pub. It does seem that England is the only country which has managed to introduce a smoking ban and stick with it 🙂
Day 1. Not so bad eh? The writing will probably go down hill from here. I await now my ride for [[ Frankfurt]] where I hope to find a hostel for the night… or morning. Some Internet probably too, to send this to you my lovelies.
Tags:
Category: