March 2012 Articles

Archives by Months

Notes from Germany

Spring is almost here in southern Germany, and though ponderous snow still lingers in some of the streets and along the roadsides in the Black Forest, the days have grown longer and noticeably warmer, and in the fir trees, birds are at long last singing once again. Indeed, despite the sudden cold snap that stunned Europe in early February, the end of the month was pleasant—the sun peeked out again from behind the mountains, and the winter chill broke for the first time since Christmas. Once again, I spent the majority of the month in the small town of Neustadt. I went cross-country skiing for the first time and continued my teaching at the little school down the mountain. I celebrated Fastnacht (the south German term for Carnival, or Mardi Gras) with my fellow teachers and students, and I watched the parades as they rolled through Freiburg and some of the smaller towns in the area. Finally, though, I also did some traveling, this time through Eastern Europe.
My one-week Fastnacht’s vacation from the school was spent in Austria, Slovakia and Poland, three eastern countries I had been interested in visiting for some time. I left Neustadt on a misty Sunday morning, planning to return a week later, and took the train to Ulm, a city on the border of Bavaria and the state in which I live, Baden-Wuerttemberg. From Ulm, I traveled by train through Munich and into Austria, crossing the border at Salzburg and continuing east towards Vienna, the capital city. On the route through the Austrian countryside, there was a great deal of snow, but in Vienna, all was quite warm. I spent most of my time in Vienna simply wandering around the city—I admired the beautiful architecture, the palaces and the churches, had breakfast and coffee in a few of the elegant cafes, saw a movie in one of the city’s oldest theaters, the only one to have actually survived the war intact. I also visited the house of Sigmund Freud, the founder of modern psychology, and then toured the apartment of Mozart, perhaps the greatest musician to have ever lived. All in all, my time in Vienna was contemplative and relaxing, and as I prepared to take the train on to Bratislava, it pained to say goodbye.
I didn’t get to spend more than a day in Bratislava, and yet I enjoyed it all the same. From Vienna, the train into Slovakia crosses part of the Great Hungarian Plain, which to my north Louisiana eyes, reminded me quite a bit of the delta area between Delhi and Vicksburg. Bratislava is a small city, but it is the capital of Slovakia. Historically, the city was known as Pressburg, and was owned first by the Hungarians, and then by the Austrians; after World War I, however, the Allied Powers granted it to the Slovakian people who first considered renaming it Wilsonovo after President Woodrow Wilson, but then chose Bratislava. Slovakia, like most East European countries, has had a rough history during the 20th century. For 40 years, the country was ruled by the communists, and Bratislava’s newer architecture and infrastructure bear the marks of this oppression. The old town, though, was small but charming, with narrow cobblestone streets, a few gates build in the Middle Ages, and cafes on nearly every corner. And of course, the view of the city and of the Danube River from atop Bratislava castle was a sight I will never forget.
The final leg of my journey was to southern Poland and to the city of Krakow. To get there, I took a night-train north from Bratislava, arriving in Krakow early the next morning. The weather was rainy and cold, but I was excited to see Poland’s most beautiful and popular city. Krakow was the ancient capital of Poland, and the Poles still consider it the spiritual center of their country. The castle, Wawel, sits imposingly on a hill overlooking both the city and the Vistula River, and legend has it that more than a thousand years ago, a dragon lived in that very spot and terrorized the Polish people. Krakus, the founder of Krakow, supposedly killed the dragon and built the famous castle atop its lair. Wawel Castle now holds the Polish crown jewels, and national kings and heroes are buried beneath its cathedral. Besides the castle, I also visited Krakow’s world-famous medieval square—it’s the largest in Europe and wasn’t damaged at all during the war—sampled Polish fast-food, and met a great many Polish people during my time in the city. On my last day, though, I toured one of the most depressing parts of the city, the old Jewish ghetto, where the Nazi invaders had confined the Jews during their occupation of Poland during World War II. Oscar Schindler, the German businessman who saved many Jewish lives and was made famous in the movie Schindler’s List, had his factory in this part of Krakow, which was of course, fascinating to visit. In all, I spent three days in Krakow, and though there was still much to see, I had been traveling for a week and had to return to Germany. From Krakow, then, I took a 17 hour bus ride back to Baden-Wuertemberg, arriving in Neustadt almost exactly a week to the hour from when I had left. Exhausted, I passed out in my bed, happy to be home, but happier still to walk back up the mountain without a coat and to hear the birds singing again outside. Cody Bennett