Dinkelsbühl, Fremdingen, and Nördlingen – Day 36, 37 and 38 on the path

Posts have been slow - partly wifi, partly I have been busy.  Will tell more in a future post.  this post alone has taken me about 5 hours to complete, wandering from one free wifi place to the next!

The other day Bruce put a comment on the Rothenburg post that the town looks like a “must see” to visit.  I didn’t get a chance to reply and say “wait till you hear about Dinkelsbühl”,  which was just as well as a day later I would have had  to have  added Nördlingen too. The Via Romea is full of surprises, and these two towns are just examples of that.  The path in this part of Germany, Bavaria, is full of surprises, small and large.

Dinkelsbühl

Nördlingen

Both towns are smallish, and I was not expecting them to be as picturesque as they were.  There are parts of the town of Dinkelsbühl that still have a wall, with a number of towers on them.  Nördlingen has a complete wall, 2.7 kilometres in length, if one does the complete circuit, also with a number of towers, though different to those in Dinkelsbühl.  Apparently Nördlingen is the only town in Germany with such an intact wall, though there has been renovation of it in parts.  I have walked the walls  that surround Lugo in Spain, and they were a walk in the park compared to the Nördlingen walls.  These walls are quite narrow, with only a wooden railing on one side, and though there is a wall with arrow slits on the other, periodically there would be a much bigger window, to drop something through, or even fall through!.  Anyone who knows me would realise what a challenge it was for me to traverse this wall!  I persevered for most of it so that I could get some interesting photos, but I can’t say I enjoyed the walk – interesting, but for me, nerve wracking!

     

Some of the wall in Dinkelsbühl.......

                         

.....and in Nördlingen

Nördlingen from the wall

Dinkelsbühl is probably the prettier town, partly because of the shape and the colour of the houses, and I think there are a few more twisty streets.  Much of the wall has houses attached to it and so as I said previously, it is not possible to walk it all as it is in Nördlingen.  I went on a tour of the town – all in German – in a horse and cart, the clip clopping of the horses and the cart rattling over the cobbles making a satisfying sort of music.  Despite the tour being in German I managed to glean something from the talk.  It was in this town that Christoph von Schmid, who was a priest in the town wrote the words to a famous Christmas Carol -  Ihr Kinderlein Kommet (I often taught this carol to various choirs at Christmas, but in English!)

Dinkelsbühl

     

The house where Christoph von Schmidt (1768 - 1854) lived (left).

The main Church in the town is named after St Georg (George), and there are visual references to his fight with the Dragon around the town.  This is interesting because, from memory, though the patron Saint of England, he was a Roman soldier who fought the dragon in Palestine.  I will have to check that out when I get home.  There is a compactness about this village – neat and tidy, and though there are many tourists, it doesn’t seem as busy as Rothenburg.  Certainly not with busloads of tour (with many American) companies! 

   

The inside and outisde of St Georg, Dinkelsbühl.

I happened to leave the town (through the wrong gate!) on Mayday, a public holiday in much of Europe.  In France they sell Lily of the Valley on Mayday (stalls are set up all around the towns), but Jens (from back in the Harz region) was telling me that this is not a custom in Germany.  I passed lots of patches of Lily of the Valley growing prolifically when I was up North, but Jens told me it would be several weeks later before it was in flower.  Instead, the custom here in Bavaria, is to raise a Maypole.  Mostly, but not exclusively,  these Maypoles seem to be silver birch, as there are some pines too.  They are generally substantially trees many metres tall, stripped of bark, often elaborately decorated with etchings on them, the top of the tree being left and decorated with streamers.  Hanging below that are often wreaths that surround the trunk, and below that again are many shields, presumably of things important to the town.  A crane or something similar is required to lift them into place, and they are often in front of the fire station.  A party is generally held on Mayday eve, and I suspect continues on to the next day.  Have yet to establish what the apparent special association with the firefighters is.  I just hope they (the poles) are well anchored as I am sure in a strong wind they could topple!

May day and maypoles

                     

As I said before, leaving Dinkelsbühl through the wrong gate I came across a whole lot of people dressed up in costumes, standing around a fire, with old fashioned tents set up just inside the gate along with a canon.  I took a surreptitious photo and continued on my way – but the wrong way.  This meant I had to return back past the gate 15 minutes later.  There I saw that the costumed people were standing guard, the cannon was outside the gate, and cars were being stopped.  I hung around to see what happened and sure enough a few minutes later the cannon was fired.  The ground shook, lots of smoke was emitted, and fortunately the fingers in the ears muted the sound.  Like I said – surprises!

  

May day in Dinkelsbühl

The path itself is surprising.  For example on the way to Nördlingen almost every turn had a surprise around the corner.  The path goes through a quite agricultural landscape, passing fields of canola, newly planted maize, grain crops and freshly tilled soil.  In the midst of these fields, rounding a corner, a village would suddenly be within a few hundred metres, yet no sign of it till then.

Around the corner was a village!

The two days from Dinkelsbühl to Nördlingen were mostly in rural environments, through beautiful forests, across fields, and up and down small hills.  I had lovely bird song for company and heard many cuckoos repeatedly calling as I walked along.  That night I went to sleep with the cuckoo’s song ringing out from the forest not far from my window.  There is no accommodation in Fremdingen, the end of that first day, and so I went on to a tiny little village to Raustetten, which made a surprise appearance after the hardest part of the walk through a forest on a rutted path that frequently disappeared in the grass!.  It was at the start of this forest that I saw a warning sign for Eichenprozessionsspinner.  I had no idea what these things were, and so had no idea what I had to be careful about – all adding to the excitement.  I have since found out that they are a very hairy caterpillar that induces a severe allergic reaction if the hairs come into contact with the skin, and the English name for them is Oak processionary caterpillar.  I was so intrigued that I researched some more, and found out that these caterpillars (or moths) have migrated from the forests and are now quite common in the towns not only of Bavaria, but much of Europe, and have even migrated to the UK.  I hope our Border people keep them out of Australia!  They are nasty.

     

    

Down the hill to Ruastetten (watch out for Eichenprozessionsspinner) - arriving (above), and leaving (below).                   

In Dinkelsbühl I had tried to purchase a bandage for my ankle, which turned into a bit of a saga.  I was sent from one chemist to another, eventually being successful.  On the way out of town the next day a cyclist stopped and said (in English) “hello, do you remember me?”  It was Daniela one of the staff that had helped me in the chemist.  She was out on her mountain bike for a morning ride.  It was lovely to stop and have a chat with her.  I was, at the time passing a massive logging mill, counting my blessings that it was a public holiday because the noise would have been terrible on a normal work day.  Daniela informed me that “no, there weren’t extra logs due to the storm of a few months ago – this was normal”.  I think her home village had had quite a party the night before because there were rolls and rolls of toilet paper and shaving cream spread throughout, and beyond the village, and also in other villages that I came to.  Again, Bruce – you added a comment somewhere how tidy it all looked – after Mayday, it doesn’t look as tidy in many of the villages I have passed through.

Daniela

Just a very small fraction of the logs!

I have met my first pilgrim – Marie.  I was coming out of the church in Nördlingen as she was going in.  She is celebrating the end of her studies by walking from Bamberg where she went to university, to Santiago.  We had a coffee together and then went our separate ways.  Later I was sitting in the square and she came along and so we went to have dinner together.  I was the first pilgrim she had met since beginning, so it was a first for both of us.  We had traditional regional food – a dish that has a story to it.  It is a noodle dish, where the noodle wraps around what shouldn’t be eaten – so it cant be seen by God!

Fellow pilgrim, Marie

Nördlingen is a town that has to bear a lot of expense to restore some of its buildings.  It is a very old town, and by the sound of it, it’s ancient church – another St Georg –  was in danger of falling down.  It was discovered that it had true dry rot in it, though what dry rot is if it is not true, I am not sure!  So far just under 40% of the cost of restoration has been shouldered by the people of the town.  Between 1971, when restoration began and 2010 the cost was 13.5 million Euros and the work is still continuing!  That is a fairly hefty burden for a small town to bear. 

              

St Georg in Nördlingen

In the square outside the church.