The Peace Treaty of Műnster and Osnabrűck

When traveling through Germany from North to South, the most convenient motorway is the A1. It takes you straight from Hamburg down 732km to the State of Saarland in the southwest on the french border. After leaving Bremen, the next two stops of interests are the cities of Osnabrűck and Műnster. They're medium-sized towns of about 200,000 inhabitants surrounded by agricultural countryside and hilly forests are well suitable to bicycle rides. Both have a lovely old city center with the typical timber framed houses you find in many in German towns, pedestrianized areas where you can hang out in a street cafe and watch the world go by -- something I so miss about life in a city. When one is mentioned the other one comes up as well, like twins,because it was here, in these two cities, where the peace treaty ending the third the year war was signed. It was a religious war that raged from 1618 to 1648 dividing almost the whole of Europe between Protestants and Catholics. The Protestants occupied the Netherlands, the northern territories up to Sweden and along the Baltic coastline. The Catholics had their allies among the Spanish and French nations.It also marked the 80 year long war of independece of the Netherlands. 

The town halls in both cities are well worth the visit to see the artifacts deriving from that. The documents signed to end a horrible time and in European history that plagued the whole continent. Both sides had utterly spent their resources. Millions of people had died, farmers were destitute and the land had been pilfered by marauding soldiers. Peace negotiations had taken five years.

In this Treaty, the whole of northern Germany, including the eastern parts I wrote about on our travels (Mecklenburg, Pommern, Brandenburg) and the area down to Bremen were handed over to Sweden and became Swedish territory. Even the town outside Bremen where my family is still living belonged to Sweden for over 100 years after the armistice. This peace treaty  is also called  The Westphalian Peace.

The land south of Műnster became part the holy Roman  Empire of German nations . Coincidentally, Műnster was my hometown and where I went to university (WWU) and Osnabrűck is where my parents lived during my college years.  It used to have the second biggest university before Reunification in 1990. Műnster is the town where I spent the first ten years of may married life, had two babies and from where we emigrated to Ireland. You can read about that on another blog of mine: www.InandoutofIreland.blogspot.com.

Bremen- A Hanseatic City & Free State

…And my hometown where I grew up. I still have an aunt and cousins there but our former granny flat is no longer available. Therefore we needed a hotel. That plus the rental car we picked up in Hamburg were the first real costs after our transatlantic flight. 

Bremen, with a population of over 500,000 is one of  the 16 Bundeslaender (states) in the German federation. The only other "free town-state" is Hamburg, also part of the Hanseatic League. Its main claim to fame is that it's the home of the Town Musicians of Bremen, a fairytale recorded by the Brothers Grimm.

In case you don't remember it from your childhood: “In the story a donkey, a dog, a cat, and a rooster, all past their prime years in life and usefulness on their respective farms, were soon to be discarded or mistreated by their masters. One by one they leave their homes and set out together. They decide to go to Bremen, known for its freedom, to live without owners and become musicians there. ("Something better than death we can find anywhere.") Thank you, Wikipedia!

Its famous sculpture of these 4 animals stands in its main square adjacent to the city’s magnificent Rathaus (town hall) and Dom (Cathedral). The main hall in the Rathaus is most impressive with its heavy woodwork carved hundreds of years ago showing the splendor of the Hanseatic League’s hayday.  

The Cathedral , a Gothic building built between 11^th-13^th century revealed a gruesome find in 1698. In its basement, two mummified corpses were found: presumably roofers who had fallen off the roof a long time before, maybe even during its construction. For a long time, scientist thought that the lead used for roofing and the radioactivity that it gave off were responsible for their mummification. Current thinking is that it was a natural desiccation process of the two corpses that were forgotten there.

When I was a child, they were still on show in the cellar, now they are housed in the Dom’s museum.

The old part of the city is a real medieval town in itself: It’s called The Schnoor, and well worth the walk through it over by the side of the river Weser: Full if intriguing artisan shop and boutiques as well as coffee shops and restaurants. No surprise, you’ll encounter many tourists.

The Hanseatic League & a visit to Luebeck

Driving along the northern coast from the Baltic, where we spent 4 weeks, to Bremen where my family lives you pass several cities that belong to a league of their own: Hansestaedte. Hanse or the Hanseatic League was founded as  a commercial confederation of towns doing business together, in the Late Medieval Ages and Modern Times (13th-17th century). A trade group that also served the purpose for defense. It stretches from the Baltic the north Sea. There are also some in England (Yarnouth) and in the Netherlands (Groningen). I mentioned Stralsund and Wismar before, another in the East is Danzig. In the former West or Federal Republic of Germany there are Luebeck, Hamburg, Bremen, Braunschweig, even some further inland like Osnabrueck and Cologne.
This name still exists in the official German's airline's name: Lufthansa and reflects the importance they once had.
So on our way to Hamburg Airport to drop of our exchange car, we got stuck in Saturday afternoon/end of summer holidays traffic outside Luebeck.

No better time to leave the motorway and do some sightseeing, maybe combined with a nice dinner, hubby suggested. Luebeck is well known for its Tor (Gate) and well liked for its Niederegger Marzipan. A walk into the old town center was a joy-- seeing all these medieval buildings, mostly timber-framed houses. We had dinner in a wonderful old restaurant: its interior remarkable for Medieval shipping paraphernalia called "Luebecker Hanse". Spot on- we were right in the middle. The food was gorgeous too, freshly prepared and slow cuisine which speaks for its quality. However, the day was getting longer and we  were in a bit of a rush because we still had over 150 miles to go and still drop of the car and pick up a rental instead.

Opposite Retaurant Hanse is an old Puppet theater, still active, bit there was no tome too view it. Definitely worth another visit.
With another major traffic jam on the A1 just outside Bremen, it was almost 23.00 hours by the time we reached our destination. Thank goodness for the car's GPS system. We might still be standing there....

Eye-candy for the Road

 

We spent the next week more or less on the road doing stops only to visit family and friends. We drove about 800 miles  and stayed in a number of hotels. Now  that's the part of our organized trips I like the least. Staying in a hotel sounds fine and dandy until you see us arrive with our enormous amount of luggage. Most European hotels aren't geared to  long term trippers like us. And we can't afford the de-luxe suite every time. The other consideration is when you only stay a night or two....which bags to bring i? What is actually in which bag? Sometimes there is some undercover repacking going on in hotel car parks. In addition we needed a rental car for that part of the trip. The only real costs besides the room, obviously our home swapping usually includes a loaner.

Schwerin Castle.

While I want to go from A to B in a direct line, hubby likes to take his time and meander, take in views on route."When will we ever come back here?" he usually asks. So it's now or never.
Eastern Germany has a lot to offer. It has retained some old world charm in those places that haven't been fully restored. The vast green landscapes, dotted with impressive, soothing waterways and lakes a definitely worth a visit. If it wasn't for my family who lives far from there, we'd like to go back and explore more. Ruegen Island, Fehmarn and other Baltic Seaside resorts are a must and require several weeks of relaxed exploration.

The Floating Angel - by Ernst Barlach

There was an very abrupt end to last year's Home Swap blogging. I'm resuming it now before Season 3 gets under way.Yes, we are planning to do the same this summer again. Well, not the same put a swap or two!

We spent our last day near the Baltic in that big meandering house packing, cleaning- naturally and got one last interesting piece of sightseeing in. The town of Guestrow, near where we stayed has a Dom -German for Cathedral- that is well renowned for a sculpture by Ernst Barlach. It is called The Levitating one.
Barlach was a German sculptor who came to live in Guestrow. The sculpture was made of bronze in 1927 as a memorial for the fallen soldiers of World War I. Unfortunately, under the Nazis Barlach fell into disgrace and his works were declared Degenerate Art -together with many other artists, painters and writers. The Levitating one was removed form the Dom and melted down.

Shortly after World War II in 1953, a new sculpture was created out of a mould that had survived miraculously. A quote by Barlach explains the meaning of this unusual figure:"For me, time came to a standstill during the war. It couldn't be fitted into anything else earthly. With this figure I wanted to reflect this feeling of hovering in a vacuum..." His fomer house in the woods near the lake of Guestrow was turned into a museum and well worth a visit.
The Dom itself is a typical red brick building like so many churches in Norther-Eastern Germany. Guestrow also has a remarkable castle that underwent big reconstruction when we were there. It was fun to cycle around a little town, see the old parts, stop for a drink or ice- cream or make it out into the open, into its beautiful landscape that is totted with hundreds of lakes.

After that we left, going west into the direction of Hamburg where we had to drop our swapped car for our exchange partenres who came back from our house th enext morning. From there our next destination was to the south visiting my family before embarking on our second exchange.

Money- or your Life!

The wonderful house we swapped with a German family in the East near the Baltic Sea came with a boat house and a small craft that didn’t need a license. Engines over 5 hp on Germany lakes etc. do.

 My son and his friend, strapping young lads that they are, had taken the rowing boat out to begin with but hubby felt lazy and privileged to have a “motor boat’ at his disposal .

On our last night, a beautiful warm evening, he got it started and cleaned it from cobwebs. Normally, I’m not particularly seaworthy but this I could do, I thought hopping into the vessel.

We went along the little canal that connected to the adjacent lake where we had done a lot of constitutional walks, passing all these cute little vacation or weekend houses;  datschas - I presume they were called in the ‘olden days’. Owners were out on their porches  barbecuing, having a beer or just sitting out enjoying the balmy evening. My friendly greetings and “Guten Appetit!” mostly went unanswered; instead we got stares.

My family had commented on the fact before that the locals seemed to be rather reserved, looking away or looking at us outright suspiciously. Hubby had his theories about them being former communists who had lived in a supervised state where neighbors spied on each other and were naturally suspicious. Could that be the case almost a generation after the fall of the Iron Curtain? I wonder. The difference in behavior to other parts of Germany that I am familiar with was striking, however.

So here we were put-putting along.  At a tight spot in the canal we had to slow down from our snail space to make rooms for 2 canoeists. The engine died.”Not to worry, there is a second battery. I just have to switch over to that one.” To be on the safe side we decided not to continue our journey to the lake with only one battery and turn around instead. But the second battery never started. The canoeists enquired if we had paddles. I hadn’t yet spotted them, but gracefully there was a pair on the floor of our boat.

                                                               
(View from our boathouse onto canal)

So paddling it was, back past the houses and people we had just passed. Their behavior and demeanor had miraculously changed. Some got up form their seats to throw a funny remark, “Machine kaputt?” or “Need a push?” Others interrupted their meal to get a good view of the spectacle.  All of a sudden we encountered a lot of smiles and laughter. We are not practiced paddlers…

One older guy, alone on his deck, pointed what looked like an antique pistol at us, “Money or your life”. He was probably just lonely or thought he was funny. I started to get peeved. Why had nobody bothered to engage with us before? There is something about Schadenfreude that we Germans are verifiably good at. The self-proclaimed pirate invited us to join him. “I’ll throw a couple of bratwurst on the Barbie for when you return” not realizing that we were on our way back already and wouldn’t paddle by again. Maybe he’s still standing there, waiting.

It was either that the batteries had not fully charged or the connections had come loose. We made it back through the sweat of our own hands. The behavior of our neighbors there remains a mystery, however. To do the people form Meck Pomm justice, our exchange partners, some of their friends and neighbor who we met were totally friendly; some even stepped out of their way to give us a helping hand. It remains a mystery until I get some enlightening comments from people in the know.

Fallen off the face of the Earth?

No- Just technical challenges in modern day Germany

In case you worried- thank you- I didn’t get lost in my own country or fall off the face of the earth. Blogging from the road can be quite a challenge. If you’re stationary and have a good broadband connection, not so much. I was experiencing the joys of  a data stick - and the technical problems that go with it. We never had that in the States. Maybe it was the mountains that surround us there that are responsible. A mobile data stick works on the principle of a cell phone where your reception depends on the signal and amount of bars that you get – or that you don’t get.

In the first week after my last report we traveled from eastern Germany via friends and family who didn’t have a viable connection either or where we just stayed for one night and I didn’t want to ask, ”Can I use your Internet?” instead of spending time with them.

Always planning ahead, we had ordered the first stick to the address where we stayed for 3 weeks. It arrived but we never got it to work. Like with the return of our damaged bags, there was an unbelievable song and dance to get it replaced. It duly arrived but this replacement didn’t work either. I think I still have a good command of my native tongue but these good customer people were as obtuse as if I spoke Chinese. Maybe they train them this way. We had to pay them for their good telephone support a mere 42 Cents/minute. Waiting in line for one to come on and listen to my grievances had to be paid for as well. So we heard the Euros clicking by.

Something that doesn’t often happen in the US. Ten Euros later, their data stick wasn’t compatible with Windows 7, according to their expert knowledge. Well, hello if that is the case and they know it, make it compatible, or please refund this customer.

Their position, however, was that once the data stick- −which is just a cell phone numbers − registered on your computer you have activated it and that’s it. They are not obliged to take it back and refund you. A fact we weren’t willing to swallow. 2 weeks and a stinker of a letter later, I got my money back yesterday.

We bought another one in a store where we coaxed a friendly employee into installing it for us by playing ignorant. Their policy also was once the stick is registered…Then you’re on your own. Good luck. We spent over an hour until the guy got it fixed. He had learned his superb English from the internet; not through an online course but by playing games online and interacting with English speakers.

Before I bore you too much with too many details let me finish off the first part of our trip to the former East on an episode in our eastern abode before we left. The data stick problems didn't allow me to upload photos or get on to FB to promote. The speed is just too slow to find FB or Twitter for that matter.

But I'm back in circulation now, thank goodness!