Side Trip to Ireland

While staying in Berlin, I used the opportunity for a quick trip to my old haunts in Ireland. As you may know, I used to have an organic farm in Ireland in a previous life. My daughter had requested this journey down memory lane.
Not much has changed in Ireland since I moved away. Certainly not the weather. We had one sunny afternoon and one sunny morning during our 8 days stay. This was in the middle of June. The lovely green island stays so green because of all the rain- as one of my clever students at the University of Limerick where I used to teach found out. I was right in bringing a rain coat, brolly and long johns.
The pic at the top gives a beautiful view of Killaloe from our hotel where we were staying. Actually, the only hotel in Killaloe, hence THE Killaloe Hotel & Spa. It had just opened, was still going through some teething problems but can highly be recommended. The staff was extraordinary and made up for any shortcomings. Plus we got an excellent rate! In my time, there used to be a real big marina which had made Killaloe famous. Situated on magnificent Lough Derg, Its location was unique: where the River Shannon bursts out from the lake. We were floored when we saw that it had totally fallen into disrepair, in fact had literally fallen into the lake. The new owner, a lottery winner of EUR 145 Million, let it go pieces.

Here's a sample of the great food we had in the hotel. I was pleasantly surprised. The food in Ireland overall has greatly improved in contrast to earlier years. It used to be bangers and mashed potatoes or fish & chips or the all present pot roast with a slightly congealed gravy...as it often was served not hot enough. Anything more adventurous used to be mediocre but overpriced.

The trip to our farm broke our hearts. It was totally overgrown. My meticulously planned and executed ornamental garden couldn't even be traced anymore. Our glasshouses had broken apart and the new owner proudly said they had done some renovation to our classy conservatory: They had put on a corrugated roof!

Here's the entrance. I was happy I had stayed in the car while my daughter asked to have a look round. She came back in tears. I was melancholic too but I knew: THERE IS NO GOING BACK.

In my farm book I tell the story of a haunted local house which we now revisited. Here's the house and the tree in question which saved a little boy's life during the Troubles of 1923 when the Black and Tans killed his family.

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.

Men made of iron

In contrast to the prevailing heat wave in the US, the weather here is cool, mixed with the occasional rain, temperatures are hovering around 15 degrees Celsius. Almost deal for today's triathlon.The competition starts at 7 a.m.with a 3.5 km swim through the Langener Waldsee (Lake Langen) , then a 180km bike ride, twice from Frankfurt to Bad Nauheim and back.That's a similar distance of an 'etappe' of the Tour de France. A soon as that is completed, they embark on a marathon.That's right, as if the previous sport activities wouldn't be a huge achievement on their own, they run 42 km!.I knew marathon runners in Ireland, saw them train and saw them sweat. Doing a marathon after that 'etappe' de Frankfurt plus the swim, is beyond my imagination. But I couldn't run for the bus, as they say in Ireland.
We watched it a bit on local TV and went for a ride. The photo shows some neighbors who had been watching the race under the shelter of a bus stop and were still partying.