Germany Trip Day 5

We stayed up really late last night so we could Face Time with the kids. It’s the first real conversation we’ve had with them, besides emails back and forth and the really short phone call while at Heidelberg Castle. It was great to see their faces and talk with them. But, it made getting up this morning super hard.

We left Heidelberg this morning around 8:30 which would give us plenty of time to get to Fischingen where we were to meet up with Karlheinz Seitz, Jeff and Mark’s cousin (a bunch of times removed, or something). We got there close to an hour and a half earlier than Karlheinz was planning on us so we decided to explore the surrounding area. We found a neat little castle tucked away in a valley about 20 minutes away.

This castle, Schloss Haigerloch, was turned into a hotel so we were able to walk around the courtyard for free. There wasn’t much to see in the courtyard except for the nice views. Here’s the outside from the road we walked down.

The courtyard. Not huge, but still pretty.

The views were amazing, of course since almost every castle is built on a hill or mountain or in this case, a mountain side. There was a cute village in the bottom of the valley.

We didn’t stay long at the castle because it was freezing, 47 degrees to be exact and kind of windy. Plus, it was time to head back into Fischingen to find Karlheinz’s house and partake of a yummy authentic German meal and get to know a distant relative of Mark and Jeff. Their house was very European and lovely. I didn’t take a picture of their kitchen but it would have made me cry if I had to cook in something that small.

We arrived and we almost immediately sat down for lunch. They had just finished cooking the meal. Perfect timing!

Alison, Jeff (who always closes his eyes when I’m snapping pictures) and Mark.

The pictures of our meal aren’t very good because I was trying to covertly take them with my cell phone without being noticed. I didn’t want to be rude while everyone else was still eating and talking. We had these amazing meatballs, mashed potatoes and a super delicious horseradish gravy to pour all over them.

I about died from the first bite of these home made meatballs. We all agreed that we will force Jeff to email Karlheinz after we get back home to ask for the recipe for the entire meal. I would love to make it for the kids.

On my way to the bathroom I saw this jukebox. So cool! Rita, Karlheinz’s wife, knew a guy who fixed old jukeboxes and programmed them to play all of Karlheinz’s records. He had a lot of rock ‘n roll songs, all American bands.

This is the outside of their home.

Being here during the fall has been amazing. We’ve seen every shade of fall tree colors you can think of. These beautiful trees were just down the street from Karlheinz’s house.

Rita and Karlheinz wanted to show us a few sites while we were in town. Rita wanted to stop by the rathaus to pick something up before we headed out. We thought it was interesting that she could get into the City Hall on a Sunday afternoon. (More on that later). This was the village’s church right next to the rathaus.

Before we all climbed into our separate cars I thought it would be a good idea to take a picture of Karlheinz and Rita before we got caught up in exploring the sites. They were just lovely people. They spoke English really well and were so inviting. They opened up their home to us, fed us a delicious meal and then played tour guide for the next four hours.

Our first stop was just up the street from the rathaus. This was a mill that was owned by the Schwarzkopf family…as in General Norman Schwarzkopf.

General Schwarzkopf’s grandfather owned it and ended up selling it.

We drove about five minutes up some switchback roads, parked our cars and headed on a quick hike up in the hills. We parked right by a massive rock quarry where Jeff found a really big tire.

Alison, Jeff, Mark and I couldn’t stop commenting on how great it was to walk through a forest with clean air and the smell of vegetation all around. The views from the castle ruins we hiked to were fantastic.

Berg Wehrstein was built in the 1100’s and Karlheinz is actually on a committee that is trying to preserve what is left. There are few ruins left, but they are trying their best.

They believe that this part of the castle was where the women lived because it looks like a chimney. Apparently, only women need warmth in the winter.

I played with the new camera a little more today and found the ‘miniature’ setting. It made the town of Fischingen look like a model.

After exploring the castle ruins we headed to another castle, Wasserschloss, which means water castle. Very fitting since it had a cute little moat surrounding it.

Germany has spent millions of dollars renovating this castle, which fell into ruin. It’s a beautiful place where they have a museum inside the castle that houses really old soldier armor and modern art. The armor was cool but I could have done without the modern German art. It was still fun to explore the castle, though.

Jeff and Alison were there, too.  Hee hee.

Sometime during the castle museum exploration I handed over camera duty to Mark. I wasn’t very amused, I guess. I was tired by this point and my knee wasn’t coopering as much today.

Across the square from the castle was a restaurant that served only cake. And man, was it busy! Apparently, Germans go out and do things on Sundays in hoards and this place is super popular April through October. There were so many varieties of cakes I didn’t know how to decide. I ended up choosing this cake/cream cheese/raspberry thing.

It was heavenly. We all would have liked to try the black forest cake (cuz duh, we are in the black forest) but Karlheinz found out we don’t drink alcohol and he thought they used it in the cherries found in the cake. There were so many other choices, it was fine. And we had to have hot chocolate, of course. I’m sure Harlheinz and his wife thought we were nutty people: we don’t smoke, drink coffee, tea or alcohol. I think the coffee thing stood out the most while we were with them. That’s all they drink all day long and Rita looked confused as to why we only wanted water to drink with our meal. Funny thing was that the water she did give us was soda water…something we Americans are NOT used to.

This was where we ate our yummy dessert. Such a cute place. And super busy. It was a madhouse!

We had a great conversation starter when Alison asked Rita what she did in her spare time when she wasn’t working every other week. Turns out Rita is pretty much like a mayor of her village! How cool is that? She was very passionate about what she does and told us a little about how they came to the village 27 years ago as outsiders and now she’s a mayor, or the equivalent of one. We might never have known this information if Alison hadn’t thought up that question.

After treating Karhleinz and Rita to dessert we parted our separate ways. I think we all had a great time getting to know them. And to think, it all started with Jeff contacting Karlheinz through Family Search because he was a descendant of a common ancestor!

After leaving Fischingen area we plugged in our Bed and Breakfast address in Konstanz and were on our way to the border of Germany and Switzerland. By the time we arrived, an hour and a half later, it was dark so we just checked into Waldhaus Jakob, a quant bed and breakfast.

We expected a European style hotel. Small room, small bed. But this place filled up fast with just our luggage. Oh well. All I need is a bed. Guten nacht!