There’s something special about walking to a castle at dusk, when the city below is morphing from work to leisure. Snakes of headlights work their way up valleys and into the hills, slowly dissolving as they drop off cars one by one. Meanwhile sunset and the castle lights conspire to transform the walls from authoritarian watchfulness to a warm glow on the skyline.
The path took us through a little vineyard, where resigned greying rootstock wait for the snows to come. Their severely pruned branches tightly clung to wires strung straight up the steep hillside. Far below, a tiny farm poked it’s bits and pieces into any space possible. Scattered on the hillside opposite, homes stirred into evening life. Chimneys exhaled slowly, and if not for the obligatory traffic noise, the world may have been quiet.
Climbing steeply to the castle entrance, we crossed a large area between walls which had previously provided a no-mans land. Once upon a time only the foolhardy or very brave would have attempted to cross this open site uninvited. Inside the castle’s first courtyard, we admired the stables; beautiful stone buildings set out to make horse care efficient. It wasn’t difficult to imagine the sound of horses feet on the cobbled ground.
Between the first and second courtyard lies an area from which another castle is clearly visible. Some of the realms were small indeed!
Moving on, the second courtyard had modern intruders; scaffolding holding up attempts to restore this historic building. But the round tower in the middle provided somber magnificence. The last stand for a defending resident, it was both safety and prison. Sadly the original builders of so long ago had made a rare error of judgement, failing to recognize the importance of a plan B, so no escape tunnel materialized. Invaders could, and did, simply starve the defender out.
With a shudder only partly caused by falling temperatures, we found our way to the front garden. No-one warned me; arriving at the garden wall, I looked over and down, down, down, to the city and river below. My stomach lurched; how embarrassing to find that I had grasped the wall. A couple of deep breaths, and then look again. Cities at night are spectacular, and Wurzburg, with it’s river front and fabulous architecture is no exception. In the shadows around us, couples, friends and families talked quietly. Across the lawns we could see folk out for an evening walk, mostly in pairs. It’s easy to appreciate the draw this place has.
Arriving back at my friends home in a house converted into three apartments, what a delight to find Christmas welcomes in doorways.
Staying with friends is one of life’s treats. Slipping easily into familiar conversation, and catching up on the inevitable changes, brings a special kind of joy. And of course, there are new memories to be made. A rare red squirrel showed up in a tree right outside the lounge window. How kind of him to treat us.
When travelling it’s all too easy to keep moving, but taking a quiet day off for reading or catching up with oneself is important too. How refreshing to put one’s feet up, and do precisely nothing. Hosts do not need to entertain in order to provide a wonderful time.
But one experience will stay with me forever; Taize. One evening we walked through the city, across the river where hundreds of folk were enjoying partying on the cobbled streets, despite the rain.
We made our way to a church which didn’t look particularly special from the outside, but oh! What a place. The redness of the lighting as seen in the photos is pretty accurate.
My hosts had only told me we were attending church, but this was no church service as I know them. Many folk sat on the floor, the pews being full already. And what a congregation! A pot-pourri of ethnicities, languages, and ages. Everyone was welcome. The focus was on singing, but again, it was so unlike normal church singing. Devised by monks, taize ‘songs’ consist of just a couple of lines repeated over and over, almost chant-like. Mesmerizing and deeply felt. Even more extraordinary was that the words were available in up to about twenty languages in some cases, and regardless of the language, fitted into the music beautifully. Now you would think that a few hundred people simultaneously singing in a range of languages would be cacophonous, but no. The sound carried souls into the heights. There was something here bigger than all of us, and I didn’t want it to end. A four-piece wind and string orchestra led us through twenty songs but often the crowd would carry a song on for a couple of extra ‘verses,’ caught up in the moment.
At one point candles were given to all; so lovely to see the flickers of light work their way across the congregation as each person in turn had their candle lit from their neighbours, before turning to pass the gesture on, in a movement of connection.
Once the twenty songs of the programme’s were completed, it would be natural to assume the evening was over, but no. The orchestra closed their instrument boxes, but the crowd continued to sing, revisiting piece after piece, in total harmony. Dragging ourselves away some time later, I for one felt I had indeed been a part of an international unity of spirit.
Taize at the KHG chapel in Wurzburg begins in late October each year, and is each Tuesday evening. Do go if you can.
Wurzburg, like so much of Germany, has a sense of being nestled in areas of forest. Yet the city centre is also similar to cities everywhere, with cctv watching your every move, and shop fronts vieing for your attention.
As I was leaving Wurzburg another train caught my eye, not that I could have missed it; a seemingly endless double-decker train of newly-built cars. I gave up counting the carriages. Each vehicle had a sticker on it’s door; I assume it’s the day the car is supposed to be in the car yard ready for sale, or maybe these were a pre-order and the 20th of May is delivery day? The day I saw these vehicles was a full six months earlier than the sticker date. It was somehow shocking to see hundreds of new cars heading into the market, especially as they all appeared to have fuel tanks. Is mankind not learning?
From the train I also saw garden allotments lining the railroad, though it did appear some were not unnecessarily unoccupied at night.
A couple of hours later I was trying to find some lunch, but oh the language barrier yet again! Recognizing huhn as being chicken, I thought I was fairly safe, but oh my goodness, I still don’t know exactly what it was I ate! Chicken, yes, and lemon, unknown greens, a spicy sauce, and as for the white stuff… it tasted like cream mixed with yoghurt and mayonnaise. But whilst I don’t know what it was, the meal was surprisingly tasty, so maybe that’s the real lesson?
Which kind-of brings me to this lovely reminder on the bottom of my friend’s diary; a quote from the legendary George Bernard Shaw. It may seem surprising that an Irish-born Nobel Laureate would be quoted in a German diary, but he had very strong cultural, business and personal relations with the German-speaking world, hence the use of his work there.
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