Monday, October 8th - Cable Car and Trainride.
Bob: The day dawned clear but quite cold; the windshield of our car was covered in frost. We considered seeing some caves in the Harz region, but the sunny weather is too rare a commodity to waste in Germany, so we decided to take the cable car up to the Wurmberg peak that we had failed to walk up to on our first day in the region, and then take the steam train to the South a bit through a region of the Harz we had not yet seen. The cable car seemed to be very new and the whole trip up the mountain was extraordinarily smooth and quiet. It was fun gliding along either right above the tops of the evergreens or in a trough or path that had been cut through the forest to accommodate the route of the cable cars. Since there was just no noise whatsoever, it was gliding along just above the surface just like what I imagine Superman's flying would be like. The steadiness of the cars on the trip up surprised me, and maybe that was because there was almost no wind that day, but it made taking pictures and movies out of the tiny front window of the car very easy. So without breathing hard, much less breaking a sweat, we effortlessly arrived at the top of the peak that we had failed to gain with much more travail a couple of days earlier. The peak was 854 meters high, however, and the weather at the top was considerably more cloudy and misty than it had seemed at the bottom. Still, we had a good look at the huge ski jump up there and the remains of some kind of Bronze Age campsite before we headed back down the mountain on the 6.2 kilometer access road. |
Monika: Today was a day of rest; which did not mean the cameras wouldn't get a work out, but only that our legs were exempt from too much uphill walking. So we thought a train trip was the ideal way of seeing some more of the Harz without too much exertion on our part. We had figured out that the closest train station on the small track Harzquerbahn was in the hamlet of Elend. Now "Elend" in German means misery. So off we went to "misery". There we found a schedule at the station that informed us the train we wanted to take did not leave until 12:47, and just now it was about 9:30. But ah, we had a second almost non-walking idea in the back of our head, the cable car in Braunlage up to the top of the Wurmberg, where the skijumptower had beckoned since the first day when we stopped just short of it. So back to Braunlage we went, parked in the parking lot of the cable car (1 Euro for 2 hours). I thought, a little exercise is not a bad idea and how hard can it be to go downhill. So I bought one way tickets to the top. The ride up was quiet and fun. We two were alone in an enclosed capsule and watched the other capsules go down on the other side while we went up, up, up, and I remembered how we had struggled getting up last Friday (when the cable cars were not going). At the top it was remarkably cold and windy. The sun which was already shining down below, was still hidden in the fog up here. We walked over to the skijump area, and as always the only thing I could think of was, that those guys must be insane to glide down, jump, and hopefully land on both skis. I am not given to fear of heights, and did not mind looking way down to the landing area. But the idea of trying to jump down there did not make sense. However, it was nice to see all this. |
Bob: The access road turned out to be a good choice for a really gradual descent back down into the valley. The pavement gave us consistently good footing that allowed us to keep up a rapid walking clip and the consistent, gradual downslope made the walking quite effortless. For most of the walk we were deep in an evergreen forest, and the morning sunlight slanting through the trees created a beautiful mosaic of golden sunbeams, tall dark trees, and the flowers, ferns, and moss of the forest floor. As we approached the valley floor, we noticed more deciduous trees, which were particularly remarkable at that time of year because they had turned into their brilliant fall colors. When they were illuminated in front of the backdrop of the tall, dark evergreens, they seemed to glow from within. We started following a small stream during the last part of our walk, and along the streambanks someone had placed carved wooden statues of mushrooms, various animals, and even a gnome. Finding these whimsical figures in the forest was a very pleasant surprise which certainly brought a smile to my face. |
Monika: The way down was longer than I had anticipated - 6.5km. But we went down the street that curved around the mountain and with secure footing could achieve quite a tempo. However, we did stop to take pictures of the sun shining through the pine forests. We also stopped at the older, smaller skijumps, which did not look quite as imposing but still scary enough. We got down to the car just as our 2 hour parking expired. |
Bob: After retrieving our car from the parking lot at the base of the mountains, we drove the 6 kilometers over to Elend to catch the afternoon steam train to the South. Elend, by the way, means "misery" in German and we did wonder why the city fathers had decided to call the town Misery. Somehow you would have thought that they would alter the name to something more likely to entice new residents, like "Elysium Fields" or "Eden" or something like that. We had lunch at the Gaststatte right in the train station, and the entire décor used seats and tables that apparently had come from real, old trains. Railroad memorabilia was hanging from every square inch of the wall and was also scattered around the seating area, creating an atmosphere heavy in steam locomotive nostalgia. The final frill was using little electric locomotives to deliver the drinks to each table; one train track ran along each side of the "diner" and the gondola cars of the train were used to ferry the drinks from the kitchen area down to each table. Cute! I was eating my last bite of lunch as the train rolled into the station, but we had already prepaid our bill so we jumped up and ran outside to board the train. The train we rode was part of the "Harzquerbahn", or railroad bisecting the Harz region. The railroad originated as a narrow gauge steam railway in 1899, but nowadays only some of the trains are using the old steam locomotives while others use more modern and practical, if less romantic, diesels. |
Monika: By now it was getting close to 12:00 and we thought the little restaurant at the trainstation in Elend might have some reasonably quick food - besides it would allow us to park in their parking lot. The plan worked. The restaurant on the station was railroad themed, with old comfortable railroad seats and on each side was a Lionel sized train that brought the drinks to the table. We had Bratwurst with fried potatoes, Sauerkraut and a salad made of different cabbages - red, white, green. Very tasty. The waitress also sold the train tickets, so that when we finished the last bite, the train came and we could board with tickets in hand. |
Bob: The trip down down South only lasted an hour, but we enjoyed it tremendously. We both stayed outside on the end platform of one of the carriages, much as we had the first time we rode the White Horse and Yukon Railroad up in Skagway, Alaska. This was an old roadbed and old rolling stock, so we were jostled about quite a bit as the train huffed, puffed, clanked, clanged, whistled, and smoked its way down the winding valley. We leaned out to get better pictures of the engine up front, and fortunately neither of us fell off the platform although Monika did bang her ear on a metal pipe when the train braked suddenly. Our destination was a rather impressive train station standing smack in the middle of what appeared to be nowhere. I couldn't see a house or any evidence of another living person anywhere around the station, but that was beside the point because we disembarked just long enough to take pictures of them switching the engine from one end of the train to another. After the engine was watered and everything was reconnected we all reboarded for the trip back up the valley. For the trip up the valley I decided to sit up in front right behind the engine. Since it had swapped ends, the front of the engine was now connected to the train and the engine was pulling it backwards back up the valley. The net result was that I was sitting about 10 feet behind the smokestack and when the door of the carriage was open the huffing and puffing occasionally became quite loud indeed. But the look, feel, sound and smell of being pulled by that old steam relic were all extremely strong. In fact, I found I had an awful lot of either cinders or unburnt pieces of coal in my hair after the trip! |
Monika: The trip to the turn around point was about an hour. Our first stop was "Sorge", a hamlet whose name in German means "worry". So you could easily go from Worry to Misery in Germany just by using a steam train! The trip led mainly through pine forests. There were a few patches where they had logged, and although they logged a whole area, they took out only the trunks and stacked them neatly before hauling them away. Here and there the country opened and you could see some agriculture mainly grazing areas. The turnaround point, Eisfelder Talmuehle, had absolutely nothing but a train station. It seems the Harzquerbahn comes in three sections and we had ridden the middle section. We could have waited for the connecting train going farther south but decided we had seen the best part of the Harz. |
Bob: All too soon the trip back to Elend was over and we drove back to Braunlage and our comfortable pension. I finally crashed for my first nap since coming to Germany while Monika went out shopping, something that often seems to go better without me in any case. That evening we had dinner and worked on our respective journals and puzzles for a while until it was time to walk back "downtown" to an evening folk music performance in the local Kurgasthalle. We had a wonderful evening of listening to live folk music interspersed with occasional storytelling that served to keep the audience entertained while the singers had a break. I was surprised at the size of the whole ensemble. The instrumentalists were two accordions, one bass (plus a "Teufelsgeige" or Devil's violin), three guitarists who doubled on the hammered dulcimer, and two guys playing the "Harz guitar", which resembled a mandolin but was played in a pizzicato fashion. Apparently the latter two musicians had also constructed their instruments from scratch, and since they were really nicely made, I was quite impressed. The choir comprised of 4 women (sopranos, possibly coloratura) who could yodel, 4 women who sang melody (probably altos), and 5 guys. One guitarist was placed with each group of singers and that helped all the singers in the group keep the tune and tempo correct, a very smart idea in my view. The tunes were folk tunes from the Harz region, but they resembled the tunes from the Alpine regions of Germany. Many of them included yodeling, but all of the lyrics expressed an enjoyment of the mountains and wandering in them, with an occasional romantic song thrown in for good measure. Some of the songs used very odd instruments. In one, a large metal key was clanged against a long bar of iron. In another song three men came out front with what looked like small horse whips, and they cracked those in time to the music. They were perfectly in time, of course, and it seemed like there were two "tenor" whips that followed the melody line (crackity-crackity-crack) and one "bass" whip which followed the bass line of music (CRACK, pause, CRACK). I had never thought of the whip as a musical instrument; just goes to show what I don't know! The piece de resistance of these odd musical instruments was a number including two men (one from the audience) chopping away on a large log with big axes (wood chips flying everywhere!), and a man and plus a woman from the audience sawing away at a log with a medium sized 2-person band saw. Both the chopping and the sawing were perfectly timed to the performance, but what exactly it all meant I don't know, possibly some kind of lumberjack song? It was rollicking good fun, though, and by the end of the song the man and woman had sawn four slices off a roughly 9 inch diameter log and sawdust was all over the beautiful wood parquet floor. Who knew that folk music could be so much fun? At the end of the evening the group performed a medley of well known folk tunes and invited the audience to sing along. I wanted to sing along in the worst way, but didn't know most of the songs, of course, which was very frustrating. Monika, however, along with most of the audience, knew them all by heart and they all sang along with great gusto. But it was nearing 10 p.m. and that about wrapped it up for the night. We walked back along the Warmerbode (roughly translates as "warm creek" since it stems from a warm spring up near the Brocken) back to our pension for the night. |
Monika: Back home at the hotel it was early afternoon. Since we had evening entertainment planned, Bob decided to take a nap, while I went into town with a few errands. My first objective was to mail a letter to Lois. But it turned out to be a lot harder to find the postoffice, than I anticipated. But with a few helpful hints, I did find it in the back of one of the tourist shops. The next stop was a Walgreen type store where I bought some soap to wash out some of our clothes. Since I also had picked up some cookies and they did not give me a bag, I decided to return to the hotel, unload and see whether Bob was awake. You can do that in a little town! My second trek down mainstreet had me stop in several tourist shops where I ended up buying a few postcards, with the "witch" theme that is ubiquitous around the Brocken. I also partook of a local beverage of raspberry punch, like Gluehwein, a hot spiced alcoholic drink. This one was a little sweet for my taste, but it did warm me up. After the usual evening meal of sandwiches and some journal writing, we went to the Kurcentrum for a folklore evening that the local branch of the Harzclub put on. The Harzclub not only sings local songs and play folk instruments, they also maintain all the hiking trails and their signage, quite a job considering the miles of hiking trails around. The evening featured instrumentalists, 2 accordions, 2 hammer dulcimers, 2 guitars, a bass, and 4 home made small guitar like instruments. I think they called them Harzer Guitar. There was also a choir of 10 women and 5 men. They sang songs from the area. A lot of the songs included yodeling, 4 of the women and one of the guys were quite good at it. Some unique aspects involved a song that included whipcracking and, of course, one song about witches that had one of the girls come out as a witch. The whole evening was in the great hall of the Kurcentrum, where we had seen the craftshow. It included a bar, and we sat at tables. Before the show, someone came around asking whether they could take an order for drinks. Most people had either a beer or a glass of wine in front of them. But we declined. The evening itself was extremely entertaining, and what I found most heartening was, that several of the girls and one of guys were young. So they hopefully will keep going. |
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