Bob:

We were excited to drive back up to Markbreit so that we could walk in a weekend Volksmarch event there. The day was foggy, however, and I hoped it would clear up so that we could take better pictures. We had read that the start and finish point was the train station, but when we parked there we found no sign of it. Monika, however, saved the day by noticing that there were lots of folks walking by and they were all stopping just across the street. We walked over and found one of the checkpoints for the walk, and the folks staffing the checkpoint were happy to guide us to the townhall where the walk actually began. After driving there and finally finding a parking place, we signed up and started the walk.

The fog persisted for the first half of our walk, which was the walk around Markbreit itself. From the townhall on the shore of the Main River, we walked through the edge of town uphill to the region around the train station, but this time we had our cards so we could have them stamped by the folks there. They stamped us as numbers 1151 and 1152, and I believe that meant that they had already had over 1,000 people walking by. Wow! We had a nice glass of hot tea (slightly sweetened) and then continued up the road from the train station about 2 kilometers to the next town up the valley.

Descending to a pretty little stream, we headed back toward Markbreit. The trees alongside the stream were all turning their fall colors and the stream itself had occasional small cascades between long stretches of smoothly flowing water, so we had nice views as we walked along. When we got back into the town, however, the trail started to twist and turn like a piece of wet spaghetti. The city must at one point have had a protective wall, because we passed by the "White Tower" and at least two others that looked like they would have been part of a ring of defensive fortifications on the city wall in the Bad Old Days.

In the middle of the town we wound our way past a market square, I think, and then back along the creek as it dropped down through the city to join the Main River. Some half timber houses had been built perilously close to the edge of the creek, and they looked to me like that might fall into it at any moment. They were extremely picturesque, but I know I would have been uneasy living there for sure. As our trail continued to twist and turn, other folks were getting lost and we occasionally resorted to Volksmarch Conferences where we would gather with other lost walkers at an intersection and discuss which way the trail went next. Some folks seemed a bit irritated and I later heard people complaining about getting lost at the finish point, but I thought it was rather fun.

Monika:

Bob:

We finally descended to the Main just past the starting point, at which point the 5 kilometer trail returned to the finish, but the 10 and 20 kilometer trails went across the river on a narrow bridge. Once on the other side we turned upstream along the river and walked through first a nursery and then a truck farm on the riverbank, then we crossed the valley and walked right up the ridge that formed the edge of the valley. The slopes of the ridge were one huge vineyard and the leaves were just turning yellow so the whole ridge looked like it had been painted ochre, which I thought was very pretty.

We heard this loud "BANG" like someone shooting right ahead of us, and naturally I was curious about that because I couldn't imagine someone banging away alongside a trail with people wandering on it. The noise turned out to be a pipe with an attached propane canister that was obviously designed just to imitate a gun firing, probably to scare the birds away from the grapes that were just being harvested. I don't know it it worked in scaring the birds, but the report was much louder than a 12-gauge shotgun and I was glad it didn't let loose when we were right next to it; I have enough problems with titinnitis as it is.

We continued along the ridge downstream for about 2 kilometers and then came down off the ridge, made a U-turn, and returned to the bridge across the Main, where we found our second checkpoint. Like most checkpoints on German Volksmarches, food was available and I was getting hungry, but we decided to wait to eat back at the finish point. Instead, we settled for another cup of hot tea and continued back through the small town to the bridge. Recrossing the Main, we turned right to reach the finish point, where we had our brand new books stamped and collected our award, which were two very nice beer steins from Markbreit's 750th anniversary of being permitted to have a marketplace, which had apparently provided the economic basis to transform the village into a real city. The total cost for the walk and the 1/2 liter beer stein as was 3.75 Euro each, or 2.25 Euro for each beer stein which would be a little over $3 at the $1.41 per Euro exchange rate (still cheap!). We were in the Franken area of Germany, by the way, so although inexpensive these mugs were authentic Frankensteins! (Bra hah hah hah!)

Monika:

Bob:

Putting our mugs carefully back in the car, we sat down to a great meal of spatzel (a Schwabish form of pasta consisting of little doughballs) with goulash (meat) and a cucumber salad. Monika had a draft beer while I settled for a Coke. The "small" beer was, by the way 1/2 liter in size while a "normal" size beer was a full liter, or just under a quart! Thus fortified and tired but not worn out, we decided to next visit a Freilicht Museum (Open Air or Outdoor Museum) at Bad Windsheim.

In the past, the Open Air Museums have been relatively tame, limited affairs with just a few buildings and displays, so I thought it would take no more than an hour or two. This museum was, however, much more extensive and extended over a square mile of the countryside just outside Bad Windsheim. My first clue that this museum was more extensive than the usual was the fact that several tour buses were parked in the parking lot along with several hundred cars. The entry fee was 5 Euro per adult, which I think was a very fair price for the number of buildings and exhibits that were open to the public, almost 100 in all.

We wandered through the reassembled or reconstructed buildings and fields from about 2 o'clock to 5:30, and we never did get to see everything there. It was so extensive that we were getting tired just walking around to all the buildings and then climbing the stairs in each one to see what the exhibits were on the upper floors. Since almost every building was either partly or completely furnished with authentic antiques from the 1600s through the 1800s or had other types of informational exhibits, there was a lot to see! There was a small museum building dedicated to just to the quarrying and building with stone, which apparently was a big local industry.

Monika:

Bob:

Wandering about, we even passed a shepherd complete with three sheepdogs and a sizable flock of sheep. From his heavy accent and mannerisms, I guessed that he was the real deal rather than a re-enactor, and the dogs were certainly the real deal as they continually patrolled the flanks of the herd and kept it "in bounds". I had watched the shepherd let the dogs out for their afternoon work, and it was quite clear that those dogs were happy, even ecstatic, to go out and herd the flock. Talk about living for a job! It was all fascinating to watch, but we were getting tired and our map of the museum said a beer garden was just ahead, so we forged on and shared a beer and a piece of cake while sitting down in a 450-year old tavern. It's just hard for me to imagine things that old that still function, and this tavern building had been used almost continuously as a tavern for well over four centuries. It boggles the mind.

Different areas of the museum focused on different eras of the history of the area. The late stone age and bronze age settlements were recreated in one corner, together with another museum building that focused on the construction of buildings from that era. Just outside we could visit the full-scale reconstructions of some of those buildings, which was very interesting. The museum also had a reconstructed grave of those old Frankish tribes, and boy did they bury a lot of stuff with them for the afterlife. In fact, that must have been one religion which, similar to the old Egyptian religion, really did believe that "You CAN take it with you!" That was fortunate for modern day archeologists finding gobs of stuff in their graves, but I couldn't help wondering how the burial of all that wealth affected the economy of the people of the time. It seemed to me that you would be removing wealth in the burial process and thus prevent the accumulation of wealth across generations that seems to occur in most modern societies.

Monika:

Bob:

After the Bronze age section we curled back to the 1300-1400s section, where you could clearly see the relationship of the buildings and life style to the later 1600-1700s sections. Part of the exhibit was one of those "humans in front, cows in the rear" type of buildings, but this one had real cows living in back and a guy who was clearly taking care of them. One thing that I, as a modern person, immediately noticed was that the house stank to the high heaven. I expect the people of that time didn't notice the smell or interpreted it as "Home", I guess. In the winter, of course, having the animals inside the house as auxilliary heaters might be very useful indeed. The Australians talk about a "three dog night", so I suppose an equally useful alternative would be a "three cow house"! Outside, of course, we found chickens foraging around with a rather aggressive looking rooster standing guard and giving me the beady eye, plus a curious bird house made out of sticks that apparently was the home for a flock of pigeons (doves?). So say what you will about the Good Old Days, but you certainly didn't lack for nostalgic items like the smell of cows, pigeon droppings, and chicken shit. Somehow, with all the complexities and pressures of modern life, I much prefer it to the alternative.

We were both footsore and weary by 5:30 and they were starting to close up the place, so we returned to our car, carefully lowered ourselves into the seats, and drove slowly home. Taking the interstate exit at Rothenburg, we once again got completely turned around and had to be saved by the GPS, which told us were were driving 180 degrees in the wrong direction. Back at the pension we had a light dinner and took off our shoes to rest our feet the rest of the night. Monika watched the German team play soccer against Ireland on TV while I brought my journal up to date, and then we turned in for the night.

Monika: