Where's Bertie? He remains unmoved, in the Stellplatz at Esslingen.
Weather: Mainly overcast but warm and humid (26 degrees).
Last night, just before dusk, we went for another little stroll and decided that the thing I referred to yesterday as a 'castle(y-thing)' is indeed a castle. Google confirmed that when I did an idle search this morning, and in that process it also told me that there is a tourist office in town.
Thus today, after descending via the 280 steps of covered walkway that leads down the outside of the castle wall...
Part of the covered walkway is visible in this snap
...we didn't waste time with aimless wandering, but went straight to said information point. There we found that they charge for all of their leaflets and brochures (not come across that before), but 50c for the 'Old Town Walking Tour' leaflet in English didn't seem unreasonable, so we bought a copy and off we went.
What an interesting, and attractive, place Esslingen is! It also seems to be a place that likes to make claims to age related records, including:
The oldest half-timbered house in Germany (1267)
The oldest terrace of half-timbered houses in Germany (1328-1331, but done up in 1980 so they now look: a) too new; and b) a bit 'Trigger's Broom' when you look closely at how much woodwork has been replaced).
One of the oldest stone bridges in Germany (1286). We were taken with the very small chapel.
We also saw...
The Old Town Hall (which was much more interesting than this front facade, but I didn't take any snaps from other angles), where so many weddings were taking place that the next was going in just as the previous was coming out.
...and visited two of the three churches. We'd been accosted by a chap searching for the entrance door of the most notable one, St Dionysius, located in the Market Square, and were amused to meet him again inside The Church of Our Lady a couple of hours later. The only other obvious tourists we spotted all day were a couple with broad Yorkshire accents.
Just another view of a bit of the town from one of the bridges. The walkway between the two church towersare striking but the English translation in the tour guide was dubious; we think it was added due to stability issues.
With the sights seen, a detour took us back across town to the Post Office, where the woman who served us positively rolled her eyes and tutted that we had done something as outrageous as to queue for stamps. Unfortunately, our language skills weren't up to: a) asking her why it was such an inconvenience to her to have to open her desk drawer and get some stamps out; or b) explain that we couldn't use the stamp machine because it didn't have a price list and we didn't know what value stamps we needed. (Actually, I did ask Google for this information, but by the time I had the answer we were next in the queue to be served, so we opted for the human interaction.)
I'm not sure whether it was the attitude of the Post Office or our distraction with buying exceedingly large cakes that threw us, but either way we arrived back at Bertie to find that we had forgotten to buy the postcards that were supposed to go with the stamps.
We thus headed back down to the town late this afternoon to put right that omission, and were entertained on the way back both by overtaking a bicycle on our way up the hill (we went for the road route rather than the steps this time) and with spectating on some boules matches going on in the park. There were some skilled boules players there today!
I'll finish with a couple more snaps, both on the same theme:
(Incidentally: During last summer's German tour I picked up a leaflet about Germany's 'Half Timbered House Road' - a series of cultural driving routes, totalling 3500km. A few days later I got over-excited at finding a paper recycling bank and accidentally discarded it. I wasn't able to find another copy in any other Tourist Office, but did download an electronic copy before the start of this trip. Not long into this morning's walk around Esslingen I began to suspect that we had stumbled upon one of the featured towns, and the e-leaflet on my phone confirmed that was the case. On the one hand I now feel more inclined to visit more of them (maybe starting tomorrow), but I do fear that after a few we may get 'half-timbered out' and find them all a bit samey. We'll see.)
Weather: Mainly overcast but warm and humid (26 degrees).
Last night, just before dusk, we went for another little stroll and decided that the thing I referred to yesterday as a 'castle(y-thing)' is indeed a castle. Google confirmed that when I did an idle search this morning, and in that process it also told me that there is a tourist office in town.
Thus today, after descending via the 280 steps of covered walkway that leads down the outside of the castle wall...
Part of the covered walkway is visible in this snap
...we didn't waste time with aimless wandering, but went straight to said information point. There we found that they charge for all of their leaflets and brochures (not come across that before), but 50c for the 'Old Town Walking Tour' leaflet in English didn't seem unreasonable, so we bought a copy and off we went.
What an interesting, and attractive, place Esslingen is! It also seems to be a place that likes to make claims to age related records, including:
One of the oldest stone bridges in Germany (1286). We were taken with the very small chapel.
We also saw...
The New Town Hall
...and visited two of the three churches. We'd been accosted by a chap searching for the entrance door of the most notable one, St Dionysius, located in the Market Square, and were amused to meet him again inside The Church of Our Lady a couple of hours later. The only other obvious tourists we spotted all day were a couple with broad Yorkshire accents.
Just another view of a bit of the town from one of the bridges. The walkway between the two church towersare striking but the English translation in the tour guide was dubious; we think it was added due to stability issues.
With the sights seen, a detour took us back across town to the Post Office, where the woman who served us positively rolled her eyes and tutted that we had done something as outrageous as to queue for stamps. Unfortunately, our language skills weren't up to: a) asking her why it was such an inconvenience to her to have to open her desk drawer and get some stamps out; or b) explain that we couldn't use the stamp machine because it didn't have a price list and we didn't know what value stamps we needed. (Actually, I did ask Google for this information, but by the time I had the answer we were next in the queue to be served, so we opted for the human interaction.)
I'm not sure whether it was the attitude of the Post Office or our distraction with buying exceedingly large cakes that threw us, but either way we arrived back at Bertie to find that we had forgotten to buy the postcards that were supposed to go with the stamps.
We thus headed back down to the town late this afternoon to put right that omission, and were entertained on the way back both by overtaking a bicycle on our way up the hill (we went for the road route rather than the steps this time) and with spectating on some boules matches going on in the park. There were some skilled boules players there today!
I'll finish with a couple more snaps, both on the same theme:
(Incidentally: During last summer's German tour I picked up a leaflet about Germany's 'Half Timbered House Road' - a series of cultural driving routes, totalling 3500km. A few days later I got over-excited at finding a paper recycling bank and accidentally discarded it. I wasn't able to find another copy in any other Tourist Office, but did download an electronic copy before the start of this trip. Not long into this morning's walk around Esslingen I began to suspect that we had stumbled upon one of the featured towns, and the e-leaflet on my phone confirmed that was the case. On the one hand I now feel more inclined to visit more of them (maybe starting tomorrow), but I do fear that after a few we may get 'half-timbered out' and find them all a bit samey. We'll see.)
What a splendid post. Loved the post office stuff, and very much your over excitedness with the recycling. That has some correlation with the dictum that: the longer you keep something you think may "come in" the shorter will be the time that elapses before you find you need it after you have thrown it out.
ReplyDeleteThen there's the other rule that says that the more stuff you keep on the basis that it may one day come in handy, the less likely you are to be able to find it when you need it!
DeleteThere is something about people behind post office counters. In France I wanted to post home my ice axe. The PO guy wouldn't help with any packaging and was additionally irritatingly negative. I went to an estate agent and asked if they had any old boxes or whatever and ended up on the floor (not in any suggestive situation) with a helpful young lady wrapping the item. I took it back to the PO two minutes before their sacred lunchtime closing and presented the parcel to Mr. Grumpy in a swirl of triumph by me and grudgingly received by him.
ReplyDeleteI think the Post Office thing must be a worldwide phenomenon. In Los Angeles, when we were endeavouring to post our resupply parcels for the PCT, a member of staff patrolling the queue told us that we had to have a return address marked on the outside of the parcels. We explained that we had no such address we could give, but she wouldn't let us remain in the queue without one. She also refused point blank to lend us one of the pens she quite visibly had in her pocket. It was a moment of triumph when I discovered I had got a pen with me after all, we jotted a random address onto the parcels and were thus allowed to proceed to the counter ... where they didn't seem to give two hoots whether there was a return address.
ReplyDeleteDon't start me on Post Office things! Still haven't forgiven the woman in Fort Augustus last year. And the Trigger's Broom...lol!
ReplyDeleteOh go on - join in the Post Office ranting!
DeleteOh, if you insist! An exert:
ReplyDelete"Laura needed to pop by the Londis again and I'd thought I'd take advantage of the Post Office there and post my Paramo trousers home. I'd walked in my leggings the day before to give some relief from the pocket zips and it had made a huge difference. With the promised good weather, I thought I could manage wearing my leggings for two days even with no waterproof trousers. I had my thermal tights to change into at night as well as my other warm, dry clothes, so even if I got wet I could change once we had camped. The lady at the Post Office was dreadful. She was trying to insist on having a second address to post to, family, friend or neighbour, in case they were unable to deliver. She was determined this was the rule, despite being told my agreement with my local sorting office is for any undelivered post to be returned to them and I would collect. I gently, but firmly, refused to provide an alternative and although she was very unhappy, she still took my money and my parcel. One suspects she'd realised she'd got it wrong when I'd stated the arrangement made! Jobsworth."
How ridiculous! If you hadn't been posting to yourself, how likely would it have been that you would have known a possible second address? I've never had an online vendor (or any post office, for that matter!) ask me for a second address.
DeleteShe insisted she'd been on a course and it was what I had to do. I was remarkably patient.
ReplyDelete