Where's Bertie? He's in a Stellplatz next to the Freibad* at Herrenberg. It costs €5 per day to stay here. Water and electricity are available at extra cost. Exact location: 48.59009, 8.87747. (Last night he spent a second night at the Stellplatz at Waldenbuch).
Weather: Both yesterday and today have given us good periods of sunny intervals. Today has been a bit warmer (high-twenties vs mid-twenties)
Monday 29th - Waldenbuch
I was right that we got to see more attractive things yesterday (compared with our walk around Glashutte the day before). A walk of a mile took us into the Waldenbuch's old town, perched upon a small pimple in the landscape, the sides of which were so steep as to make it look like the buildings were stacked one atop the other. All was quiet as we walked around, with it being Monday afternoon, but it was a nice place for a bit of wandering:
Looking both ways across the Market Square
Sculpture of the day
Perhaps not 'attractive' in a conventional way, but it caught my eye on one of our forays along the cycle/walking path that ran past Bertie.
Tuesday 30th - Herrenberg
After a quiet night (the adjacent car park playground had been busy all afternoon, but the final few kids** eventually went home as daylight faded) and a run for me this morning (oooh, tired legs!), our plan was for just a short hop (5km) along the road to Neuhausen. It was only as I looked up the lat/long to programme the SatNav this morning that I noticed our target Stellplatz had electricity (which we didn't need), but not a service point (which we did need).
A period of staring at my phone ensued and once I'd considered the options and calculated various distances, the rough itinerary we came up with a couple of days ago went out the window and to Herrenberg we came.
A good decision - what a lovely town!
The Stellplatz here is another new-in-2019 one (that's four such we've found in the last week) and it's nicely-presented, in an elevated position with views - which is probably why it costs €5 rather than being free.
The old town is 1km away and we approached it with no expectations. This was the first street along which we walked as we entered the town, and it set the scene nicely:
Then we got to the Market Square:
Yes, we've stumbled across another town on the Half-Timbered Route***
Unfortunately, there's no Tourist Information office as such (info is available from one of the municipal offices), and we weren't able to find any information in English. Even a search around t'interweb on my phone, whilst we sat in the square, didn't net anything useful. So we just wandered the streets, exclaiming at the wonkiness of buildings as we went.
The most interesting thing we found was a display inside the church (which sits atop the prominence upon which the old town is built), charting the building's 700 year structural history. Essentially, until the 1980s, the church had been sliding towards the town at a rates of up to 1mm per year (various bits of the church were sliding at different rates) and the tower (originally twin towers, modified to a single dome-topped tower in 1749) had been built on a dome-shaped foundation, which left the outer edges unsupported. The entire explanation was in German, but with the assistance of diagrams, a bit of Google Translate and some examination of the tower itself, we got the gist of it. Far more interesting than what one usually finds in a church!
Unfortunately, the faults in the tower structure that were obvious to the naked eye probably aren't visible in this snap.
Views across the town from outside the church
We left the town without having seen everything, but as Mick said: "Best leave something for tomorrow!". I did another search for information when we got back to Bertie and immediately found the page that I thought must be lurking on the internet somewhere, setting out the points of interest on the town tour. At least we'll be armed with that when we return tomorrow.
I've also got in mind to take a non-urban walk tomorrow - something that has been unusually absent thus far in this tour.
Sculpture of the day (in leiu of a fountain worthy of the award)
(*No trip to the pool for us today. At €4, without a cheapie evening rate, we wouldn't get value for money.
**From our observations, Germany doesn't seem to have the same overprotective attitude towards children as is often seen in the UK. We therefore see quite young children out and about without adult supervision. The final four children out playing last night ranged, I reckoned, from 5 up to 10 years old. They finally went home at around 9.15pm. Unrelated to that, they seem to have a lax attitude as to safety on building sites too: who needs hard hats and high viz, even when there are cranes swinging stuff around just above head height?!
*** I'm still not yet bored with looking around historic towns & villages, even though it's a major theme of this trip. I know they're all very samey in many respects, but they also provide a visually pleasing and often-interesting location for some urban walking.)
Weather: Both yesterday and today have given us good periods of sunny intervals. Today has been a bit warmer (high-twenties vs mid-twenties)
Monday 29th - Waldenbuch
I was right that we got to see more attractive things yesterday (compared with our walk around Glashutte the day before). A walk of a mile took us into the Waldenbuch's old town, perched upon a small pimple in the landscape, the sides of which were so steep as to make it look like the buildings were stacked one atop the other. All was quiet as we walked around, with it being Monday afternoon, but it was a nice place for a bit of wandering:
Tuesday 30th - Herrenberg
After a quiet night (the adjacent car park playground had been busy all afternoon, but the final few kids** eventually went home as daylight faded) and a run for me this morning (oooh, tired legs!), our plan was for just a short hop (5km) along the road to Neuhausen. It was only as I looked up the lat/long to programme the SatNav this morning that I noticed our target Stellplatz had electricity (which we didn't need), but not a service point (which we did need).
A period of staring at my phone ensued and once I'd considered the options and calculated various distances, the rough itinerary we came up with a couple of days ago went out the window and to Herrenberg we came.
A good decision - what a lovely town!
The Stellplatz here is another new-in-2019 one (that's four such we've found in the last week) and it's nicely-presented, in an elevated position with views - which is probably why it costs €5 rather than being free.
The old town is 1km away and we approached it with no expectations. This was the first street along which we walked as we entered the town, and it set the scene nicely:
Unfortunately, there's no Tourist Information office as such (info is available from one of the municipal offices), and we weren't able to find any information in English. Even a search around t'interweb on my phone, whilst we sat in the square, didn't net anything useful. So we just wandered the streets, exclaiming at the wonkiness of buildings as we went.
The most interesting thing we found was a display inside the church (which sits atop the prominence upon which the old town is built), charting the building's 700 year structural history. Essentially, until the 1980s, the church had been sliding towards the town at a rates of up to 1mm per year (various bits of the church were sliding at different rates) and the tower (originally twin towers, modified to a single dome-topped tower in 1749) had been built on a dome-shaped foundation, which left the outer edges unsupported. The entire explanation was in German, but with the assistance of diagrams, a bit of Google Translate and some examination of the tower itself, we got the gist of it. Far more interesting than what one usually finds in a church!
We left the town without having seen everything, but as Mick said: "Best leave something for tomorrow!". I did another search for information when we got back to Bertie and immediately found the page that I thought must be lurking on the internet somewhere, setting out the points of interest on the town tour. At least we'll be armed with that when we return tomorrow.
I've also got in mind to take a non-urban walk tomorrow - something that has been unusually absent thus far in this tour.
(*No trip to the pool for us today. At €4, without a cheapie evening rate, we wouldn't get value for money.
**From our observations, Germany doesn't seem to have the same overprotective attitude towards children as is often seen in the UK. We therefore see quite young children out and about without adult supervision. The final four children out playing last night ranged, I reckoned, from 5 up to 10 years old. They finally went home at around 9.15pm. Unrelated to that, they seem to have a lax attitude as to safety on building sites too: who needs hard hats and high viz, even when there are cranes swinging stuff around just above head height?!
*** I'm still not yet bored with looking around historic towns & villages, even though it's a major theme of this trip. I know they're all very samey in many respects, but they also provide a visually pleasing and often-interesting location for some urban walking.)
I hope Alan Rayner sees your tractor - I'll send him a message. The tuba laying statue looks interesting - presumably there must be a musical connection in the town?
ReplyDeleteI've seen a few interesting tractors over the last few days. The one of which I would have liked a snap, but it was in motion, going the opposite way to us, was a shiny red vintage Porsche model that looked, in passing, to be in incredible condition.
DeleteThe tuba player was outside of a grand half-timbered building that has, since 1996, housed the music school.
Love the Sculpture of the Day!
ReplyDeleteSo did I. It was just a shame that a campaign group had set up a gazebo right in front of it, limiting the position from where I could get a snap.
Delete