This video does two things. First, it shows the delightful central square of one of my favorite new German towns, Erfurt. And second, it demonstrates why cameramen put windscreens on their microphones. My camera mic is catching the wind to make this video almost unusable…almost.
If you can’t see the video below, watch it on YouTube.
I long ago gave up looking for the elusive “untouristy Rothenburg.” I was once obsessed with the idea, but it hasn’t even occurred to me for a decade. Now, suddenly, it’s back…because today I found it: Erfurt.
Erfurt, a rare city in the center of Germany that escaped the bombs of World War II, was stuck in the strange cocoon of East German communism for half a century, and today still feels sleepy. But it’s gearing up for the spotlight in 2017, when German cities associated with Martin Luther — who studied and became a monk in Erfurt — will be in for a tourist boom, celebrating the 500th anniversary of Luther kicking off the Protestant Reformation.
Today I spent the morning in my Munich hotel room. At 11:45, I pulled the lid down on my laptop and checked out. Just walking three blocks to the station was an exercise in the fun of travel: I walked past women in burkas enjoying a little shopping during their families’ medical vacation from some wealthy Middle Eastern nation. I marveled at how efficiently German sidewalks can be deconstructed to move overhead wiring underground. My Austrian SIM card finally ran out of credit (it goes fast when you cross a border), so I had to buy a German one for my cell phone. The rates are very competitive: €10 for my own German number, including €7.50 of credit for €0.09-a-minute phone calls. The girls in the table-dance bars were pretty forlorn, and the Internet points were filled with immigrants wearing headphones and hammering away on keyboards.
Walking through the Munich train station, I remembered including it in my city walks back when I was leading my minibus tours around Germany in the 1980s. The soundtrack, commotion, gear, and even the smells of a great train station all add up to the essence of travel.
At 12:14, I settled into my first-class seat on the luxurious German bullet train and filled in my Eurail log. (The new standards are strict — Eurailpasses must be kept in their jacket, and each journey must be diligently entered into the jacket’s travel log. I used to ignore this, but now conductors are checking and enforcing this rule.) At 12:16, I glided out of Munich, and in no time was rocketing through the German countryside.
By 16:30, after one change, I was in Erfurt. After Vienna, Salzburg, and Munich (all of which I know well), it was fun to be in a city that was new to me. I was in town for 24 hours to review and update the chapter my ace researcher and co-author Cameron Hewitt had written new for our Germany guidebook last year. We’re finally covering a few northern German destinations. I guess I’m soft: I could have followed the guidebook and caught a tram, but my guest house was on the far side of town, and I was excited to check in, stow the bag, and get sightseeing. So I walked directly to the taxi rank, hopped in, and was at my hotel in five minutes — €6.50 very well invested.
Now it was sinking in: I’m not in Bavaria anymore. There was that old Tupperware aura of East Germany. People seemed more hardscrabble, less exposed to the world. English was suddenly very foreign. And I didn’t hear an American voice all day.
I’m in a guesthouse run by the monastery Martin Luther called home. His home church spire towers above my head. And a tiny wooden cross decorates the blank wall above my headboard as I type. The inlaid tiles and creaky floor feel like pre-WWII Germany. There’s no Wi-Fi, and the woman at the reception doesn’t speak English. Pushing out my shutters, I lean out my window and survey the scene: a thick deciduous forest, chirping and hooting birds, a babbling brook, and a well-groomed lane with people strolling by who seem delighted with their simple lot in life. After Hard Rock Café Munich, Climb Every Mountain Salzburg, and Boys Choir Vienna, this is delightful.
I scrambled to get oriented, taking the new self-guided walking tour in the book. When I reached the starting point of the walk, I was famished, so I dropped by a characteristic bratwurst stand to buy a basic Thuringian brat. The man paused until I realized I was supposed to pick up and spread open my roll so he could place the sausage there to go. I beaded it with hearty mustard and then snuck in a little ketchup, and sat down to read what Cameron wrote. He kicked off the walk by recommending that same bratwurst stand, reminded me that the tradition is for the customer to hold open the bun, and even scolded me for sneaking the ketchup. It was perfect.
I completed the walk and loved it. Erfurt has history swinging from its eves. An opera troupe was rehearsing on the cathedral square, dark churches rang with the sound of pipe organists practicing, and the cobbles still lead into the river where the muddy river (Er-) was forded (-furt).
Walking home later than I expected, I turned the corner. Before me, just past the babbling brook and under the simple spire that for 500 years has towered above the monastery of Martin Luther, stood my creaky and well-worn guest house. It felt, on so many levels, like a pleasant homecoming.
I’m spending an intense month updating guidebooks, and I’m finding some surprising new sights to add to the books — like this memorial in Munich to Michael Jackson.
If you can’t see the video below, watch it on YouTube.
Munich pedestrianized its main street for the 1972 Olympics, starting a trend in Europe. And, like cities all over Europe, more and more of the center is becoming traffic-free.
If you can’t see the video below, watch it on YouTube.
Traveling into Germany, it’s so clear that the Germans know how to motor an economy. They seem disdainful of the tax cheating, the inefficient bureaucracy, and the corruption plaguing the Mediterranean countries they will be bailing out. Suddenly, all around Europe, German efficiency seems like a good idea. It’s amazing to think that Germany has built itself up (with US aid after WWII) from near-total destruction to become Europe’s economic powerhouse. For sixty years, they’ve simply worked hard and paid their taxes.
Germans I’ve talked to admit that they’ve benefitted most from the euro currency. And now they recognize that they need to prop up the euro and give a little back to the other European nations. One German’s thoughts on Greece: “Greeks have learned from their heads of state to be corrupt. Brussels believed in their false numbers when they applied for membership in the eurozone, and since they joined, there’s been no control — just wishful thinking. Today we have a big problem with Greece.”
You see lots of construction around Europe, but in the south, it’s often stalled. Traveling through Germany this last week, however, I’ve seen thriving construction projects everywhere. A beautiful thing about Europe (compared to the USA) is that there are no electrical wires overhead. They are nearly all buried. A local told me that much of the wiring is from the 1970s, and throughout Germany, it’s being dug up and modernized.
One night in Munich, I walked over a tidy sidewalk into my hotel. The next morning, I stepped out and had to walk the plank over a deep ditch with tractors, orange-vested workmen, and industrial-strength tubing and wires everywhere. That afternoon, I came home…and the sidewalk was tidy again. I wondered how long a job like that would take in Italy or Greece.
Germanic people even seem efficient about hedonism. Every country seems to have its own firewater. And, while I gingerly sip it, locals throw it down in a gulp. Finally a local friend gave me a tip: “My Granny taught me that you should first breathe deeply in, then take the shot, then breathe out.” It works. Ahhhh.
On the topic of languages, a German friend observed that the Spanish and Italians speak as if talking to God, the French speak as if talking to a lover, and the Germans speak as if talking to a dog. They seem to be barking, even when agreeing with you: Stimmt! Genau! Richtig! I said I like the sound of German, but it’s difficult for me. My friend said, “German’s an easy language. Even children speak it.”
Meeting a lot of Americans traveling — including families and people well into their adulthood who are out of the States for the first time — I’ve been thinking about how travel helps people blossom. If we are like seeds, the travel experience provides the dirt. The act of traveling plants us. And the people we meet in our travels are like watering the garden. Combine the dirt, seeds, and water properly, and you get the blossom. Happy travels.