Around Erlangen, as promised

A dear friend recently asked me to take some pictures of where I live in Germany so she could picture it. I dutifully went around with my camera shooting those things I think are the highlights of our town, or which show its character. Perhaps my choices say more about me than they do about where I live, I'm not sure. Here is a brief description of where I live and some pictures.

I love to walk, as may be obvious from the name of this web log. When I was in college in the Pacific Northwest I spent hours walking around the college town I was in. All times of day, including the middle of the night, and throughout the year I walked. It's very relaxing to walk and you get to look at things: people's gardens and houses, the sky, the foliage, the changing seasons, the things people throw out. When we moved to Germany, we lived in a smallish city. We lived in the old town, right next to an historic castle, in the middle of things. Great for convenience and for being right where it's all happening, but terrible if your hobby is walking around looking at people's yards and houses, or at nature. All the buildings looked the same, typical old German style, or super minimalist modern. There are no yards, and window boxes, which abound in Germany, don't provide the same weird voyeuristic pleasure I get from looking at people's choice of landscaping. And the forest was too far away to walk to from my house. I felt homesick.

Then we moved to the college town where my husband's office is, because he was tired of 40 minutes each way on the bus, and also because I was tired of having nowhere interesting to walk around. I found that I just felt more comfortable in a college town (no wonder after living in various ones for the last 14 years). Erlangen is in some ways very similar to where I lived before, it is a similar size, it is relatively affluent, has many nice gardens, in part thanks to the University, tons of students, and a river running through it that has a green space along it. Everyone rides bikes, sometimes walking in town is like playing Frogger. And there are many different neighborhoods filled with detached houses with yards, as well as forest areas within walking distance of my house. It differs greatly from that other town in that it is in no way hip, alternative, or liberal. We live in the most conservative part of Germany, in a very affluent town. I just don't know how I can express its un-hipness, except to say that if Tommy Hilfiger and JC Penny's got together and made a preppy an uncool catalog with a college theme, that would start to express the style of the college kids here. I regularly see women in their thirties in light washed full length denim skirts and practical shoes.

Admittedly, most of the houses are of a style: red tiles, pitched roofs, half timbered, German, in other words. And German landscaping tends to be very much like German society, very precise and orderly, extremely well groomed, and not exuberant or showy. My taste runs more toward English cottage garden style, riotous mishmashes of plants, random rocks and statues: controlled chaos. So it is not the same experience I had walking around the hippy town I lived in. However, there is an amazing botanical garden run my the Uni, with many different areas, including an indoor jungle and an exhibit garden, which changes seasonally (I don't know how they do it, but I think they bury potted mature plants and switch them out). And there are some interesting neighborhoods and places to see the flowers coming up in spring and the leaves turning in Autumn.

Here are some pictures from around Erlangen, some of which I took recently in an attempt to showcase my town for my friend, and some of which I took on my walks over the last year. I guess I should say that Erlangen was not bombed in the war so all the historical buildings and statues were untouched.

Main market square, the building in the background is the public library. 

This is the fountain in the Schlossgarten, behind that building in the background is the main market square, to the building's left, behind the tree, you can see the side of the library pictured in the previous photo.

The Orangerie, also in the Schlossgarten, it has something to do with the University's music school and was recently refurbished.

The Botanical Garden. The exhibit garden in its current form (current being September 27th when I took this photo)

Koi pond and Water garden (one of several) at the Botanical Garden

More exhibition garden. Don't let those cacti and yucca fool you, it's cold and dreary here most of the year

One of the more charming streets near the market square. Most of the town does not look like this.

One of my favorite business signs

The Regnitz (or is it the Pegnitz here? I can never remember) river that runs through town

A working water wheel which brings up water from the river. All wood. Amazing.

Like I said, don't let the palm trees in previous picture fool you.

It was so cold this pond froze all the way through (at least 2 meters, maybe more). People were ice skating, and the old German guys had a curling area set up.

This canal connects the River Main and the Danube. It runs west of town and has miles of perfectly flat path beside it. 

More from the green space beside the river. Even the sheds look German.

More Cullen Pictures and Goodbye Scotland

On our 2nd day in Cullen we went west along the coast, along the large sandy beach. We followed it up with Fish and chips, which were, frankly, not as good as the ones I had in southern England. I don't know if it was the fish I chose, or the fact that in the south I had been walking so many miles previous to my meal.

In the evening we were visited by the son of the owner. A very charming 14 year old, who kept coming in with the pretense of needing to make himself some tea, which he would then forget about while he entertained us with his stories. My companion and I were on our second bottle of wine when he told us about his love for Louis CK. Had we seen his show, where he acts out some of his jokes. Yes, my companion had seen it often. He told us about this one episode he thought was so funny. Yes, my companion  had seen that episode. It was so funny, he said. Then he told her about it in detail. All the while, she keeps saying, "yeah, I remember", or finishing the scene for him. But he didn't let that stop him from giving her a complete blow by blow. It was great. I love teenagers.

In the morning we saw a beautiful sunrise and caught a bus back the Edinburgh. And then left Edinburgh the following morning to return to Germany. I don't think either of us really wanted to leave, but I literally almost cried. Of course that could have been the Xanax I took for the flight back. I can't wait to go back to Scotland in the future. I didn't even try haggis!

sunrise

view from the bus

Cullen, Scotland, Cullen Skink

After our lovely rest. We walked east along the coast to the ruins of an old castle. It was not raining but there was very slippery mud along the path from the previous days rain. The castle was built in the 1300's but was destroyed a few hundred years later when some vikings attacked it. The ruins were out on this finger of cliff with sheer drops of 50 feet on either side to craggy churning water. In its day, and the same is true now, access was only by foot on a steep hillside. In the castle you can see the remnants of several stories of rooms. The lower level can be accessed either by giant holes in the floor of the overlying rooms, or by what must have once been a spiral staircase, but is now a narrow spiral tunnel (how I got down). There was surprisingly little trash in the ruin. It seems like exactly the place I would have gone to build a fire and drink beer in high school...

On our way back, we decided to go into the town in search of Cullen Skink and a pint of cloudy cider. Cullen Skink is a very famous and beloved soup throughout the British Isles. It consists of smoked haddock and potatoes in a cream base with a pinch of nutmeg. We found what we were looking for at the Three Kings pub. I ordered a cider, when asked which one, I responded, "the cloudy one." One of the pub patrons responded " you mean, the stronger one!" with a bellow. Uh huh. My companion was unsure what to order. "A beer, which one is your favorite?" A tall man, well into his cups sitting at the bar recommended the IPA. "Oh, it's good then?" cups offered her a taste of his, which he had newly received. She tried it. She approved. He grinned. "You know it's a custom in Scotland that you have to marry a man if you take a sip of his drink?" Wonderful. Too bad she's already married. Darn.

The soup was wonderful, though a bit on the salty side. All the more reason to have a second pint of cloudy cider. After the pub, I took a nap and my companion walked along the beach. It was a very successful day.

The giants steps

That's where the castle was

ruined castle

there's the lower story

Cloudy cider!

Cullen Harbor Holidays

We rode a coach bus from Edinburgh to Aberdeen. Then from Aberdeen we caught a "local" bus, which runs from Aberdeen to Inverness passing through many many small towns, including Cullen, on it's way. We left Edinburgh in the afternoon so by the time the bus was wending it's way to Cullen it was dark. There were long periods between stops with no lights, like literally not a light to be seen anywhere out the window. People got on and off, and 30 minutes before our stop we were the only people on the bus.

Our driver finally signaled that we had arrived at Cullen Square (I had to ask him to tell us because they don't call out the names of the stops or anything) and we pulled up to a lone bus stop in the heart of a very small and very closed for business town on a hill slope. The town was deserted, not a soul, and hardly a light on anywhere. We hadn't eaten since the morning and I was not hopeful at our prospects of getting a meal. We wanted remote and windswept...

We walked down the hill under and old stone railway bridge and turned off the main road toward the harbor. It was low tide and by the moonlight you could see all the boats in the harbor resting on the sand. Just past the harbor on the sea side of the road was our hostel, a long stone and wood building. We walked in, hallooing, to a bare wood entryway leading to a long room. The roof was open beam and high. There were no posters advertising zany outings, no signs of any kind. No one answered. We pushed our way into a very warm and spacious kitchen (did I mention it was raining and windy outside), and were met by a very friendly, very robust woman, who informed us that she was just "a volunteer". She was sitting at the long wooden dining table with her computer. We told her there was no need to bother the owners that evening if she didn't need to and she showed us around the place.

Here was the kitchen. Here was the historic fire powered stove, which burned peat, we could cook on if it we liked too. The showers, she told us, were heated by the stove, which burned peat, so we would need to wait until the fire had been lit for several hours before taking a shower. And the peat for the stove was just out here. I was so enamored with the fact that this remote hostel in a remote Scottish town also burned peat, I exclaimed with joy, causing my companion and the Volunteer to look at me strangely. No one else was staying in the hostel so we had our own room. When we asked unhopefully about possible eateries, we were informed that the coop food store was open until ten. And what's more, the last folks staying at the hostel had left bread and butter we were welcome to. We hurried off for provisions, and returned to a warm meal of soup and bread. The hosteler popped in while we were preparing our meal and had us sign in (which consisted of signing a book which lay in the entryway).

After dinner we went off to bed in our private room. It was completely dark when the lights were out. The only sound was the sea. The room, though not cold, was cool and the blankets provided included a duvet, with fresh cover, and a thick heavy woolen blanket. I think it was the best nights sleep I've had in months.

The hostel was so unlike a hostel, more like someone's summer place by the sea. It was exactly what I was looking for, our stay was very pleasant and filled with all the delights I hope for when traveling: comfort, hospitality, funny characters, new tastes and smells and sights. It was lovely, and that is why I have written this novel about it.

The hostel

The stove

PEAT!!!!!!!

kitchen table

our room

Some better photos of Edinburgh

I don't want to speak ill of my phone's picture taking abilities because it served me so well on my South West Coast Path journey. But I will say that for cities, and closeup things, a real camera (which I happened to bring with me this time) can't be beat. Of course, I mean a real camera, as in, a real digital camera, not a film camera, silly. In any case, here are some more pictures from Edinburgh, taken with my trusty 6 year old digital camera. 

View of Edinburgh and the castle

View of the castle from below

Edinburgh Castle

view from the castle