Relaxing day in and around Smalltown Germany...
Lazy morning as Holger and Anni, who had to get up at 5.45am each morning for work, wanted a sleep in until 9am this Saturday morning. Who were we to argue? We can do that too and did. Nice.
Our bed is a combined IKEA sofa / bed in the living room which was surprisingly comfortable and long enough even for Hans. Here is Di very much tucked in.
Cool and crisp morning yet again as you can see from these early morning shots.
Breakfast was not a small affair. Lots and lots of goodies were on offer, variety plus as you can see here so a long and lazy breakfast followed.
Unfortunately, the weather got cloudier and some light rain started to fall as we arrived at our main destination for the day, the Rottenburg markets.
Here are Holger and Anni at Rottenburg's main square. It was quite an adventure walking to the markets...more on that later.
The town's Rathaus (town hall) is the orange coloured building behind to the right of the picture.
The owners of the farm where Holger and Anni live sell their smoked delicacies from a caravan at these markets and this is it. Plenty of smoked small goods to sample, which we did. Their famous Bratwurst made on these premises is on the menu for dinner tonight.
Yep, Di liked it so she decided to buy some sliced salami for bread. However, at payment time our money was refused and we got the goods for free as special guests from Australia. How nice was that? Thanks Franci.
Now, Di was taking over control of some of the cooking so next stop was a vegetable stand.
The JVA that you may see in the background just above Di's head stands for Justizvollzugsanstalt or penitentiary / prison. In other words, the goods on offer here come from the local low security prison. Whether the blokes who serviced the public were inmates or not, we don't know.
Rottenburg is at the river Neckar and you can see how high previous floods had come on the sign in the lower right corner.
Oh yes, we forgot to mention that it was very very icy and slippery in places, in particular while walking over cobblestone (we skated as best we could in our hiking boots).
This tractor was sanding the bridge over Neckar so they were doing their best to prevent accidents.
This house next to the Neckar is an "Advent Haus" with more windows around the left corner. There are still a few more days to go before Weihnachten so some shutters remain closed until "their number comes up".
The Australian images across Europe, in the most unlikely places, are now becoming almost expected. Here the "A" is for Arzt (Doctor). Perhaps the logo was for a clinic for mothers with children, who knows?
Hans took a selfie of himself in the middle of Rottenburg in the rain.
A quick sojourn to the bookstore as Anni needed some pens and we browsed the shelves. Plenty of European crime writers and some names Di had not seen before and she is always on the lookout for more authors. Time to check the Amazon for English versions.
The markets did not provide all the food stuff we needed for today, Saturday and for tomorrow Sunday when the grocery stores are all closed, so a trip to Edeka supermarket followed.
Here is Di explaining the finer details of an Eiswein for Anni. We had tried the Eiswein near Niagara Falls in Canada and found that it was sweet and delicious but expensive. Edeka seemed more reasonably priced.
Hans, of course, had to get some weissbier and what better place to cool them down at home than using "green" power, I.e. let the cold weather with the beers on the window ledge take care of the cooling.
Di got the 2 coloured bottles on the left - experimental mixed drinks. The grocery basket seemed full of alcohol we had thrown in - but a weekend with friends with nice food tends to bring that out in us.
A shot from Holger and Anni's apartment on the second floor towards the main road called L361, the same main road that we travelled yesterday before arriving in Tübingen. A bit gloomy in the early afternoon.
The very, very old dog Hasso sat outside the pigs enclosure and kept them company or perhaps it was the other way around. That is, until a cow came and chased Hasso away. Apparently this particular cow had a track record of escaping and Hasso was no match for her. We couldn't but help feeling sorry for this old dear and half blind dog, moving so slow so slow, when once he ran as a working farm dog. Ahh the joys of old age.
Di cooked up a soup storm in the kitchen which is what we had for lunch together with bread. Cream of cauliflower and potato soup was nice and warm on this cold and wet Saturday.
Afterwards, the weather did clear up a bit but the weather forecast was for more light rain later in the afternoon so we had a quiet indoors down day, doing our own things on laptop (Holger), iPads (Hans and Di) while Anni had an afternoon nap, very well deserved as she also had a bit of a cold.
No photos from this point on. Anni awoke feeling a bit better, and we were chatting together so well that we forgot to use the camera. Di and Holger started cooking in the kitchen, the key ingredient being our farmer's fantastic Bratwurst, served with "Di Kohl" (aka a mix of cooked onion, cabbage, booked potatoes, caraway seeds, and quark). Meanwhile Anni and Hans took care of our clothes washing (the life of a world traveller, using washing machines whenever we can!).
Our meal was lovely and leisurely as the Bratwurst were "wunderbar" accompanied by more chatting. A couple of weissbier went down almost too easily of course.
In summary, a very relaxed day and evening so now we say good night.
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