Bretten and Black Forest

Bretten became our destination, just because Harry lives there. You remember Harry? He is this crazy German guy we met in Honduras and who we spent about 5 weeks traveling with in Central America and Ecuador. In Germany we wanted to meet up again and decided to visit him in his hometown, Bretten. The city is located in the region of Baden, which is part of the state of Baden-Wuerttemberg where the Black Forest is (the home of the cuckoo clocks) and where you can also find Lake Constance (Bodensee), Mercedes-Benz, Porsche and a lot more. On the Internet I found a campaign sticker from the state of Baden-Wuerttemberg itself saying: "Wir koennen alles. Ausser Hochdeutsch." Translated "We can do everything except speak standard German." This is an allusion to the fact that Baden-Wuerttemberg is one of the principal centers for innovation in Germany with many inhabitants having distinctive dialects, such as Swabian (Schwaebisch) and Badisch/Allemanic.

On Thursday afternoon the 30th of July we arrived in Bretten where we were welcomed by Harry, Antje, his lovely girlfriend and Harry’s mom. We had "Kaffee und Kuchen" coffee and cake, a strawberry cake prepared by Harry himself. Yummi!!!

The day after we went with Harry and Antje to Heidelberg (see next report "Heidelberg"). At night we went to see a fist ball (Faustball, in German) tournament. Both Harry and Antje are passionate fist ball trainers/players. Harry has won a lot of titles including winning the world championships as coach with the Women national fist ball team. Harry is the man!!!! Have you heard about fist ball? It is a sport similar to Volleyball but much older and it is played on grass with 5 players in each team. At the tournament there were participating teams from Swabia, Baden, a local team and the national team from Brazil. At the end the Brazilians won but it wasn’t too obvious. After the match we had beer, caipirinas, Sekt (sparkling wine) and lots of fun. Who wouldn’t?

The day after we went for another trip. We drove by car through the deepest Black Forest. We stopped at a massive dam and at a toboggan run (Rodelbahn) for some sliding. That was fun!!! I think you can tell from the photos.

We even made it to Baden-Baden, famous for its springs, spas and luxury Casino. The Russian writer Dostoevsky wrote “The Gambler” while compulsively gambling at the Baden-Baden Casino. We made it neither to the Casino nor to the springs. In fact the city is quite expensive so we had just money for lunch at “Nordsee”, a German fish food chain.

Then we headed back to Bretten. At night we had a delicious dinner (I had “Knoedel mit Pfifferlingen” a type of dumpling with chanterelles) at a local restaurant in one of the nearby villages. Later we had some beers in the Old Town of Bretten and the next morning Fredrik and I strolled around to see more of Bretten and its beautiful half-timbered houses.

By the way, Bretten has a quite interesting history. Harry told us about the “Brettener Hundle” (the dog of Bretten), which today is the city’s landmark, that in 1504 set an end to the siege of the city by the Duke Ulrich von Wuertemberg. The people of Bretten had fattened the dog and when it was chubby enough they sent it out to the besieging troops from Ulrich von Wuertemberg. When the Duke saw the dog he couldn’t believe that the people of Bretten still had so much food to live on that even their dogs would be that fat. He cut of the dogs tail and marched off with his men and artillery. The Bretten people still celebrate this day of victory, once a year at the Peter and Paul Festival.

Many thanks to Harry and Antje for a wonderful time!!!!

Lots of love,

Sabrina and Fredrik