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| Black Forest Gateau |
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| 'The World's Largest Cuckoo Clock' |
The next day I joined an excursion to a local vineyard. The Baden-Württemburg area is a wine producing region and after a tour of the vineyard by the couple who owned it, we went back to their house where we were given a delicious barbeque. It was a sweltering day and we were all very happy to try white wine and home-made elderflower cordial in their shady garden.
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| Tour group with a view of the vineyard and Black Forest |
Tuesday was a great day, thanks to the visit of Jogi Löw, the German national coach who guided 'die Mannschaft' to World Cup glory this year. The city of Freiburg packed into the square in front of the Rathaus and when Jogi arrived he was greeted with cheers and singing. And he didn't disappoint - no one realised he'd bring the actual trophy along with him:
It was an incredible sight, which made me think about how much it would mean to English people if we were to win the World Cup one day. Jogi, who had three stints at SC Freiburg during his playing career, is a local to the city and (from what I understood of his speech) coming back to Freiburg was even better than presenting the World Cup to hundreds of thousands of fans in Berlin.
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| "Welcome home - thank you Jogi!" |
I've visited two of Freiburg's five museums so far, which were both excellent. I'll do a blog post about them when I've visited all five. On Friday afternoon there was a trip to the Ganter brewery; Ganter is one of Freiburg's most famous beers and it is sold in almost every bar in the city. The tour was really interesting, especially the part about adhering to Germany's purity laws, which dictate that beer can consist of no more than four ingredients: hops, barley, yeast and water. The tour guide pointed out that the water is the most important ingredient, and that the water used to make Ganter comes directly from the Black Forest. After a tour of where the beer is made, which was described as 'one of the most modern and sophisticated breweries in Germany' we went to the bar and could try any of the Ganter beers. The barman made a comment about the English way of serving a pint (i.e. with little or no foam) being wrong. I beg to differ; I like my drinks in liquid form, please.
On Saturday we went to Basel in Switzerland. First impressions of Switzerland were good; the city seemed clean and friendly. We walked to the river first, which although smaller, bore similarities with the Seine and the Thames. After a short walk we found the Münster (Cathedral) which was a red Gothic building with two imposing towers. Interestingly it was originally Catholic but today is a Reformed Protestant church. After an earthquake in 1356 it was rebuilt by Johannes Gmünd, who was also employed to build the Freiburg Münster.
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| View of the Cathedral across the river is Basel's highlight |
Later we decided to go to the Fondation Beyeler, probably Basel's most famous museum. The guide book didn't inform us of just how far out of the city the museum is. We walked for over half an hour before asking a lady selling sunflowers how much further it was. 'Half an hour from here' wasn't the answer we were hoping for, but she guided us to the tram which got us there pretty quickly. The Fondation Beyeler houses artwork by the likes of Cézanne, Monet, Matisse, Picasso and Van Gogh. I was really looking forward to this as Impressionism and Post-Impressionism are forms of art that really intrigue me. Unfortunately, the main exhibition was closed and we could only see a collection by Gustave Courbet. For €9 entry only to find that most of the exhibits were unavailable was disappointing. The whole museum was rather strange. They were very strict about what you could take in, even stopping me from taking in an empty bottle of water for fear it might 'damage one of the paintings'. I also made the error of standing a little too close to one of the paintings which set an alarm off, although no one actually came to check I wasn't stealing it. I felt very out of place in the museum; the demographic was 60+, well-dressed. I was there in a Primark t-shirt and jeans.
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| Entrance to the Fondation Beyeler |
Best
One awesome thing they do in Germany is give you money if you return a plastic bottle to the shop. You put them in this big machine that scans the bar code and gives you a voucher to use in the shop. It's usually 0€25 per bottle, which when you can get six bottles of sparkling water for 0€69 is pretty strange because you're sort of making a profit. (Although the money has to be used in the store anyway). I think this is definitely something we should do in the UK, although it has the unintended side-effect of making homeless people go through the bins in an attempt to find bottles that have been thrown out.
German food can be really delicious. I've been eating out quite a lot lately (luckily Germany is a lot cheaper than Switzerland, which I found out in Basel after a slice of pizza and a coffee cost me €12). Last night I had Schweineschnitzel mit Knöpfle und Rahmsauce. This is a delicious combination of pork schnitzel, a gnocchi-like starch and a sauce made from fresh cream. There's also something called Flammkuchen, which is a very thin pizza with sour cream instead of passata. Lecker!
Wurst
So I wanted to buy some normal tea. Just tea. After browsing the tea section in Lidl (which for some illogical reason is really far away from the coffee), I settled on 'Cream Tea', which had a picture of a scone with jam and cream, so naturally I thought it must be the kind we have back home. Unfortunately it was cream flavoured tea, which in case you're wondering, is disgusting. And that's from someone who likes most kinds of tea.
The coffee and milk aren't much of an improvement. The milk just doesn't taste the same. Mostly they drink UHT milk but even that tastes very different to the long-life milk you get in England. The coffee, which is called gold blend, is nothing like Nescafé gold blend. But I guess I'll get used to all these little differences.
George x
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