Cheb

Translation: People with hats or short Martian crossing zone.

Cheb
15 August 2009

On a whim, I decided to take the train to Cheb, a small town in the Czech Republic. This town met my two criteria quite well: it was within 3 hours on a train and I had not been there. The journey began racing the bus to the bus stop and ended around three hours later in a tiny train station with a passport check somewhere in the middle. It was nice to see a language I didn’t recognize again but the signs to the center of town were clear enough. Immediately, language aside, it was evident I had reached another country. Everything was not as clean and tidy and frankly, it looked like the type of place you would hope to get out of if you were born there.


Suddenly, despite the August heat, I was no longer thirsty.

The tourist office lady gave me an 8.5x11 sheet and when I asked a question, she said everything interesting in the town was on this sheet. The sheet had big pictures too. Within about 45 minutes I had walked through most of the “attractions”, the church, the square, ect. I forgot to look up the exchange rate before I left so I just got the middle-small amount from the ATM and based everything off of how much a candy bar cost. Is this castle worth 2 candy bars to me? Yes.


This is a picture of me on the 2nd floor of the chapel.



The castle had a neat tower and a double-storey chapel, both of which I had all to myself. I spend a good amount of time walking around and it was nice. With so few tourist attractions, there was no rush to see and do everything. I watched people take wedding pictures in a monastery garden, I watched kids on the street break dancing, and I saw families picnicking. I spent some time sitting on a bench with a book. The city was quiet and it was just a chill day overall. To round it out (and spend my remaining kroners), I visited the grocery store. It was a very un-touristy tourist day. Fantastic!


The black tower.


This tower is famous enough to get Wikipedia recognition.


Sidestreet.


Overlooking a nice park by the river.


City center.
It was a nice trip!

Middle Ages Festival

Mindelheim
27June 2009

On a whim, my friend Hellen and I decided to meet in Munich for a daytrip to Mittelheim, a small city south of Augsburg and home to the biggest rain storm I have seen in a while. It was wet. Normally, this small town would not have enough to entertain tourists for more than a few minutes but Mittelheim was living in the past. That’s right, the Middle Age Festival was in full swing, immediately evident by the historic city flags and peasant walking his ox down the street.



Not knowing where to go for the action, we walked through a wooden gate and back several hundred years. The little village was quiet, the campfire between the canvas tents had ashes from the previous night’s fire (pig roast?) and the villagers were gathered at a long table under the dining tent enjoying a late brunch. They were dressed head to toe with middle age clothes and had daggers and eating utensils hanging from their belts. Probably because they were somewhat surprised to see an umbrella, raincoats and backpacks in their century, the villagers ignored us at first but then gave directions to the center of town.


The Mittelalterfest was spread through the entire old-town and consisted of demonstrations of middle aged crafts (carving, lace-making, woodworking, blacksmithing, ect.), places to pick up new swords, armor and chainmail, and plenty of opportunities to buy all sorts of German delicacies.

We then walked about 3-4 million kilometers in the middle of nowhere in search of a crossbow tournament that may or may not have even existed, providing the opportunity to explore the industrial and residential sectors of Mindelheim. In the rain.

It is worth mentioning that most of the people we saw walking around were way into the fest. Swords, crazy hats, and the entire middle aged clothing scheme were the norm. Even the security people were dressed in similar black and yellow middle-aged clothes. They carried spears too!

The big event of the day was the battle. Staged slightly outside of town to commemorate a battle in the city’s history (where the city lost), this event probably had 100 fighters and ten times that many viewers. The spear-wielding security guards passed out cotton to plug your ears and one big bearded nobleman mentioned that someone lost a finger in a cannon at the previous reenactment.


The two sides marched in with flags and drummers and stared each other down for a quarter of an hour before they started blowing stuff up. There were about half a dozen big cannons that made FANTASTICALLY powerful sounds and shockwaves and a handful of muzzle loading rifles that contributed to the noise and smoke. Then the real fighting started. Swords and spears clanked, eventually leading to the overly dramatic death of many a soldier. Between attacks, the women and children would rescue the fallen and the drummers would play on. Eventually, the city lost and so began the reign of the imperial overlords or something like that.

The final event of the day was “Flag Throwing” so we proceeded to mistakenly give up the best bleachers in the plaza before finding another spot to observe. This “Flag Throwing” can best be described as a drum line and men prancing about in tights waving city flags in the best German/college color guard tradition.