Above the Rooftops of Heidelberg: Views from the Church of the Holy Spirit
With a golden sun overhead yesterday, Shawn and I ascended to the Heiliggeistkirche’s platform. I hadn’t made the climb up the 600 year-old Gothic church’s curvy staircase since 2002 so I was pleasantly surprised by the splendid panorama!
On the sandstone perch overlooking the Altstadt or Old Town, ladybugs congregated. Continue reading…
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Angels, Busts & Saints Dressed in Snow: A Visit to Oberammergau’s Cemetery
Perhaps it is a bit macabre, but I find cemeteries – particularly those in foreign locales – to be fascinating and fitting spots to reflect upon a place’s culture and history, and upon life itself. Continue reading…
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Apprentice for an Afternoon: Lessons with Germany’s Old World Artisans
During Oberammergau’s peak tourist seasons, visitors can easily while away an hour observing artisans demonstrating their trades on the ground floor of the beautifully-frescoed, 18th-century Pilatushaus. In past centuries, nomadic traders would have acquired crafts like these and sold them throughout Europe, making Oberammergau famous for its fine work. Today, travelers can purchase the items directly from the craftsmen and women at the Pilatushaus. Continue reading…
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Buzzing About Bart: The Bumble Bee with a Fondness for German Gingerbread
When my husband, Shawn, moved to Germany last October, I welcomed him home with a traditional German indulgence – Lebkuchen, or gingerbread. It’s the kind of sweet treat that’s plentiful at Oktoberfest stands and German wine fests each fall. The messages piped onto the heart-shaped gingerbread range from mischievous phrases to sweet nothings. The heart I carefully chose for Shawn read, “Ich habe Dich Lieb” or literally “I have for you love.” The white letters in the message were finished off with a lavender icing border, flowers and two Gummi bears. Continue reading…
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Celebrating Saint Nicholas Day & Germany’s Christmas Market Season
On the eve of December 6th, as a young girl, I placed my shiniest shoes in front of my bedroom door, anticipating the arrival of Saint Nicholas. The next morning, I eagerly popped out of bed, delighted to find my footwear stuffed with oranges, Christmas cookies, chocolates and tiny trinkets. St. Nick didn’t visit most of my classmates’ homes but I suspect he visited mine because of my family’s German ancestry. Continue reading…
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Dizzied by a Dazzling Array of Dirndls in Bavaria
Whenever I see Bavarians dressed in traditional German attire, I can’t help but recall a playful prank that my former American colleagues routinely played on friends and family who would come to visit them in Germany. The husband and wife would get laced up in their finest Trachten-wear. Continue reading…
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Fasching Festivities, German Style
For the ten years I called picturesque Heidelberg, Germany home, I was lucky to have a bird’s eye view when Fasching festivities took the university town by storm, as I’m sure they did today. Continue reading…
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Flowers to Wish You a Happy Day
I’ve always thought that those who work at ice cream or florist shops must have perpetually happy days. There’s something about a golden cone overflowing with heaping scoops of ice cream, or paper brimming with beautiful flowers from the neighborhood Blumen shop that puts one in a cheery mood! Continue reading…
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Frohe Ostern – Easter Greetings from Germany
Osterbrunnen, or Easter fountains, herald spring’s return to chilly Germany’s Franconia or Franken region. Each year, wells and fountains in town centers are dressed with boxwood cuttings, ribbons and delicately-painted pastel eggs. The custom celebrates water’s life-giving properties. The decorations typically spring up one week before Easter Sunday and they grace the fountains for a week thereafter, lending colorful accents to cobbled lanes and village centers that have been slumbering during the grey and frigid winter season. Continue reading…
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Germany’s Sommertagszug Tradition: Greeting Spring & Bidding Farewell to Winter
In parts of Germany three weeks before Easter, it’s customary to celebrate spring’s return with a Sommertagszug or summer procession. Though this year’s round of such fests was held last Sunday, for me, the 14th of March will forever be synonymous with Sommertagszugs since ‘Pi Day‘ 2010 is the date my husband and I first met. Continue reading…
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Greeting Autumn at the Heidelberger Herbstfest – Germany
What a splendid day for an autumn fest on Heidelberg’s Hauptstrasse or Main Street! With our bellies full with Neuer Wein (new wine), Zwiebelkuchen (onion pie), Bier, Bratwurst and Thai fare, we’re now at home resting, watching all the revelry from our fifth-floor apartment. The day was full watching children try their hands at archery and a Renaissance ladder climbing game; shaking our hips to traditional polka tunes and Frenchchansons; going back in time via items at a flea market filled with sentiment and history; and brushing shoulders with old and new friends. Continue reading…
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Love in the Air at the Heidelberg Castle
The Heidelberg Castle grounds are one of my favorite spots in which to stroll. When I was just a young babe in a Kinderwagen, my mother posed for a now-iconic family photograph at the castle’s main overlook spot, with me in tow. Twenty years after that shot was snapped, I moved from the United States – back to Germany – into a Heidelberg apartment almost visible among the clay roofs in that original photograph. Continue reading…
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A Nibbling Donkey & A Snow Camel: More Holiday Scenes from Oberammergau, Germany
The sign declared, Bitte Esel nicht füttern, and in Germany, the land so famously-known for its rules, I obliged. Even though visitors to the Christmas Market in Oberammergau, Germany were asked not to feed the photogenic donkeys (to keep the live Christmas props from developing upset stomachs), rubbing of the animals’ cotton ball-like ears seemed to be encouraged. Continue reading…
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Of Angels & Alphornists: Out & About in Oberammergau, Germany
We had merely set out on a seemingly-routine errand to find a hair stylist and pharmacy in Oberammergau, Germany, and instead, we found ourselves pleasantly distracted by something quite out of the ordinary for us: the soothing, foghorn-like sound of Alphorns, playfully known as ‘Ricola horns’. Continue reading…
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Snails, Wild Boar and Fairy Tales: Exploring Heidelberg’s Enchanting Forest
The forested hills cradling Heidelberg’s Old Town have been one of my favorite settings in which to explore and escape for the past decade. Before I met my husband, Shawn, I often made the ascent there independently to ponder life goals or jot hand-written letters to family and friends. Sometimes, I’d take friends or my parents along for the serene hike. Now, Shawn and I go there together — whether to escape the hustle and bustle of the city or to commune with nature under the trees’ exquisite canopies. Continue reading…
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Snowy Vignettes from an Alpine Paradise
Having ‘escaped’ winter by spending five wonderful, but scorching months in Asia last year, I must admit – it’s been a bit of a shock wintering in the Alps these past months. Fortunately, there are the visual elements that make sidewalk slips, shoveling and shivering so worthwhile: chalets peeking out from under snow blankets, Mother Nature wearing her finest maquillage, and graceful icicles about to rappel from rooftops. Here are more scenes from Oberammergau, Germany, and inspirational quotes attesting to the magic of winter. Continue reading…
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A Toast to Oktoberfest
I was first exposed to Germany’s Oktoberfest culture when I was eight years old. During a whirlwind trip to Munich, my parents’ German friends whisked us away to what seemed like each and every famous city landmark. Continue reading…
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Under the Rainbow – Heidelberg
Our visiting friends and family are both horrified and sympathetic when they learn that our circa 1762 apartment has 87 stairs, and dare I say, no elevator. I argue that the views of the Heidelberg Castle, church steeples and Königstuhl and Heiligenberg hills make the treacherous ascent worthwhile. Sometimes, following tumultuous activity in the skies above, a splendid Regenbogen will appear in the sky. Last week, Mother Nature gave us not just one, but two rainbows – simultaneously. Continue reading…
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Why I Adore Heidelberg: Celebrating Ten Years in the Loveliest of Cities
‘Ich hab’ mein Herz in Heidelberg verloren.’ So goes a line from Raimund’s musical comedy of the same name. For the past ten years, I too have lost my heart in Heidelberg. What do I love most about this graceful city on the Neckar River? Here are but just a few reasons why I adore Heidelberg: Continue reading…
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Winter Wonderland Wisdom
Nature is full of genius, full of the divinity; so that not a snowflake escapes its fashioning hand. -Henry David Thoreau
With craggy mountain peaks and evergreens on the hillsides dressed in a confectioner’s sugar-like snow to command one’s attention, it is easy to miss the smaller details of winter in the alpine village of Oberammergau, Germany. Continue reading…
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Woodcarvings, Passion Plays & Bavarian Attire: Germany’s Oberammergau
For the next few months, we’ll be hanging our (warm winter) hats in Oberammergau, a village situated in Germany’s Alps, where residents sometimes still sport traditional feather-adorned, green woolen hats and custom-tailored Lederhosen, while they hail passersby with a hearty Grüß Gott (literally ‘Greet God’) and warm smiles. Oberammergau is perhaps best known for itsHolzschnitzer (woodcarvers), colorful frescoes, and Passion Play, which is held once every ten years. Continue reading…
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© 2011-2012. Tricia A. Mitchell. All rights reserved.
Tricia A. Mitchell: sharing tales of People, Places & Passion
