Westward Part 1: Bad Wildungen

In true Wildung Family fashion, our westerly roadtrip began by attempting to navigate the backroads of Eastern Germany. I think passing through small towns on a leisurely drive just to see the sights is definitely an American pasttime; our friends and co-workers here thought it "interesting" that we would lolligag and zigzag instead of making our way directly to Amsterdam via the autobahn. In tribute to them, I will tell you that there was more than one (or five) times that we had to turn around because the map and reality did not mesh, and yes it took all day to get to our hotel, but the drive, even in the rain, was amazing.

Coming from the Evergreen State, it is a rare opportunity to drive through a beautifully bare deciduous forest. And our rental car was some luxury SUV-wagon type thing that had tight suspension and pretty much drove itself, so the twists and turns on our journey were exciting. And you all know how I feel about rain....

Getting closer.... we were all in agreement that kilometers are a fantastic way to measure distance, they go by so much faster than miles!

It was so delightful to come around a bend in the road and see something like this standing so proud on the side of the road. It is a testament to the spirit of history that whoever built this road decided to keep this silo; I like to think someone else saw this view and wanted to pay it forward. Being in Europe sometimes gives me a brief and fleeting understanding of the magnitude of time.

And here we crossed into the city of Bad Wildungen. This shot pretty much came out just as I had envisioned, sans Ben, who would not get out of the car because of the rain. He's pretty sure he'll melt you know.

And then we parked the car instead of just stopping to look on the side of the road and everyone anxiously jumped out and became joyous. Joyous because this beautiful castle/palace/estate sitting high above the hills of Bad Wildungen was one of our first views, and joyous because we were done driving for awhile.

We loved Bad Wildungen. The "Bad" means a bath or watering place in Deutsch, and usually refers to a spa town. The streets were all narrow and cobblestoned, bordered by the neat and tidy architecture of the German people. It was definitely a touristy place, but oh so pretty and filled with art, from the way that the inhabitants landscaped their yards to the rocks in the middle of town covered in mosaic tile scenes. I can imagine how visitors might want to hang out here when the flowers are blooming and the sun is lighting up the stained glass windows of the antique buildings.

We grabbed a coffee and spent a little time wandering around a toy store, and you know how that goes when kids are tired and hungry. Needless to say, we ended up having a little family discussion on the sidewalk in front of the toystore. While we were out there we heard a loud crash behind us. Turns out someone hadn't set their parking brake and their car rolled backwards down the hill from the post office and crashed into some metal posts. The super funny part is that Mark and Ben had just been enjoying a blooper film on the interenet about bad women drivers and the scene before us could have been cut and pasted from that little movie. It was so familiar that Ben asked "Is this where they made that show?"

This was one of the most beautiful homes/storefronts in town. And it was right next to a smaller home that had a little blurb written on its wall about the "Wildung Family", or so we thought. Turns out we can't read German all that well yet and the sign actually said that a prominant Jewish family by the name of Hammer used to live there, but they either perished from persecution or were expelled. Yikes. So glad we had that wrong and so grateful EVERYDAY not to be a Jew living in Germany in the mid-twentieth century.

And here's a closing shot of that rock with the mosaic tiles in the center of town. Loved it that the German flag was flying above it.