Day 6 – Trains, Achern, Wine and Flame Cakes.

(20/10/2011)

 It was time for M and I to venture out of South East Bavaria and land in South West Baden-Württemberg, up in the Northern regions of the Black Forest: A little place called Achern. Like many places in Germany, Baden-Wurttemberg also went through it’s personality disorder since the first century AD. From the Romans, then the Holy Roman Empire (496 AD) then a part owned by France and America after World War II both being Württenmberg-Hohenzollern and Württemberg-Baden respectively. It was not until after a referendum for a merger passed and two states married on April 25, 1952.

Leaving Bavaria, M, K and I took full advantage of the train network. Our host K helped us with the tickets, where to go and how to get there. The train connections throughout Germany are, for lack of a better description – awesome! After traveling through some of the major cities, it is clear to understand how it all works. Throughout major cities you have a central station known as a Hauptbahnhof. These central stations are major interchange points between areas, regions and sometimes even countries. For a Melbournian, a Hauptbahnhof can resemble Southern Cross Station (AKA Spencer Street Station). Some are so big that they can seem like Airports – like Berlin Hauptbahnhof. There are two layers to the network, both which you can see at any station. The first is a complex network of lines and bahns. These bahns can be for example, the S-bahn or U-bahn. Usually the S-bahn will circulate through major town areas and pass through the major stop points, while the U-bahns would cover the rest. There are many different types of train’s with different designs, but all have a purpose, like the bullet shaped ICE train or the double decker trains – more on that in a later blog down the track…

Achern, apparently, is a small town. Apparently, small for Germany is 25,000 plus people. We were greeted by K’s mother, who drove us to there home, where we were then greeted by a giant friendly dog with paws as big as a human hand and a soul like a leaf floating on water. I could not have come across a more friendly creature. Either way, as soon as K fed it M’s left over Schnitzel (which was bigger than her face), it is easy to remember why dogs are dogs and not human – I was jealous. I wish I could eat a schnitzel that big in one bite and ask for more!

K had reminded me that German’s are not known for their hospitality but M and I got the complete opposite of that statement at K’s parent’s house. Their house is surrounded by wildlife (we saw a squirrel), trees and warmth. Immediately, I have always felt calm being around nature, but I am sure to not be alone in that statement. Once settled, K was excited to go for her routine mini hike around the hills near her house. Passing through, the kid like dog knew what we were up to. With her big eyes blinking at us, we knew we would not be allowed to leave without her.

Walking through the neighbourhood before hitting the hill, it was about now I truly felt estranged. Did I step into some time portal or post card picture? The house’s looked as though I had step into a kid’s two dimensional image. Perfect triangular rooftop with perfect square outside and cross wooden square windows, with door placed perfectly in the middle on the bottom. It was odd but quaint and every house had it’s own personality but they all looked at each other knowingly – they knew they were Achern houses. I would have personally liked to have gone inside to see if these over-sized cottage/barn house’s looked different from the inside, but that would be trespassing. I would like to say it matched K’s parents house, but they were different. Their land was a lot bigger than the normal house’s we passed and seemed as though it was a couple of houses combined to make one awesome place to live. The other queer fact about Germany – it doesn’t matter where you are, you are always within metres to the next Cigarette vending machine. Some of them are standing in isolated sections that it’s a wonder to anyone how these stay magically filled up waiting for the next walking customer to cough up the Euros and their lungs.

Hitting the hill we began the steady climb up the hill of known path’s before us. K let the dog off the leach to run rampant ahead, aside or behind us, seeing her nose sniff in overtime and eating random untouched grass by human hands. The sight was pleasing to the eyes. For city or suburban dwellers M and I were introduced to colours and shades of Green, which in a sense gave us a homely feeling, with a few exceptional colours we have not seen before. The air was clean and no longer smelt of Bavarian brewery or cooked Marronis. The view just kept on getting better and better and K mentioned something that sparked our interest – Vineyards!

With a couple of “Are we there yet?” Questions and a few groans and sighs and doggy sniffs and tail wagging we finally made it to a vineyard – or 50. The view was ahead of us, all the houses in place in squares out before us as if I had just set up my SIMS village. Everything is conveniently in the right place. The hill was steep, looking like a 45 or sometimes even 50 degree angle. The oddity here isn’t the beautiful picturesque view over the setting sun just visible through patches of blue creating the serene like view. What completes the surreal serenity is where the vines are organised and standing before us, row after row, block after block: on the side of the hill! M and I could only imagine how difficult it would be to pick those grapes. Honestly, the man or woman who would go picking grapes would have giant 20 kg dumbbells for calves and thighs with a gymnast’s balance! Awesome, refreshing and like looking out over any city, you feel as though you had taken over the world for a split second; until you are met with the reality of your mortality thinking about the steep decent.

A few thousand pictures later, a patient host and 3,000 chewed blades of grass later we found ourselves back down. It was time for dinner. K had been wanting to take us to a tiny little restaurant within Achern’s central district, or Kernstadt.

After dropping the dog home we did just that. One of the best things for me in Europe is a simple concept but utterly addictive. The fact that you can find Art in any direction you look, in any town you are in is absolutely amazing. There are of course your central locations with museums but the amount of free art that exists in front of buildings, on the roads, on a ceiling attached to an apartment complex and even in little cities that aren’t even major districts like Achern. If it isn’t the cute preserved chapel of St Nicholas still in use today or the creature on the building cutting a rope on three humans falling down which make up the fountain in the centre of the town, it will simply be the sign on the entry of a hotel or restaurant and finally the fine presentation of food and beer. This is the light side of pride without corruption which bring out pure finesse and eloquence.

Walking into this restaurant we were advised by our host that this is where you can get some good Flammkuchen. Given that our host is vegetarian, we guessed it would be vegetarian. M and I were wrong – it can be either. Flammkucken, literarly means ‘flame cake’. The french call it Tarte flambée which means ‘pie baked in flame’. Given that description, it is not actually baked in a flame, but we did eat a dessert Flammkucken that was dosed in Rum and then set alight on our table! Cooked through a wood fire oven, it almost resembles a type of gourmet pizza; dough as the base, cheese called Fromage frais which is a dairy product that is supposed to be fat free, except when people like to make it more flavoursome with cream. To top it off, onions and lardon is added.

For variety, the different types of Flammkucken exist where for example lardon is replaced with mushrooms, or as aforementioned made with additional toppings to make a dessert. I did ask for the origin of Flammkucken and my host told me this is debated amongst Flammkucken lovers as to whether it is German or French. Doing a little digging online, there seems to be a general consensus that it is actually Alemannic speaking farmers. Given that we were close to border regions of where these farmers come from and that the Fromage frais home is that of Alsatian peoples, we were eating the real stuff. Flammkucken seemed to have come about in the 60s when some random pizza craze came in.

This Flammkucken melted in my mouth and I was not disappointed at all. This was complimented with Neuer Wein, translated simply as New Wine. In Munich we went to a potato house restaurant and tried the white variety and this time, the red. The Red tasted like lolly water; potent stuff if you’re not careful but leaves a pleasant refreshing feeling…Refreshing and easy to drink is a dangerous combination for any alcohol. Neuer Wein is wine that is at the beginning stages of fermentation.

With drinking the other type of wine and the other type of pizza, it was the first time on my journey that I felt as though I was somewhere else completely, and I liked it – a lot. We eventually stumbled out the door and walked our way home to then pass out for our next adventure for tomorrow to cross border into France to visit Strasbourg – home of the Alsatians! 

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