A friend came to visit Würzburg early in March before the coronavirus restrictions started, and we decided to take a day trip to Wertheim am Main, about 40 minutes away by car. Wertheim is in Bavaria’s neighbouring state of Baden-Württemberg, and is located at the junction of the Main river and its tributary, the Tauber. It is best known for its beautiful castle, which sits on a hilltop overlooking the rivers. Continue reading
Third week at home under curfew rules, which should last until the 19 April. If they don’t extend it…
4 April 2020 (Saturday): The weekends are not representative of my weekdays, obviously, so all of these posts start with the best two days of the week. In the weekends our routine is to take a short drive to the countryside around Würzburg to do walks (still allowed in Germany). It’s only a 15 minute drive to fields, forests and vineyards – an advantage of living in a small town. I’ve realized that these walks are essential for keeping my pregnancy-related foot/leg swelling down, since they’re always less fat the day after a longer walk. We prefer walking in the countryside as it’s harder to avoid other people in town, and walks often involve a lot of road crossing. Of course, it’s also much prettier and more relaxing in the countryside. Continue reading
Second week of curfew. For the first week, see here.
28 March 2020 (Saturday): Like Friday, Saturday came with awesome weather – Around 19 degrees Celsius and sunny. After a relatively slow morning, we went for a wonderful long hike that went through vineyards and forests near Würzburg. My husband plotted a circular route that comprised part of the Panoramaweg (Panorama route – through vineyards) and part of the Mainwanderweg (Main hiking trail – the Main is the river in the area). It was a good workout. My Fitbit says I did 12.5km, and there were quite a lot of hills. Not bad for a walk in the last month of pregnancy. There were no crowds; occasionally we passed other walkers or mountain bikers, at a safe distance. Most of the time we were completely alone. Continue reading
For how this whole mess started, see my previous post, In the time of Corona.
20 March 2020 (Friday): As expected, our state (Bavaria) declared an “Ausgangssperre” (curfew), to begin at midnight on Friday the 20th March. A curfew is a regulation that requires people to stay indoors. Apparently the officials went for these measures because a lot of people have been ignoring the advice to avoid others (practice social distancing), and have continued to hang out in groups. The wonderful spring weather we had this week didn’t help – after months of grey skies and cold, everyone ran outside immediately. We did the same, going for nature walks on both days of the weekend, but we avoided contact with others. However, some young people were even having “Corona parties”. Crazy. So, now we all have a curfew. We’re allowed to leave home to go to work (if necessary), shopping for essentials (food, medicine etc), to the doctor, to help someone out, for animal care, and also for sports/walks/fresh air (since this is good for health). However, you can only hang out together with those you live with and nobody else. Continue reading
This is such an easy recipe, and we make it all the time now to use up overripe bananas. It’s great for breakfast or as a snack. Continue reading
These are strange times.
I had planned other posts, but it feels impossible to continue with these and ignore the coronavirus pandemic. At the same time, although I am compulsively reading about the coronavirus at the moment, I am also getting tired of hearing about it to the exclusion of everything else. The World Health Organization (WHO) actually recommends not checking the coronavirus news more than twice a day, to avoid stress and anxiety. So, expect posts about other things in the next weeks too. But for now, I’ll summarize our experience of the pandemic so far. Continue reading
In January, following our tradition of exploring the hills, we set off for our first hiking outing in Lower Franconia, the region of Bavaria in which Würzburg is situated. A quick search on Komoot showed us that there are a lot of interesting hikes within about a 60-90 minutes radius of Würzburg. For our first trip, Kreuzberg got the nod because 1) it has a monastery with a brewery (Husband’s Choice) 2) it has the same name as a Berlin suburb and we were curious to see “the other Kreuzberg” and 3) it is the highest of the Rhön mountains (928m) in the Bavaria, and is known as “The Sacred Mountain of the Franconians”. Continue reading
Step out of Cologne central train station (Köln Hauptbahnhof) and you will find yourself staring up at a towering cathedral: The Dom (Cologne cathedral). Continue reading
Before I came to Germany, I used to spend a lot of time hiking in the Cape mountains in South Africa. Although I’ve been living in a flat part of Germany, I still travel to the mountains every now and then to satisfy my hiking cravings. I love hiking in both places, but I was interested to notice that the hiking experience is a little different in the two places. It made me realize there are many kinds of mountains, and many kinds of hikes.
These are the differences I’ve observed: Continue reading
All German towns are more beautiful in summer (unless covered by a layer of snow), but winter is long, so we though we might as well start doing some sightseeing in our new state despite the grey weather. Bamberg has a reputation for being a particularly picturesque town, so we headed there on a Saturday afternoon. Continue reading
