We visited for a few days with our chum Martin and his partner Tina in
Oppenheim, Germany. Martin has been a close friend since grad school at Western back in 1977/78 — we were both doing graduate work in Philosophy (Martin finished his PhD in Germany, I never finished mine). We've kept in touch over these many years and visit when ever we can. We are quite close with much of his family, especially his mom and Christopher (who we call our No. 1 son).
We flew out of Heathrow on Saturday morning after a brief visit with Martin's mom (our Mom2) in Woking and our nephew's family in Ealing. Martin picked us up at the Frankfurt airport on Saturday and, at the end of the trip, dropped us off at the Frankfurt train station on Tuesday where we headed off to see Chris and Amy in Dresden. Neither of these trips into Frankfurt are non-trivial; it's over half an hour each way.
Oppenheim is a small town on a bend of the Rhine, not too far from Frankfurt which is a very large city on the other side of the river. Martin and Tina have an historic restored home in the old part of town. The area here and along the Rhine has many, many wineries — mostly Riesling and far better than anything we get at our LCBO. Their home is an old building with thick stone walls that has been lovingly restored and modernized. They are walking distance to the town center/city hall (Rathaus in German) where we met with some of their friends on Sunday for lunch. Their home has a ground floor self-contained apartment that, in the past, they have rented out as an AirBnB.
Martin and Tina are both retired; Tina only recently. In the interim between this and our last visit they had lived in Munich for several years (for Tina's work) and had rented out this home. They have returned only recently; it's not clear if they'll return to short term renting of the ground floor suite where we are staying.
Their home is on a oddly shaped large lot with a huge back garden with a big lawn, cherry tree and pool that they had installed. I recall visiting when the pool was installed. Like many homes around the town this has a couple of underground wine cellars. The really odd thing about these is they extend under the properties next door! Martin tells me that yes, the property above the cellar is the neighbors but the cellars underneath are theirs. Odd indeed.
The last times we have been to Oppenheim would have been in 2014 and 2016 while on KBS trips. Both times we stayed at their home and explored some of the wineries. This year we're not as mobile so stayed close to their home. Martin and Tina kindly kept us fed and entertained. We spent many a fine evening eating, drinking and chatting in their garden. Tina went out of her way to prepare some great dishes for us. And Martin had laid in a goodly supply of Huff Wines from Nierstein (just down the river) and we worked our diligently way through them.
There's a big cathedral in Oppenheim, the Katharinenkirche, that dominates town centre and the skyline. I did a walk out of the town into the vineyards above to take a few pictures. It's June so the fruit on the vines is just developing. I caught a glimpse of a deer resting in between the vine rows.
Like much of Europe Oppenheim is a pedestrian centric town (interesting to walk about the various lanes) but not particularly pedestrian friendly if you have any mobility issues. Tina, aware of Kate's problems, was able to borrow a wheel chair so she could see some of the city. I did a lot of traipsing about on my own. There were lots of these low little doors leading to underground wine cellars. I understand there are some interesting events staged underground. I don't think the cellars are used as much any more.
Another interesting thing was to see the stations of the cross throughout the town. At at least one corner there was a Jewish low-relief similar artwork in the wall. And, on the sidewalk, small brass plaques to mark the place where Jews had lived but were taken away and lost to the WWII Holocaust. Compare with the memorial near the Brandenburg Gates that I visited a few days later.
On Monday Martin and Tina took us on a drive out of town, up and over the hills to the east, to Landgasthof Engel in Schwabenheim. Another lovely old town, an historic old building with a courtyard that would have worked nicely had it not started to rain. The basement washroom had a toilet seat with an angle painting and the admonition, "Sei ein Engel, und setz Dich" (Be an angel, and sit down).
Martin and Tina were kind hosts. We enjoyed our visit with them and hope to see them, mom and Chris again on one side or the other of that big pond that separates us.
