Invitation To Germany, Vignettes-1

Chapter 2 Near Frankfurt
(Idar-Oberstein to Heidelberg)

Idar-Oberstein … Since there was no room to widen the street, or to add another, they built a bridge, not across but length-wise covering the river as it goes through town.

Heidelberg … The setting for the operetta “The Student Prince,” is this same Heidelberg Schloss. … we visited the Castle grounds at sunset, and were admitted to a dress rehearsal of “The Student Prince.” … the last time we saw this operetta, (was) at the High School Auditorium in Palm Springs.

Chapter 3 More, Frankfurt Area
(East and North of Frankfurt)

Marburg … When we were ready to leave the only street out of the marketplace that appeared large enough for the RV, was the pedestrian shopping street.

Bad Homburg … a passing resident suggested that he point his camera the other way, and not remember her hometown with a picture of “… that monstrosity.”

Chapter 4 Saar River Valley

Mettlach … Let’s hope it doesn’t take too many years to heal the scars resulting from changing the formerly shallow Saar River with grassy treelined banks, into a canal with rock and concrete retaining walls.

… a caricature of German officialdom, just like in the movies and cartoons. In the Zoll office there were three large desks, each well supplied with long wooden-handled rubber stamps, but there was but one official. We had to stifle our laughter as he sat himself behind each desk in turn, came to attention, and applied, with gusto, the needed approvals.

Chapter 5 Emmy’s Cousins

The words “Emmy’s Cousin” includes a bunch of real Cousins, some “numbered and removed” Cousins, husbands and wives of Cousins, and perhaps people who may not really be Cousins, but then who’s counting.

A two-story rowhouse (townhouse) built in Mettlach in 1815, has been the Herrmann family home since the late 1800s. Two-foot thick exterior walls survived the bombs and grenades of both WW I and WW II, but in the attic, splintered rafters remain a token of war-time damage.