Yesterday we went on our first Volksmarch.
The word comes from the German word “Volksmarsch”, meaning “people’s march”. It’s basically an organized hike of varying lengths.
We thought we could just show up and figure out what to do, but not so much. This particular event had a school as its starting point. You could start the hike any time between 7:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m. We arrived at about 12:30 p.m., and a lot of people had already finished their hike by then and were well into their merry-making.
Yes, it seems Volksmarching is nothing more than a good warm-up to an afternoon of hearty eating and drinking. By the time we got there the school was very crowded, both inside and outside.
We walked into the school and had no idea what to do next. There was a gentleman standing just inside the door next to a table display so Sean asked him “Sprechen Sie Englisch?” (Do you speak English?) and he replied “No, but I speak American!” Luckily we ran across one of the thousands of Americans who have been living in Germany for 40 years so he explained the whole process to us.
This event had hikes of 3 different lengths – 6k, 10k and 20k. We chose the 6k (about 3.7 miles) and the organizers had very helpfully put this marking at the start of the course so we knew where to go.
And here’s Sean just a-Volksmarchin’ along.
The words “Speisen und Getränke” at the top of sign indicate that this is a food and drink menu. A little misleading, because only the first item, Brötchen mit Wurst oder Käse (bread roll with sausage or cheese) was food. The rest of the menu was drinks. I think it might be illegal in Germany to ask people to walk almost 2 miles without the opportunity to buy a beer.
Sean is seen on the left here, enjoying a beer and desperately trying to get a signal on his handheld GPS.
After walking through the woods a bit more, we came back out onto the street. We ran across this guy in a traffic circle.
We passed this little trampoline-like thing set into the pavement. We had seen one once before in Copenhagen so we knew what it was. People were having fun checking it out.
It’s always a bonus when you pass a beautiful kitty on your walk.
And finally we arrived back at our starting point. This is less than half the crowd that was outside when we first got there. See that group in the blue t-shirts? They were there drinking bottles of wine when we first got there and they were doing the same thing when we finished. Yup, Volksmarching is just an excuse for a party!
And here I am after the walk.
The orange-colored card in my right hand is my Startkarte that was stamped at the beginning, middle and end of the walk. The white card in my left hand is my official Volksmarching log or something like that. At the end of the walk, they stamped this as well and wrote “6k” in the right-hand column. Once I log 9 more walks I can mail this in and get a certificate from the DVV, which is the Deutscher Volkssportverband. It’s one of the national organizations of the IVV that I mentioned earlier. You can keep logging your walks and get more certificates for number of walks, distance (minimum distance for an award is 500k total) or both. I think I’ll stick with number of walks.
After the Volksmarch we went home, took a nap, had dinner and then decided to go for a bike ride. What better motivation than this sign.
That sign on top is pointing the way to a wine-tasting stand.
We live in wine country and you see these signs in lots of towns in the area. They are open only seasonally. The one in our town – which has its own website and everything – is open from mid-April to early September this year. It’s open Friday through Monday each week and also on German holidays. There is a different local winery at the stand each weekend. This is what our local stand looked like at about 8:00 p.m. on Sunday evening.
As you can see, it’s a pretty popular spot and lots of people ride their bikes there. Germany is a very bike-friendly country, as shown in the photo below.
If you notice the round, blue sign you will see a bicycle on one side and 2 people walking on the other side. Now, if you look at the sidewalk you will see the left-hand side is red and the right-hand side is gray. The sign indicates that the sidewalk is for the use of both bicycles and pedestrians.
Cyclists are supposed to use the red side and pedestrians are supposed to use the gray side. Keep that in mind when you’re walking in Germany or you might get run over by an enthusiastic cyclist.
Usually they are nice enough to ring their bell at you to warn you to get out of the way first. But sometimes the cyclists don’t follow the rules and they ride on the pedestrian side. I actually bought myself a little bell that I keep in my purse and I keep saying I’m going to ring it at cyclists using the wrong side of the pavement. I haven’t really done it yet though.
The Germans are also nice enough to let you know when the dual-purpose sidewalk has come to an end as seen in this sign.
You can see the word “Ende” on this sign, indicating the end of the dual-purpose sidewalk. In this particular spot the sidewalk actually ends entirely, but in some spots it just means the cyclist has to move to the street. Often there is a bike lane in the street, but many times you’ll just be riding along with car traffic. German drivers are very good about sharing the road with cyclists.
Moving backwards to last weekend, we went to see a German punk band in concert. They are called Die Toten Hosen, which means The Dead Pants, and they’ve been around since 1982. They put on a great show. They even have cool show tickets.
Because we had to drive about an hour and a half to get to the show, we stayed overnight in a hotel. This guy was named Max and he was the very spoiled, very lazy, resident house cat of the hotel.
We did a little bit of exploring before the show and although we didn’t have time to walk this trail, we will definitely have to go back and try it. I’m dying to know where exactly an interplanetary hiking trail leads to.
I need to throw in a photo of our hotel’s shower at this point.
Something that has been puzzling us for years is the fact that almost every hotel shower we’ve run across in Europe – and we’re talking a LOT of hotels – ends up spraying water all over the bathroom floor. Seriously. I don’t get it.
Take a look at this shower for instance. Looks like a normal shower at first glance, right? Now take a look at the bottom of it and you should be able to see a gap of a couple of inches between the glass and the floor. How could you NOT get water all over the bathroom floor with a setup like that? It doesn’t matter where you aim the shower head, either. You might be able to minimize the damage a bit, but that floor is still getting soaked. One of these days I hope to be able to solve this mystery.
The hotel did make up for this shower, though, with this awesome vending machine. Have you ever seen such a great vending machine? Look closely at the 3rd row down. Yes, those are bottles of wine and sparkling wine. Now look closely at the last row. Yes, those are cans of beer. How you can you not love a country that sells beer and wine from a vending machine in a hotel?
Back to the concert. As you can see, it was outdoors. The opening band was Kraftklub and they were really good (if you like that type of music, that is, which we both do). If you want to check out one of their songs, here you go: Kraftklub video.
This is what they looked like from our vantage point. Good thing they had that big screen set up.
And finally, the main attraction. The band we came to see, Die Toten Hosen.
If you want to listen to one of their songs, click here: Die Toten Hosen video.
Just a few random photos to wrap up this post. One of the great things about Germany is being able to buy lots of fresh produce in season at roadside stands. Guess what this one sells?
I mentioned in this earlier blog about all the different recycling containers that you see in Germany. Another type of recycling container you see a lot is these Schuhe und Kleidercontainer bins. Schuhe means “shoes” and Kleider means “clothing” so yes, they make it very convenient for you to clean out your closet and drop off the clothes and shoes you no longer wear. Here’s Sean getting rid of a few shirts.
And, last photo for now, what will those Germans think of next?
We went to a huge bicycle store looking for a bike rack for the car. While they seemed to have everything but that in this store (I actually bought my bike at that store last year), they did have another awesome vending machine outside the store. If you ever need an inner tube, just stick your 7 euro in here and voilà.
Until next time!