Germany 2017 Post 15

Weißenberg is 5km away from Bautzen. Mrguy had found us an apartment on a farm, which was really cozy.

The drive into town took us through other small towns. I think this is Lobau.

Finding a grocery store was a bit of a challenge, and on one evening we even took refuge in the offerings at a gas station grocery where we stepped over one liter of vodka catastrophe and witnessed a second, within a matter of minutes. This proves that a gas station mini mart is the same the world over.

This was one of our successful visits to a store:

One interesting thing we kept seeing in our travels in the East was stores that sell entire kitchens. This makes sense, again, in the former East Germany, where money is finally reaching the farthest parts of the country after almost 30 years of reunification. I can't recall where we heard this, but it was the case in small towns that after reunification the young people left for the promise of the West and some towns were simply abandoned, with home owners locking the doors and walking away. Now I think that people are moving back into these farther regions and rehabbing them.

Back to Bautzen. Many Germans and people of Sorbian ancestry descend on Bautzen for the holiday, and the place is really duded up for the occasion.

On the day before Easter people dressed in Bunny drag and traditional Wendish costume.

We found a bite to eat. This pickled herring sandwich was prettier than it was tasty.

And we drank some local beer, but not this particular one below. There were some Easter-only beers and we concentrated on them:

I forgot to mention our trip to the Bautzen Senfmuseum the day before. Because every town has its own mustard, right? Well Bautz'ner senf is a big deal here. We brought some of the mustard of my people home with us.

On Saturday, we wandered around town and saw this great oompah band.

If you zoom in, you can see that the band's tip jar is an empty tub of Bautz'ner senf. Loved that touch. I shot this image while standing in front of a stencil on the wall that said FCK NZS. 

I had a hot tip from some folks on Facebook that there would be a special musical presentation at the Sorbian museum later that day, so we wandered around to some of the local sights beforehand. The Bautzen Museum had some great crafts, excellent disaster paintings and an amputation painting. What's not to like?

Then we walked over to the Sorbisches Museum. Pretty walk.

Over there, we bought some Easter eggs, hand-painted with wax by men and women wearing traditional clothing. The eggs were incredibly beautiful, and the process really interesting. I came home with a goose quill (the traditional daubing implement) and some colored wax.

The musical presentation was like a lot of folk music. The Wendish bagpipe has a horn like a saxophone and the bellows is the skin of an entire sheep, which looks like the skin of an entire sheep, minus the ankles and feet.

Then off to the Monchshof, lured as we were by their goofy website and menu. As before, we got there and it wasn't so goofy. I tried aronia berry juice. Quite. Tart.

The ride home to the farm was beyond gorgeous. For a few days I'd been trying to get a good photo of the balls of mistletoe in the otherwise bare trees, but didn't quite have it until the sunset provided a good backdrop.

 

I'll take it.