traveldiary.stracke.us

Every coutry of ” Old Europe” seems to have its epic. In Britain, it´s Beowolf, in Italy, it´s Inferno, and in Germany, one is Nibelungenlied. The story actually starts in Xanten, in nothwestern Germany, where a knightly family owns a castle and wages the usual wars of the times. When marriages took place, at that time, the whole castle population went to take part and thus you had great wanderings from city to city or country to country. Das Nibelungenlied describes life in this structure of the times and includes weddings, wars, and migrations. One of the main characters, Brunhilde, was to be wed to a Hun, in present day Hungary. Part of the epic describes their journey along the Danube River to her future mate. We followed these footsteps, but not on horseback, as they did in the story, but rather on bike. It was a great journey through beautiful vineyards, past forests, and along the plains and meadows of the Danube River. After 5 days of bike riding, our butts needed a break and we went to a local swimming pool for a relaxing afternoon. There we took a little nap, since sleep last night was not as restful as I had hoped. We resided in a B&B next to the town church, whose bells chimed every quarter hour, even during the night. You got to love “Old Europe”.

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 28th, 2005 at 1:45 pm and is filed under Austria. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.