12-9-2015 MUNCHEN, GERMANY

The drive to Munich from Ulm is short and frightfully fast on the autobahn so instead we decided to take the little back roads through the farm land and small villages.  The broad leaf trees are bare this time of year, huge clumps of mistletoe cling to the branches and the fields are either plowed under or covered with green velvet.  There were blinds scattered here and there, maybe for ducks or venison on the hoof?  Little villages of white houses with red roofs dot the landscape, always a kirche (church) as the centerpiece. 

Curiously, every now and then, there was what looked like a cemetery headstone with a cross on it out in the middle of a field.  I had to know what this is and so we stopped.  On this particular stone were the words, “Gott segne u schutze die Fluren Kreigsjahr 1940.”  I couldn’t find the words in my book and the hotelier here in Munich told me this is Old German.  It says, “God bless and protect our fields.  War Year 1940.” 

A quiet, thoughtful prayer engraved on this stone.  Did the farmers in the back country, without TV or internet, even know what the war was all about?  Maybe not.  Only that their fields might be bombed and they and their families would be left destroyed, hungry and in despair.  If this little monument could but talk.

We didn’t really know where we were in the little town of Krumbach but we came upon the Munding Gasthof and it was open.  It is a lovely white building with green shutters, family-owned for generations.  The small restaurant has wooden tables and benches where you are seated with others. 

Munding Gasthof, Krumbach, Germany

The benches have simple quilted pillows on them for a little added comfort.  Ladies in pretty dirndls serve food and I hit the jackpot!  Leberknödel soup was on the menu!  It tasted delicious, similar to Mom’s but with a lot more liver.  I’ll have to remember that.  Once again, Rob ate schnitzel with fries, what else?  As we were leaving, we encountered an Advent wreath.  I haven’t seen one since I was a child.  Four candles stand amid the boughs of the wreath to symbolize four weeks until Christmas and the arrival of the Christ child.  Each week, one more candle is lit and so on this day, there were two weeks left until Christmas.  In grade school, we all assembled for the lighting of the advent wreath each week as we sang “Oh Come, Emmanuel,” and it was sweet agony for us little kids.  “Three more weeks to wait, I can’t stand it.”  In the Munding Gasthof, how pretty and peaceful this wreath was and it brought back a flood of memories.  (Some good.  Some bad if the good Sisters of the Holy Family of Nazareth were having a pissy day.)

Advent wreath at Munding Gasthof

After lunch, we pressed on through the farm country to Schwabmünchen and soon we hit the autobahn for the Platzl Hotel in München.  This hotel is luxurious in the extreme with tuxedo-clad doormen, everybody calling me “Madame” and piles of down-doobie-do-down-down on the bed.  It is no accident, either, that it was chosen by us months ago based upon its location about ½ block from the Hofbräuhaus, the happiest oompah saloon in the world.  We got settled into our digs and, well, we had to go somewhere for dinner, didn’t we?  Around the corner to the Hofbräuhaus!  Stephan, Gottlieb and Karl invited us to join their long wooden table to laugh and sing.  Food and big steins of beer were ordered.  My dinner was schweinhaxe, a rotisserie-roasted pig hock about the size of a football, and a potato dumpling with gravy.  Rob had… wait for it… schnitzel with hot potato salad.  Prosit!  Ah, lots more time to spend in München!

PROSIT!