… but I didn’t get too far. And when I sort myself out a little better, I’ll show you why.
But those of you who follow this rubbish on a regular basis will recall that I have been having kitchen and bathroom worktop issues. I mentioned this to Hans because Germany is the place to be if you want high-quality but affordable products, and so he had taken me on Wednesday evening to several furniture and DiY places.
So to cut a long story short, for which you will all be grateful, on my way out of eching I went and picked up 5 planks of 28mm light-oak, 60cms by 240cms. Cost? Just €375 – for the lot, not just for one. If that’s not going to do the job that I want, then nothing will.
From here I went to a town called Donauwurth, situated on the banks of the River Danube at its confluence with another river, the name of which I have forgotten.
It’s yet another walled city, of which there is an enormous number in Germany, and if you look very hard, you’ll see a pedestrian gate down there at the end of the path. That’s the way in. We are actually looking at the old moat right now.
It’s quite a beautiful little town, calm, quiet and peaceful with some beautiful buildings that look quite old.
But don’t allow yourself to be misled by appearances because it isn’t all what it seems. These buildings may indeed look old but you will be hard-pressed to find anything in the centre dating from before 1945. That’s because despite it being calm, quiet and peaceful, it was selected for the target of the British Bomber Command in April 1945, when the war was all but over and when whatever there was that went on (or didn’t go on, whichever is the case) here had long-since ceased to be of any military significance.
Not that that had ever bothered anyone in Bomber Command. Lord Cherwell’s infamous “de-housing” report had made it quite clear that the German civilian population was to be the target of the bombers, and Bomber Command carried out these perverse attacks to the extreme degree, long after they had ceased to have any point (if they ever had any point in the first place).
As the American Strategic Bombing Survey, that visited Bombed-out Germany so succinctly put it in its report, all it did was to divert post-war Allied resources to repair the damage and to house and feed the destitute when these resources could have been better-used elsewhere.
I’ve talked in a few previous posts about the problem of the Sudeten Germans, and this was something that took me quite by surprise.
I didn’t expect to see anything like this here a memorial plaque in honour of the Germans of the Sudetenland, and in particular the first batch of 12,000 who arived here in February 1946 and dumped out of the goods wagons in which they were travelling.
They were of course the lucky ones. Most of them arrrived much later, having undertaken the journey on foot, through the savage Central-European winter and having faced all kinds of horrors on the way, death being the least of them.
There are still some old structures remaining here in Donauwurth despite the devastation of 1945.
These are the old city walls and if my Latin is up to much after all of these years, the plaque tells me that they were built in 1091 and destroyed in 1818, with a few bits added on and knocked down in between.
Donauwurth hadn’t finished with me yet.
At the local branch of Media Markt was this nice under-the-counter fridge with small freezer compartment. What was interesting about this was not the price (a mere €199) but the energy consumption – just a claimed 89kW per annum.
If it really does all of that then it’s the most economical of its type that I have ever seen. 89000 watts is about 250 watts per day and I could run that quite happily all year without worrying. You’ve no idea just how much I was tempted.
June wasn’t at home so I pushed on to the Bodensee. My aim of spending a night in Austria came to naught as everywhere in Bregenz was either closed or full. Not only that, at one place I had a most unusual experience anyway, in that someone actually asked “what do you want?” when I rang the bell. Of course I couldn’t contain myself and relied “what do you think that people usually want when they call at a hotel?” and I was impressed that I could say that right off the cuff in German.
Lindau was full too and parking in the old town had passed beyond the expensive into the absurd. I headed out, looking for a quiet layby to lay my weary head when, having taken a wrong turn somewhere, I encountered a guest house, at just €38:00, miles from anywhere.
Primitive and very 1950s it might have been, but I wasn’t arguing at €38 for the night.
I’ve been to Lindau a few times in the past, but it’s been a good few years since I’ve been here. The last time was on my honeymoon with Nerina back in 1988, and I was itching to return as it really is a beautiful city and I cared not a jot about the driving rain.
Very medieval as you can see, and a favourite spot of the Royal house of Bavaria who had a chalet nearby for the summer.
And in news that will startle just about everyone reading this, I had a Chinese takeaway for tea.
Its well-known that I don’t like Chinese food all that much but I didn’t have much choice here as the takeaway food outlets are not exactly thick on the ground here – I don’t suppose that Mad King Ludwig would have approved.
But €4.50 for a huge plate of tofu, vegetables and rice to eat in the comfort and privacy of my own bedroom is not to be sniffed at.
At least, something has gone right for me today.
.
the other day but it wasn’t that I was watching. In Brussels at the Media Market in April I bought a boxed set of vintage westerns from the 1940s and 50s – 9 old hand-coloured “forgotten classics” and so I’ve been watching 
and 
this afternoon.
was all about.
. What is even more interesting is that there is a scene inside a music hall with a dancer and chorus line and as soon as you see it you will immediately say