Short trip to Endingen

Hello, hope all is well with you, and the summer is warm. June here was quite nice but the first part of July - very stormy which is nice to see - from the inside of the flat thanks!

We asked Christoph why there are so many towns with the ending "dingen", or "ingen", he's going to find out about it, my two sites that translate don't specify really. Sure are a lot of them in this area!

We did not go back to Emmendingen, Endingen is another town in the Kaiserstuhl we visited with Christoph. It rained the entire day but wasn’t heavy so we walked around. We are from the "wet" coast after all.

Hearty traditional German lunch here, with take away as usual. 

Very traditional Gasthof, Engel is Angel in English, I'm sure you guessed.

Christoph had dumplings with cranberry sauce on the side. He ordered it mainly for that sauce. So as with many poorer times people use everything available in food. These dumplings, he explained are made with stale bread, mixed with egg and then a wet dishrag covers them to give them a dumpling texture. Looked like a mushroom cream sauce added with herbs and the cranberry sauce on the side. Basic, hearty food which the Germans are good at, because, like many countries, they needed to be. My parents always said "waste not, want not".

Our salads we all agreed were wonderful, fresh with homemade dressing. Bruce had the best omelet he's ever eaten with layered, baked potato. My meal was okay but brought much of it home.

We went to a church, Romanesque (read plain) on the outside and Baroque on the inside (read tarted up, or more PC to say beautified) with lots of gold inlay. The ceilings were covered with individual murals, couldn't get a good picture. The walls you can barely see, at the top over the windows are sculptures. For a small town farming community this expanse of gold and detail must have cost "the bomb" so they may have had a wealthy patron. As usual, I didn't get enough information on it, but enjoyed seeing it.

Altar, not the best of pictures, but I wanted you to see the elaborateness of it.

 

Much better in detail.

Light can be your friend or foe when taking pictures, so even though it was a rather dull, rainy day, the church was filled with light. Must be truly magnificent in sunlight! 

Christoph and Bruce

Meet Christoph, our wonderful guide to this part of Germany! Handsome Bruce on the right.

Crocodile, I think, below the fellow shown next and a better picture of it than what you see above Christoph and Bruce.

Funny, Bruce asked Christoph about this, "what's with the croc?" Christoph said it's not a croc, it's a dragon that St. George, fellow in next picture is slaying. He's the patron Saint in this area, mystical, because, of course, there are no dragons.

Inlay statue outside second church, above the croc, oops, dragon.

Sorry, don't know the tale about this but it was photogenic anyway, on the second church we visited. Inside was much more like "regular" churches, less  decorative.

These flowers lined the streets in boxes, made the town more beautiful and serves to add a little colour into this post.

Aside, our partners with the flat are currently enjoying the lavender fields in France. I wanted to see them but didn't on our last trip through. 

Wow! It really is a sea of lavender! Thanks for the use of the picture Erwin.

Also didn't see the major sites in Paris due to the Lexi hiding in the plumbing incident. Missed seeing the Statue of Liberty due to fog, up in the restaurant at the top of one of the Twin Towers, but have a menu from there I had to steal, not my usual modus operandi but I asked and they were so snotty about it. Maybe it's worth something now due to the towers being destroyed during 911. Making money off a disaster to that scale is not my idea of appropriateness. As Bruce says, you see these famous sites in pictures many times, why see them in person? Many do, but I'd rather do what we are doing, exploring neighbourhoods and finding hidden jewels that the usual tourist doesn't. Off the old soap box now.

Not sure what this represents but doesn't look good for the animal, although the jokers are sure having a good time!

I liked this fellow, done in copper I think, see the bow tie. He's a mascot for the ice cream Cafe and Pizza place.

So that was our lovely, but rainy day in Endingen. 

Walked into our local grocery store, Edeka, to find this!

Naturally I had to show Bruce. It's of course the World Cup done in beer, note the different teams. Perfect! If you didn't know, or aren't interested, Germany plays Argentina the final game on Sunday. Football is a big deal here, all stores are decked out with flags etc. as mentioned before. There are really, to my mind, goofy hats and all sorts of "stuff" for people to look silly in. All in good fun, unless they loose, then not so much.

Cheering for Germany, Bx2 and Lexi Cat