St. Ottilien church behind the restaurant. The spring was down a set of steps inside the church.
Mural in the restaurant.
The SECOND spring said to have resulted in St. Odile (St. Ottilien's) miracle
Interesting little scupture at the St. Ottilien restaurant
Two shots of the community rental gardens
This illusion-style necklace is still in vogue in Europe.
Freiburg bead shop.
This was a piece of "art" in the church. It looked exactly like red wine puke.
Herz-Jesu-Kirche
Plague tower in Freiburg
Camembert lunch
My last day in Paradise. We breakfasted on cake, yogurt and coffee, while watching The Office, and printed out my e-Tickets for my flight. Jane helped me choose a seat. We lazed around all morning and then had baked camembert with fruit for lunch.
When we finally left, we stopped by the downstairs neighbors' to ask them to babysit Gerald tomorrow while Jane is at Wally World with her officemates. They invited us in and Charlie's mom and sister just gushed about Gerald. They kept saying how sweet he is. Jane said he is spoiled and I said, "genau," one of my few German words (it means "exactly") and they laughed.
We drove over to Freiburg and walked over to a church we'd seen from the train station - the Herz-Jesu-Kirche. It's beautiful, with two soaring spires of grass green tile but outside on the lovely grounds it's just teeming with homeless people, derelicts and crazies, and a lawn full of beer bottle caps (lucky for Cousin Dr. Donn. We looked like crazy people just going around picking them up!) Inside was not much better - apparently they are undergoing a major renovation and there was hardly anything in the church besides workers and equipment. There was one big sculpture/painting on the wall - it was the ugliest thing I've ever seen. It looked like Rasta vomit.
We left there and walked over to Freiburg's only real bead store. The door was locked, but there was a bakery just across the doorway, and they had REAL cheesecake, so Jane got a piece of that and a linzer torte (we call them "Lindsey Tarts" in honor of Susie.) By the time we were done getting the cake, the bead store had reopened.
I introduced myself and asked if it was ok for me to take pictures, and they said yes. One of the owners asked me where I was from and when I told him New Jersey he wanted to know if I know Bruce Springsteen. I was at least able to tell him that my sister in law went to high school with him and my nephew was one of his roadies last year.
We left the bead store and walked underneath the pedestrian bridge where we spied a very cool sculpture. Unfortunately, although the sculpture was cool, it had been abused and was full of garbage and graffiti. We walked back across the church lawn where one of the crazies was having a meltdown.
We drove over to Kirchzarten to pick up a package at Jane's work, and meet the rest of the guys. Chris showed us pictures of him paragliding like we saw when we were in Waldkirch last year. It was very cool.
Drove over to Aldi for the final shopping trip - cat sticks for Thomas, chocolate, good bread. While we were driving around we saw 4 accidents, 2 on the Autobahn, and then in town a 3 car and a 4 car smash-em-up.
I had seen one of the nearby "community gardens" from the overpass and I asked Jane to see if we could find it so I could get some pictures. I just love the whole idea of this. People rent plots of land to have their gardens in. They erect little shelters, decorate their gardens, and make their plots little getaway paradises. They come to their gardens in the evening and weekends and socialize with other gardeners, picnic, and hang out. It's really lovely. While I was taking pictures an old coot started following me and making angry noises, but he chilled out when I explained why I was taking pictures.
Stopped at home to drop off the cake and watched a half hour of The Office. We're down to the last few episodes and we are trying to finish it up. I've definitely made an Office fan of Jane.
We picked Gaby up from her office and drove up into the black forest above Freiburg. It was a beautiful evening and our last chance to meet the goal of having a meal at the forest restaurant of St. Otillien. Jane and Gaby had actually hiked there once before and Jane wanted me to go.
We sat out on a broad patio and ordered Radlers, Adalusian-style Gazpacho (the chef was from Spain,) a salad with walnuts, grapes and turkey strips, and flammenkuchen. A birthday party was forming at the next table, and they had brought two dogs. The dogs ran free and were having a grand old time. At one point I looked over and the large dog had the small dog's neckerchief in his mouth and was just trotting along side him as if he had the small dog on a leash. It was very funny. Unfortunately, he would not do it again when we filmed them.
Over by the restaurant there was another building and Jane remarked that it looked like a church. Gaby didn't think so, but she took a walk over there and reported back that it was indeed a church. We asked our waiter about it, and it turned out that this is where St. Odile fled to when escaping her father! Ottilien is the German form of Odile. He also said the source of her miracle (the spring) was there as well. (Second source. Hmmm.) The church was open until 7 so we decided to visit it after we ate.
We strolled over to the church and went in. It's small but with a lovely altar. There was a small door off to the side and when we went in, we found a staircase leading down to a grotto and a spring, with a statue of St. Odile. This grotto was originally formed in 679! It too is supposed to have healing powers, especially for the eyes. I STILL need contacts!
We went into the restaurant building as well, which is quite beautiful and old. We drove back down to Freiburg and dropped off Gaby.
At home we jumped into our jimjams and fired up the office, and Jane invented the "Figitini" made with Figgy Pudding (fig liqueur), vermouth, and a stachelbeere (gooseberry) as garnish.
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