Kaltenberg Knights' Tournament, Germany

This summer I had a chance to go a huge knights' tournament near the little town of Kaltenberg. For a few weekends a year, they create an entire medieval town complete with bakers, brewers, ladies in waiting, camels, blacksmiths and of course knights. The entire morning you wander around taking-in the sites, perhaps eating some gruel in a bread bowl, perusing the shops and listening to the local town council. The highlight of the day is the knights’ jousting tournament in the late afternoon which includes a good-vs-evil knights’ story for the kids. There are always a few Goths in the audience who cheer on the black knight and make the kids nervous. (The little girl next to me was almost in tears when the black knight won the first few bouts and made me promise that I still supported the good guy). Thanks to Ema for some of the photos!

Grim Bavarian knights

Ema the barbarian with her bread sword

Don’t forget the tar-and-feathering for public humiliation. They started by tickling this guy’s feet, but the poor volunteer ended up with sticky feet and a feather beard.

I have no idea who these guys are supposed to be but they sure are ugly.

Knight posing with an executioner.

Medieval wares

At the Kaltenberg castle they have an operational brewery making a dark wheat beer all year round. We did the tour and it’s delicious stuff. This guy’s official title is actually “Bräumeister“ (Brewmaster, how cool is that) and I think he wears his lederhose every day.

Getting warmed up for the show with “the wave” (yes, it exists in Germany too)

The Bad Dude.

Evil beasts from hell….or whatever they were called. The P.A. system was kind of scratchy.

Good vs evil showdown:

Alright, I won’t leave you hanging….the good guy won :) But who knows what might happen next year?

Oberammergau, German Alps

This post is a little late, but I wanted to share some photos from a weekend in the mountains over the summer solstice in June. In Germany the summer solstice is called the “Sonnenwende” (literally means sun-turn) and they have a tradition of climbing the nearest hill/mountain and building a bonfire to celebrate the start of summer. We hiked up to a hut, had dinner, and then continued to the summit to build a little fire of our own. Unfortunately it was somewhat rainy and there wasn’t much dry wood to be found, but we managed to get a small one going in the end. From high in the Alps we had a good view and could spot a good dozen other fires in the distance.

I also tried some geocaching for the first time. The way it works is that with the help of a handheld GPS receiver and a few clues, you search for markers people have constructed. Sebastian downloaded the coordinates of three geocache locations and we had fun searching for the Tupperware containers. We found two out of three which wasn’t bad, although we were a little disappointed at the “treasures” inside (Kindersurprise toy, 50 cent gas coupon for having used an Autobahn reststop and an IKEA pencil) but to be fair we really didn’t have anything cool of our own to swap out.

The thrill of discovery:Here is one summit we couldn’t figure out how to get to (in Germany mountain summits are marked with crosses). To the left of the cross is what we thought was our hut perched on a cliff.But that turned out to be a storage shed, with the real hut (on the left) being a little roomier:

Waiting for sunset at the summit to start a fire and enjoying the views.

Kathrin starting to build our fire, looking pretty positive given all the wet wood we started with.

Höhentalklamm, German Alps

I did a hiking trip with some friends to a gorge in the German Alps. This particular gorge is famous for its length (~700 m), which is pretty impressive although most of the trail is through a narrow slippery tunnel. Even in mid-summer it was pretty chilly with the spray from a series of small streams and waterfalls pouring over its edges. It’s my completely non-scientific theory that “Klamm” which means gorge in German is the origin of the English word “clammy”. Cool and wet sounds pretty clammy to me….


Entering the Klamm:


It was cold enough to still have snow chunks all over the place which formed interesting patterns:

Cinqueterre, Italy

I got lucky and won the office-mate lottery; for the last year I’ve shared my office with a friendly Italian whose parents happen to have a summer home near Cinqueterre in north-west Italy which (in my opinion) is one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been on my travels. The original “Cinqueterre” (or “five lands”) consists of five villages perched on steep terrain near the Mediterranean Sea The first time I was in Cinqueterre was over ten years ago on my first solo trip to Europe and I vowed to somehow make it back. One long weekend, a cramped 8 hour ride each way with five adults in a Panda, beautiful weather, delicious Italian cuisine, swimming in the sea every day and some hiking made it a successful return to the Italian province of Liguria.

Our own deserted black-sand beach within walking distance of the house.


House by the sea

The header picture is a view of the town of Vernazza from above. We hiked down into town and this is the view from ground level.

More Vernazza. The surrounding steep terrain means real estate is at a premium and the cemetery stacks coffins on top of one another:



Funny rocks on every rooftop. I never figured out if they were simply decorative or had an actual purpose.


Sign for the authentic restaurant we ate at one night.


Five people and four nationalities (although the two Italians claim Northern and Southern Italy might just as well count as two separate countries). In this photo we have Northern Italy, Turkey, South Korea and Canada represented. If you think this might have led to some cultural misunderstandings over the weekend you would be right…;)

A light lunch of delicious Italian foccacia

Enjoying the Italian espresso


Mermaid at Framura harbour