Bad Nenndorf

Germany!
For this part of Germany we stayed with some family of mine, Henri! It was wonderful. Bad Nenndorf is a tiny little village (about 10,000) and as they liked to tell us, it was mainly older people. However this village is very close to many other little villages. Therefore we went everywhere around this part of the country.

In Hameln, we saw the town that orginated the story of the Pied Piper, as 130 children disappeared from the town and no one heard from them ever again. It had a beautiful clock that told this story, and it was surrounded by about 20 to 30 different sized bells. These bells played the music of the Pied Piper for the clock at two times throughout the day. Luckily Suzy has a video camera and thus we will be able to share this experience. Unfortunately it will only be shared once I get back to the states.

Then there was castles. One of the castles was on a hillside and not much was left of it, just the gatehouse, a watchtower, and a few different buildings. But the castle was not as impressive as the view that we got when we looked down at the countryside. We were able to see the River Waser and all of the little farms. I should clarify, as it seems that this region does not have many farm house on their own. It was more like the farm houses we just on the edge of town, so the towns/villages are always surrounded by fields. The second castle was most definitely a castle. In fact a duke still lived there or at least still owns all of the property. It was beautiful, tons of wood carvings everywhere. There was also a mausoleum that was huge. But the current owner had blackened out all of the windows and put in black lights to give it a erie effect. This mausoleum had at one point even housed the remains of Charlemagne. There is also a stable that looks more like a small palace. It houses some of the most beautiful horses I have ever seen. They also train their horses for particular "dances", but we were too tired to watch :( as we probably would have fallen off our seats.

A bike tour of the country side was also part of this trip. We biked for 40 km (25 miles) in about 5 hours. It was a great way to see the country and talk to Henri and her family as we biked. Henri tried to teach me how to say more things in German, but I do not think it worked very well. Otherwise I must say that Germany is great about alternative energy. They have windturbines and solar panels everywhere! And while it does not improve the landscape, it did not matter because everything was so beautiful anyways.

And this ends my short description of our stay in Bad Nenndorf.