Atherton Family Notes

Today’s topic is the other side of the coin from Yesterday’s: what was our favorite small town. As Sandi explained, she was much more interested in the small towns because in a lot of ways they seem to embody much more of the European character that Americans think of.

Let’s list a few that we’ve seen:

In France – Riquewihr, Ribeauville, Eguisheim, Betschdorf and a host of small towns in Champagne that look like they grew out of the rocky white soil where they lay.

In Germany – Villingen, Rottweil, Rothenberg ob der Tauber, St. Peter Im Schwarzwald, Freudenstadt, Triberg, Meersberg, Ueberlingen, and too many others to list.

In Austria – Halstatt, St. Wolfgang, and St. Gilgen.

In Switzerland – Stein Am Rhein.

There were many, many other small towns we passed through at one time or another. If you are not in a hurry and can get off the Autobahn, there are interesting places to see around almost every turn. We’ve made several accidental trips this way.

My choice for favorite village is pretty easy: Halstatt. It’s an amazing town, cut off from the rest of the world for most of its existence except for a pipeline of saline water running down from the salt mine in the mountain. Halstatt (which literally means Salt City in an old Austrian dialect) sits precariously between a lake and a mountain and even though tourists have discovered it, the town still feels undisturbed. From the slow traffic on the lake to the ossuary at the Catholic church (where the bones of former residents lie because burial plots had to be reused), Halstatt is a beautiful, relaxing place, full of its own little history, shielded from the rest of the world.

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I am gonna agree with Ken that Halstatt is a very interesting and beautiful town, but I think my favorite will have to be Meersberg, Germany. It is a place we took everyone who came to visit and recommended to anyone who would listen. One of the first sights you see as you come into the small town is an ivy colored guest house. Having been there in every season, we watched the colors of the ivy change from a bright green to a gorgeous array of fall colors and all over again.

The town sits on the Bodensee, which is a fairly large lake between Germany and Switzerland. As if that was not enough beauty, they added grape fields growing up the hillsides. There is one rather large hill in this town and it can take your breath away walking it. However, if you calculate your visit right, you will only go down and up the hill once. Just enough for you to work off the dinner you ate while sitting in the outdoor cafe, on the boardwalk, overlooking the lake.

A small town in Germany would not be complete without it’s own castle from medieval times and Meersberg does not disappoint you on that. Although there is nothing fantastic within this castle, it does have an amazing view over the land.

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