We arrived in Calw, (pronounced "Calv") Germany on Sunday, November 1st and met our next host family Josef and Irene Watzl along with their 2 sons, Valentin who is 27 and Julius who is 18. They also have a 22 year old daughter who lives in Berlin. We got to visit with Josef on Sunday evening and again at breakfast on Monday, but he had to go on a business trip for 10 days to Armenia. Josef is a worldwide consultant of viticulture and winemaking. We are staying in our own flat in the attic of their home.
David at the front door of the flat where we are staying
Josef and Irene's house: you can see the landing for the entrance of our flat up on the left side
This is one of the views of the village from their house
We go straight up this hill (short cut) to get to our flat
More views of the village of Calw
This is the view from our bedroom window
We started working on Monday morning trimming bushes, trees, and plants on a hillside next to their house
David working the tree trimmer
Linda raking down some of the limbs and briars
Irene made us a wonderful German lunch of lentils, spaetzle, and wurst
After lunch we walked down the hill into the village
The river, Nagold runs through the village
Typical German Timber Houses
Calw Center
We went to Ratsstube Hotel and had Apfelstrudel mit vanilla sauce
More views of the center of Calw
Statue of Hermann Hesse; a Nobel Prize Winner born in Calw
Another view of our host's home
A Fiat 500 we are renting while in Germany
On Monday afternoon we drove about 18 miles to Panzer Barracks, a U.S. Army base, to get a little taste of the USA. We just happened to drive by the Mercedes Headquarters Building.
Inside Panzer Barracks PX. Look close and you can see David standing by a poster of the Kansas City Chiefs Cheerleaders. They will be on the base this coming Saturday.
Back to work on Tuesday morning trimming more bushes
We also vacuumed up some leaves from the top of their garage
In the afternoon we drove to the town of "Bad Wildbad". We saw the sign for this village in Calw and had to check it out. "Bad" translates to "Bath" in English so this town is "Bath Wild Bath".
We brought our suits and went to one of the "baths" in the town.
We found we didn't really need our suits. Now we know why it is "wildbad!"
On Wednesday morning Josef and Irene's son Valentin took us on a tour of their family's "sparkling" wine cellar. Very interesting! Valentin is studying winemaking at his university like his father did. The cellar is a "hand-dug" cave with several corridores (quite large) that were dug out during WW2 as bomb shelters.
Valentin showing us the sulfites in the wine
Even though it was only 9:30 in the morning, we couldn't leave without having a taste!
Valentin showing us how they can add sugar to make the wine sweeter
More views around Calw
This view is from outside our flat
On Wednesday afternoon we went hiking further up the hill and made it to the top with views of several villages in the area
Some of the farms and fields on top of the hill
We came across these 3 crosses on our walk
Love the yellow flowers of Rapps!
Many apple trees along our walk
After lunch on Wednesday we went to the town of Tubingen. More wonderful views of the town and area.
The Rathaus in the city center
More coffee and cake - While sitting at this cafe, a group of college kids all dressed in the same t-shirt came up to each table at the cafe. When they got to us they said they needed to get 5 couples to kiss and get a photo of the couples. Many people at the cafe wouldn't do it, but we didn't mind! It looked like they were on some kind of scavenger hunt.
We think we may have spotted Santa Claus (or is this the finger of God)
Thursday morning sunrise from our kitchen window
Back to work with just a few more things to trim and then loading everything in a trailer to haul away
We carried all the limbs and brush on top of the garage and dumped it off the roof to the street 3 stories below and loaded it all in a trailer
Just one of the piles we made on the street; Valentin is below loading it in the trailer
David throwing a pile off the roof
We then cut up the larger limbs for firewood and stacked it by a shed
Time for another wonderful lunch; a typical German Onion Pie
Friday we went through an old stack of oak boards and cleaned out and cut up the rotten ones
We restacked and got them ready to be covered and protected at a later date
When we finished for the day we jumped in the car and drove to a few nearby villages; this one is Berneck
This is Altensteig: Linda posted a video on Facebook with the church bells ringing at this place
Beside the church is the Altensteiger Schloss (Castle)
Can't stop in a German village without getting our favorite treat!
Schloss on top of the hill in Nagold with a field of Rapps in the foreground
Nagold centrum
A little village right next to where we are staying: Hirsau
A beautiful ruins of a Hirsau Abbey dating back to the 800's
We started Saturday off by hauling a cord of wood off a hillside, it was delivered and unloaded as close as this guy could get it to the house, then wheelburrowed it to the shed and stacked it.
Whew! We are beat! Glad we have a nice park in our back yard to take a nice rest in the sun.
Later in the afternoon, Irene, our host, took us to a nearby village on top of a hill to the beautiful village of Zavelstein where there was a ruins of a Schloss with a 100 foot tower. It was open so we were able to take the stairs to the top for some awesome views.
Our wonderful host Irene
The clouds in the sky were perfect for pics!
Afterwards, Irene took us to a quaint little German restaurant where we enjoyed some of the local food and watched the sunset light up those perfect clouds.
This ends our European "Workaway" adventure, but before we head home we are going to spend one more week in Germany in the village of Etschberg where we lived for four years. We plan to spend time with all of our friends and hopefully relax a bit.
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