There comes a time in every nostril’s life when it has to clench its hairs, muster its courage, and march into the brain’s Board Room to say, “Hey, I’ve smelt a smell.”
That time comes Tuesday with a whiff of autumn sweetness.
Now I’m no fan of summer, and a lover of colour, but the news comes as something of a surprise. Are we really three quarters of the way through the year? Wasn’t I supposed to be done with a bunch of stuff by the middle? And why’s my nose not minding its own business?
I look out of the window — calm, cool, grey — then at the forecast. Yikes.
“Have you seen this?” I say to The Mathematician.
“The weather? I know, right? It’s crazy.”
It is. They’re predicting 29 degrees Celsius for the weekend.
“We have to go out,” she says. “All day.”
“Okay,” I nod. “Where?”
“Hm…”
Each of those dots is an hour of thought and planning. There’s a lot of “Oh, that would be nice, though it’s quite far away” and “City trip or countryside?” Then I have an epiphany. Our trip to the Baltic in August, the butts-on-the-carriage-floor adventure, took us through Lutherstadt-Wittenberg. We’ve been saying we should visit the place for years. I check the trains.
“It’s perfect,” I say. “Poetic, almost.”
“Why’s that?”
“Well, not only is this summer’s great send off, but Deutsche Bahn’s too: they’re going to dig up those tracks the week after. They’ll be done by,” — I check the website — “December! So we have to go now or be stuck with a bus replacement service.”
She groans at the thought, then smiles.
“Decision made! You can wear your new top.”
And that’s what I do. So we ride, The M and I, two atheists on their way to the birthplace of the Reformation. What would Martin Luther say?
“I bet he’d be wondering why there’s a large bouncy castle in front of his statue,” I say, sitting at a nearby restaurant eating a Popeye Burger.
A teen girl walks past with a friend and says, “Oh. Mein. Gott!” when she sees it. A young boy goes with, “Das ist cool!”
“It’s noisy,” says The Mathematician.
Yep. It’s all 90s pop and pushchairs here.
“Still, I imagine, back in Luther’s day, there would’ve been festivities in front of the church and town hall,” I say. “Just as loud, just as busy.”
“I guess. Want to try some of my Falafel Burger? Swapsies?”
“Sure.”
We swap a quarter and watch the revellers pass. Then we pay up, brave the sun, and pass church after church after church, most with foundations laid in the 15th century. It’s magnificently medieval.
“Have you seen that great tower?” says The M, pointing to the top of the Fronleichnamskapelle.
I look up and appreciate its brickwork.
“Have you seen that shoe?” I say.
“Where?”
“There, in the gutter beneath the tower.”
She squints.
“Oh, yeah! Just one. That’s funny …”
We make our way west along the Collegienstraße and pop into every courtyard we see. There are many studios, some with artists sitting outside, creating. It’s enchanting to watch them at work, many using the same tools as their forebears five centuries earlier. What’s more, the enclosed spaces seem to magically block the annoying music. So peaceful! It’s like we’ve stepped out of time.
We see a large photo of the area dating back to around 1990. It’s a scene of devastation. Many of the roofs are missing, some walls have collapsed, windows are broken or long gone. These old, historic buildings seem to have been left to fall into ruin during the GDR days. Now they’ve been — are still being — lovingly restored. There’s a real sense of community spirit here.
“Did you see the way those two were looking at you?” says The M.
I shake my head. “I was looking at that old lamp.”
“It’s your new top! They’re mesmerised.”
I shrug. It is a nice top, all stripy and armless. (Perfect for hot summer days like this.)
“Maybe they think I’m one of the artists,” I say.
“You are!”
I am. That’s true.
At the end of the courtyard we find a sign saying, “This way for the old route” (or words to that effect).
“You up for it?” asks The M.
“Of course!”
It turns out to be a fantastic narrow path that runs between two buildings. It has a brick roof and lovely red brick arches on the western side. We emerge into a garden with apple trees, sage, rosemary, tables, and coffee.
“Oh …,” I say.
“You want to stop?”
I do.
“No, let’s carry on for now. We can come back here later.”
The Galerie Café. Quite charming. I make a note.
We continue west towards the All Saints castle church. This is the one where Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses on the Disputation on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences to the church door, launching the Protestant Reformation. (It wasn’t quite that neat, but history begs for abbreviation.) This is also the place where he’s buried. We skip the grave and head for the tower.
Ah, stairs. For 3€ you can purchase a metal token from the Tourist Information Centre across the way and drop it into the turnstile. A display helpfully tells us that only 20 more people will be allowed to enter before others leave(*).
I look at the narrow, winding staircase.
“I hope there’s another way out,” I say, rather naïvely.
We ascend.
Round and round and round we go, spiralling anti-clockwise past locked doors and artefact storage rooms, till we come to the half way point. The two women behind us have been talking less and less, and when we meet on that small, hallowed ledge, they smile and pant. We continue on, happy to see we’re now climbing clockwise.
When we reach the large tower-wide platform beneath the old bell, we take a breath ourselves and notice a very narrow(**) black metal staircase. Up we trot to the observation donut, where we look out over Wittenberg and the surrounding landscape. There’s a pleasant breeze up here and we stay a while, cooling off, drinking water, and admiring all the miniature buildings. There’s a lot to be said for looking down on people.
A cohort of school kids arrives and we decide to head back down. This is when the trouble begins. On the tight metal staircase, of which you have a full and perfect view from below, we meet a mother and child, seemingly oblivious to our descent. There are people behind us so we can’t back up and are forced to hug the centre column as they squeeze past.
“Gosh, it’s very tight!” the mother says as she tries to climb around my rucksack.
“If only you would have known …” I mutter in reply.
On the stone stairs, we meet a gentleman on the up and this time we can reverse. He, at least, smiles and says thank you.
To avoid any further congestion, The Mathematician and I decide to descend at abseiling speed, resulting in us making it to the bottom in record time — incident free — and then spending a few minutes unable to walk in a straight line. We trace a sinuous path to the Soviet Cemetery and walk around the city park.
Slowly, meanderingly, we make our way back to the Galerie Café. We order coffee, succumb to cake, and take a seat in the calm, shady garden. We see butterflies about the trees and hear the occasional grassy thump of an apple falling to the ground. When the friendly and playful woman brings us our order, she smiles and with a sweep of her hand says, “Feel free to eat as many apples as you like. Just pluck them from the trees or from the grass. They’re delicious!”
We do. They are. Ho ho.
A peaceful hour passes, but we could have stayed two more. Instead, we amble east along unexplored roads, past a hen party and a gleeful murder shop.
“I think they’ve translated that wrong,” says The Mathematician.
We stare at the window of barber shop advertising both a hair- and a throat-cutting service.
“Maybe. I mean, probably. Looks like the place has closed down. No repeat customers, I guess …”
We pass the old university where Luther taught, climb the little hill that housed a large WWII above-ground bunker (“Above the ground? Was that a good idea?”), and slowly head back to the station along the green ghost old city ramparts.
All in all, a good day. All day.
—
(*) By exiting through said turnstile. Meaning if all those at the top of the tower were to jump or fall, there’d not only be a bloody mess on the ground, but those patiently queueing wouldn’t be able to get in, despite the recent vacation. The Germans call this kind of thing a “Zumutung”.
(**) It makes the DNA double helix look roomy.
