Easter festivities in Wuerzburg

In part 5, I write about the expereince of again being in Germany in spring, after a gap of a few years.

5.

Windmill in Bremen with
white daffodils in front

It has been a few years since I was last in Germany in spring. That is why I was quite taken aback when I saw how beautifully the whole city was decked up for Easter. Not just the market square but the passageways, the shop windows and the fountains…I had quite forgotten how pretty the world can look, with vast expanses of yellow daffodils swaying in the wind, the tulips sprouting in so many different colours and nature generally coming to life with trees beginning to sprout leaves and the grass turning a rich green.

For the religious, the period of Lent leading up to Easter is a time of abstinence and of prayer. For Good Friday marks the day when Jesus was crucified. But on Easter Sunday, he transcends death and rises, to the great jubilation and relief of his believers. So essentially it is time of prayer ending in jubilation for the believers. But somehow some pagan traditions to do with nature have got mixed with it so that there is also the tradition of children painting eggs for Easter, then looking for Easter eggs on Easter Sunday that the Easter Hare has hidden in the garden, and thereafter a lot of eating of eggs and having fun.

But since everything these days is a commercial and marketing opportunity, one gets eggs of all sizes, filled not only with chocolate or other edibles, but also with many other things as well – colour pencils, music, games, what have you. I knew that Christmas time is crazy in Germany and that they begin selling things that have to do with Christmas already in September, but I had completely forgotten that something similar happens also for Easter. So when I landed in Germany in the middle of March, there were still a couple of weeks to Easter. But those were the days with the biggest pre-Easter sales, so I got to see it all. Capitalism at its best or worst.

I tried to avoid the shops and restricted my Easter shopping to buying cut daffodil bunches to put in my vase at home. I tried to look for other things that the special Easter period had to offer. There was a lot of music concerts everywhere, but also in the many churches in the city. There were several where Bach’s Passion, that has to do with the pain that Jesus had to suffer, would be played. I decided to go to as many music concerts as I could; there is a special quality when music is played in the grand church organs accompanied by a full orchestra and a choir. It would not do to miss it. And I couldn’t have chosen better.

The market place in Volkach decked up for Easter

The fountains in the main squares of the city were all decked up with eggs for Easter. I made my way to the Bratwurst kiosk in the Marketplace. I do not know how many times I have come to that place with Stephan in the past, to eat the special Bratwurst (sausage) that was available there wrapped in a bun and with a layer of strong mustard sauce over it. Stephan loved it. Whenever we were in town, we never missed a chance to visit that special shop. I used to look forward to those occasions then. But now that I live only a few hundred metres away, and can visit it whenever I feel like, it does not feel the same.

But still for old time’s sake, and also because I had not had anything comparable in India all the last months, I went a joined the long queue, and got myself a sausage. The flower shop next to the kiosk also looked more or less the same, although the lady owner also had special flower baskets for Easter, decorated with little Easter eggs and the Easter bunny, also little chicks in some…all kinds of babies were expected at this time… Sprigs of some yellow and white flowering trees were also on sale… People were busy enjoying the mild weather, buying flowers and fresh vegetables in the market stall.

After finishing my Bratwurst I went in briefly into the Marienkapelle. There was something about the bare narrow high arches of this Church that fascinated me. It was cold inside, most churches are cold at this time of the year because of the thick stone walls. Given its stark and bare inside, the church could have been a protestant church, yet it was devoted to Mary and hence was by default Catholic. There was a Jewish quarter near the church, I had read somewhere, which was completely annihilated during the war. How did the Jews feel about it when they visited here, I wondered. But then it was not just the Jews who lost their homes, right now it was those very Jews who were making the Palestinians homeless. And at the same time, the Russians continued to batter the Ukrainians. When would we ever learn?

As I have done many times in the past, I took a slight detour to the Dom, the city Cathedral. I have been there many times before, but wanted to go in and pay my respects, just like that. The interior of the Dom is a strange juxtaposition of old and new, intricately carved and completely plain. The huge solid Menorah at the entrance was still there…The sheer dimensions of the Cathedral are imposing. The very modern metal doors with carved irregular slits offered you a filtered view into the cloister beyond. Like most other parts of the old city, the Cathedral was very badly damaged during those 17 minutes of relentless bombing of 16^th March 1945, when 90% of the city was annihilated. The medieval town centre of the city was destroyed. Thousands were killed. The unadorned nave with the surviving Baroque stucco figures scattered here and there and the flat wooden roof of the Cathedral is a stark reminder of the past history of the cathedral.

After leaving the church, I tried to wind my way back home, past the Town Hall. At the entrance to the Town Hall there is a model of how the city of Würzburg  looked after that tragic day of bombing. From the road, you cannot really make out where the famous sculptor Tilman Riemenschneider, who was the city’s mayor for many years in the 15/16^th century, might have had his office. In Volkach where I lived so many years, there is a beautiful wooden Madonna made by the master himself in the church up the hill, Maria in Weingarten. Another famous person associated with the city is the famous 18^th century architect Balthasar Neumann, who designed the majestic Baroque Residence in Würzburg and many other beautiful buildings in the area. The Würzburg one saw today along the Domstrasse and beyond has been all redone in the post war period, but people are known to have lived in this area since the Bronze Age.  

The Festung from the Old Main Bridge 

Instead of going straight home, I decided to go and stand on the Old Main Bridge for a while. As was to be expected, there was quite a crowd on the bridge, almost everyone holding wine glasses, standing there with their friends and taking in the sunshine and the beauty of the place. I walked past the big crowd and found myself a place to stand. I wondered how people could start drinking so early in the day. It was not even lunchtime. The Festung looked down at me in greeting. The vineyards on the hill still looked bare. The riverside along the Main at the far end looked pretty and inviting. I would have to go there with a book and spend some time there some other day. It was less crowded there and more peaceful.

Even if one did not want to climb to the top of the Festung, the other side of the Main had some of my favourite haunts – a church-turned-art-exhibition space directly facing the Alte Main Bruecke, a few lovely cafes and restaurants (including an Indian restaurant called Guru further up), the very nicely laid out Children’s Water playground, the Chinese and English gardens at the foot of the Marienberg, and the lovely wooded walk up to the Kapelle. I would have to visit all those places in the coming days and weeks…

Just as I was about to leave the bridge and walk home I heard some loud ringing of sirens and looking down onto the road I saw an ambulance rushing past, all the traffic on the road having quickly moved out of its way. Seconds later there was a police car then went past the same way followed almost immediately by a fire-brigade van, all ringing their signature sirens. Something must have happened, I told myself. Most often it would be some senior person who had collapsed perhaps at home, perhaps in the marketplace, or it could be an accident. I said a little prayer for the person in distress, and hoped that the help did not come too late. But in some sense, it was reassuring to see that emergency services still functioned very well in Germany. Every human life was precious, something we still do not seem to have figured in India.

Magnolias and more

There was one last thing I wanted to do before turning in and that was to go and have a look at the magnolias that were in full bloom in the quad right opposite the train station. That night when I had arrived it was dark and I had missed seeing them completely. But Cornelia had told me about them when she came visiting. I should definitely go and see them. I remember how envious I was of the magnificent Magnolia tree that our neighbours in Volkach had, and the number of times I had tried to plant a Magnolia in our garden, and failed. There was just not enough sunlight in our garden.  Magnolias are magnificent as long as they are in bloom but that period is very short – at most a couple of weeks. And what a sight it was. It was hard to imagine how there could be so much beauty all stacked in the same place. I sat opposite the quad in one of the benches near the War memorial at the station (from where many Jews were deported to the camps), but rather than look and be reminded of that tragic history of the city, I looked at the magnolias in full bloom and told myself that even if it was for this one sight, it was worth coming all the way to Germany at this time of the year.

Magnolia blossoms

And then, a couple of weeks later when I was about to feel sad because a sudden hailstorm the previous night had removed the last surviving magnolia blossoms from the trees, I got a message this time from another friend Uta:  if you have even five minutes to spare do go and see the cherry blossoms in the south side of the Residence. And what an absolute feast it was…I don’t remember seeing anything quite like that ever before.

Everywhere one looked nature was waking up and dressing itself in its prettiest colours...

Cherry blossoms and tulips in Koeln

It had been a very good idea to come to Germany a little early this year.  Summers are slowly getting so warm here that it was perhaps better to come before or after the worst summer months of July and August. Yes, it would be hot, perhaps very hot, also in India but at least there were fans, air-coolers and air conditioning, and one knew how to avoid being out in the scorching sun. The same could not be said about my little flat in Würzburg .

Well, might as well make the best of what Germany had to offer as long as I was here.