On my way to Bad Durkheim, I crossed the river Rhein. I remember to have come across the name of this river in our geography text book. Rhine is the longest river in Germany. It originates in Alps and flows though Switzerland, Austria, The Netherlands, France beside Germany. Later during my stay in Mannheim, I visited the river quiet a few times.
“The Rhine (Dutch: Rijn; French: Rhin; German: Rhein; Italian: Reno; Latin: Rhenus; Romansh: Rain) flows from Graubünden in the eastern Swiss Alps to the North Sea coast in the Netherlands and is one of the longest and most important rivers in Europe, at about 1,233 km”.
Does it mean this flowing water body carries all the filth and discharges of human beings for 1233 Kilometers?!! Hope, it does not. How many river sand quarrying mafia will be feeding on the river!
The next day I had to travel to another village. The English speaking taxi driver drove me around 20 Kilometers to the destination. You know, I have been travelling by a Benz car! In this part of the world, almost 90 percent of the taxis are Benz cars. So,I feel, those who profile our humble Tata Cars as taxi cars and loath to own it as a private vehicle, please avoid owning a Merc too.
Cars in Germany constitute of Audi, BMW, Volkswagen, Mercedes Benz and Opel. All these German cars are famous in India too although the owners of the high end ones like Audi and BMW are less in number. Everyone owns a car there,well, almost. Raman Kumar, the chef in the Chinese restaurant and the receptionist lady in the Hotel where I stayed for long, own BMWs. Buying a used car is not so difficult there. A 10 years old BMW may be available in the market for around ten thousand Euros.
In the Mannheim city, most of the taxis are driven by Asians. They are mainly from Iran and Iraq. We can see a number of Kurds working as taxi drivers and waiters in restaurants in Germany. In Frankfurt, I could see a number of shops with signboards written in Arabic. As we Indians go to Gulf countries for a living, people from Gulf go to Europe to find a better living. Migration is a trait of human beings.
While talking about cars, I should tell one more thing. During all my journeys by taxis, I used to ask the drivers if they knew Tata. Most of the time, I got a delightful yes as the answer. Everyone is aware of Nano, the world’s cheapest car. People at large in Europe recognize TATA- I felt very proud to be part of this organisation when I heard people's response. Sadly, Tata cars or Tata's heavy vehicles are not seen on the roads of Europe. Miles to go towards achieving this goal –both in safety and manufacturing quality standards
Bad Durkheim is also famous for casinos. There are so many casinos spread all across the town. People from far off places come here to involve in gambling. Casinos are a usual sight in Europe. All along my journey towards my today’s work place , I could see acres of vineyards and a few Wineries. Bad Durkheim has a prominent position is Germany’s wine production. The vineyards were harvested already. I could see only the remaining stem of the plants and snow all over the field.
Wine production is like cottage industry in this part of the country. So many shops are selling these wines at a rate ranging from 5 euro to anything upwards. Glühwein is a type of wine served hot adding spices in it. This is widely used during Christmas. We can see so many shops in the Christmas markets selling this wine. People stand in front of these shops and sip this red hot liquid. Sadly, I did not try this even once.
“Glühwein is popular in German-speaking countries and the region of Alsace in France, former German Elsass. It is the traditional beverage offered and drunk during the Christmas holidays. It is usually prepared from red wine, heated and spiced with cinnamon sticks, vanilla pods, cloves, citrus and sugar. Fruit wines such as blueberry wine and cherry wine are rarely used instead of grape wine in Germany. Glühwein is drunk pure or "mit Schuss" (with a shot), which means there is rum or liqueur added. The French name is vin chaud (hot wine).”
The villages I passed by, on my way to my work place had a number of houses with tiled roofs. The roofs looked so steep towards the top. Probably, this type of construction is necessary to avoid accumulation of ice during winter. These old houses are the few ones that were not destroyed by the allied forces during the world war 2 – according to the driver. The roads inside the villages were very narrow. There were hardly enough space for two cars to pass at a time. Most of the cars owned by the villagers were parked on the already narrow road itself since there was no parking space available in their premises.
On the third day of my stay at Bad Durkheim, I had nothing to do. The morning was welcomed by a small shower that shifted its gear to drizzle and this continued till noon. I had lazily leaned back in my bed and was watching it for a long time. By noon, the drizzle gave way to snow. There started a good snow fall. Suddenly I wore all my winter clothes and set off for a walk in the raining snow. I walked all over. I was living a dream there, in another way, I was walking a dream. This was the first time I saw a snowfall and I enjoyed it. My heart is now filled with snow…
For more photos, click the link : https://picasaweb.google.com/ppnatesan/BadDurkheimRiverRhein?authkey=Gv1sRgCKGy6tGBtcGUGw&feat=email#
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