Call me predictable.
But when my daughter suggested a little European sojourn from her place (she lives in Berlin), I thought Paris, Venice or Rome.
We had looked up flights and discovered that in Europe, the world (at least the European world) is truly at your fingertips. And for as little as 10 Euro ($15), you can fly to most of these tourist hot spots and spend a few days. I was favouring Venice, but Rome had me in its grips as well.
My husband however had different ideas. “What about Schmallenberg?” he said.
I have since looked up Schmallenberg and I have to say the photographs are impressive but my mind was still flipping between Rome and Venice.
When his suggestion was not greeted with the enthusiasm he felt it so clearly deserved, he then suggested Sauerland. I had to remind him of the two-way battle currently occupying my mind.
He on the other hand was having his own mental dilemma, based I believe on obscure_towns_no_one_has_ever_heard_of.com (I did make this up, but hey, perhaps it really does exist.)
He decided then to move on from little known German towns and suggested instead Wroclaw in Poland. It took me a while to find this place on google as his pronunciation (something like fraatzzzzlaughzzz) defied any phoenetics. Since when did a simple ‘w’ sound like someone with a severe throat infection?
We went to Wroclaw.
And I have to say, it was pretty good. My husband convinced me to go when he told me that his grandmother hailed from this city when it was in fact named Breslau and still part of greater Germany.
I liked to imagine her skipping along a few cobbled streets, pulling her woollen coat tightly to fend against the cold. We visited the site of her baptismal church, long since bombed and I wondered if the headstone in the grounds encompassed names of family members. All records were destroyed in the bombing of 1945.
Gondola rides and ancient Roman ruins were replaced by these meandering imaginings. This sort of personal history cannot be found on any tour bus.
Still, the Vatican and all things Venetian await another time.
- Linda Muller