Germany. Near Leipzig. We wake up by Lake Kolkwitz, a picture of summer idyll. The morning shimmers gently on the water. Yesterday we were still bathing, laughing, the sun on our necks, enjoying the day with friends by the lake. The heat - unbearable unless you can find shade - and the water was like a balm. Our chairs are strategically placed under trees in an attempt to beat the heat. Clear lakes, cool breezes (if they ever came!), quiet places - all this is life when the heat doesn't even let us think straight.
And now onwards. The farewell - easy, as we thought, after all we'll see each other again soon. (We think.) Avoiding the motorway, we steer our home on wheels through the provinces. Naumburg appears on the map. Naumburg? Heaven knows what's there. The sun is beating down on us again and with it the heat, worse than months ago in the Persian Gulf.
Gerd navigates our mobile snail shell through Naumburg's winding alleyways as we arrive at the car park. The dialect? A delight. We laugh, unsure which federal state we've actually landed in. Ah, the three-state corner: Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, Thuringia. I leave Gerd's question as to why there are "so many Saxons" in Germany unanswered. Lower Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, Saxony - and Anglo-Saxons? Oh, let's leave that alone.
The dialect of Naumburg, idiosyncratic, a piece of culture, deeply rooted. A symphony of soft endings and a High German that is only halfway there, but with a melody in its sound that invites you to stay. However, I realise that I am probably the only one in our travel group with a preference for romantically transfigured "Middle High German".
The old town - narrow alleyways, half-timbered houses, cobblestones - everything vibrates with history. We stroll around, almost unimpressed by the 35-degree heat. In front of the cathedral, which boasts World Heritage status, we treat ourselves to the obligatory soft ice cream, which seems to be part of the East German way of life, and cool drinks. Ah, the cathedral - yes, imposing, late Romanesque, Gothic, you can sense its importance. But not today. The price, the heat, the amount of cathedrals we've already seen - at some point we've had enough. Who can admire every cathedral? But we are more drawn to the shady cafés on the market square, where life passes by at a leisurely pace and we simply take a deep breath over a few glasses of chilled sugar water.
Merci for "travelling with us
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