Remscheid - Reunion

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Arriving in Montbéliard’s marina we booked in for one week and packed for our trip to Germany. The next morning we took a hire car and left for my home town, Remscheid to meet up with my childhood friends, Josine, Mareike and Hartmut. Josine lives in Mexico and the last time I had seen her was 12 years ago. 

Austin, who is very fond of Mareike and her husband, Hartmut, met Josine for the first time. There was immediately a nice contact. For me it was just like yesterday, and yet also a re-acquainting and learning new things about each other.

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Mareike had prepared a delicious raclette, and we spent a great evening catching up and watching an exciting Worldcup game Germany : Ghana (2 : 2). 

After a big German breakfast the next morning, Hartmut took us all on a walk through sun-filtered forest along the gurgling river Wupper.  We got some lessons in Nordic walking and working a manual cable ferry to cross the river.

With a chairlift ride up to the castle “Schloß Burg” and a visit to an aged manual brush & broom maker in the castle grounds we ended our excursion of the Bergisches Land, country of the Dukes "von Berg”, bordering Remscheid.

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To top the hometown experience off, Mareike served us a typical “Bergische Kaffeetafel” (our own version of high tea) . We gorged ourselves on home-made very scrumptious waffles with rice pudding and cinnamon, cherry compote and whipped cream, a sweet raison bread (Stuten) and savouries of the region. It was astonishing how much we managed to eat again! 

We spent the rest of the day looking at Josine’s wonderful photography from Mexico and her Rancho,all put together with Music and commentary, talking and relaxing (in Austin’s case snoozing) while being further spoilt with champagne and sandwiches by Mareike.

We had such a lovely time! Thanks Josine, Mareike and Hartmut.  

© Austin Robinson 2019