Today, we set out after breakfast to travel by regional train to Oldenburg, a mid-size town of 175,000 people about two hours southwest of Hamburg, to visit our good friend Uschi. Andrea and I have known her since we were teens, and two years ago I came here with my mom to celebrate Uschi’s 80th birthday. I’d visited her in Oldenburg several times before, and Mark had come along at least once, but Andrea and Peter had never visited and weren’t familiar Oldenburg or Uschi’s lovely condo, so I was seeing it all with new eyes.
Uschi came to the train station to greet us and we walked back all across the historic center of town to her place (only about a 20-minute walk). Oldenburg is one of these classic towns that used to be the capital of its own tiny country, with a palace and palace gardens for the ruling archduke, and a whole mini country administration to go with it, so there is a special lobby at the old train station to receive guests, a late 17th-century palace that is now a museum, and beautiful late 19th century neoclassical buildings including a very fancy neoclassical “state theater” and some impressive villas, including one across the street from Uschi’s first-floor apartment that makes for a lovely view from the balcony.
We got a first look at the city center, which is mostly a pedestrian mall, and had a lovely lunch at Uschi’s home—bread, soup, and several salads. Then Uschi and Mark (still under the weather) took naps and Andrea, Peter, and I walked through the palace gardens (now a public park) across from Uschi’s place, including the gorgeous area with outbuildings, a hothouse, and rose gardens. We also walked by the palace with its interesting carvings and the central church in town, St. Lamberti. The latter looked like the classic high gothic brick church from the late Middle Ages, but held a surprise: you walk into it and instead of finding the typical long nave and the high roof, you are in a classical rotunda with a massive cupola and columns all around, built into the larger church in the 18th century, because that was more to the taste of the archduke of the day.
Then we rambled around the pedestrian shopping district that takes up almost all of the surrounding downtown and is one of the oldest of these kinds of very common „Einkaufszone“ in Germany. It‘s very much like all the others in cities if this size (in Osnabrück, in Rendsburg, etc), but has been here since the 60s, and a big success. We were surprised how busy it was—Oldenburg seems like the last place where people prefer shopping in person to shopping online!
We were back home in about an hour or so, had coffee and some cake (a kind of cream/jelly roll and some lovely Danish-type thing called a Kranzstreifen. Then Uschi took us by car to the rural area about an hour from town where she raised her kids and taught school for many years, and we went to two Neolithic sites with big dolmens called Visbeker Braut and Visbeker Bräutigam. I had never been and had suggested the destination—both were much bigger than I expected, some still complete with capstones over what archeologists have determined were community gravesites part of larger sites presumably used for rituals. Surrounded by deep green woods, with the sunlight flickering through the foliage, they were beautiful and awe-inspiring–even though we did learn they were originally in a marsh land with few trees.
We also stopped in the small (and picturesque) town of Wildeshausen (where Uschi‘s husband taught high school art), and were surprised by the very old church with many layers of architecture and building materials (Peter called it a Frankenchurch). It was a lovely afternoon.
We wrapped up the day by having pasta and salad at home and going out for ice cream to a nearby place that called itself Frieseneis (Frisian ice cream), referring to the local population, which historically descended from Viking-like seafarers-turned-farmers, and decorated with sheep skins, a cowskin rug, and bison stuffies (not taxidermy!) on the wall. The place was cute and also served excellent ice cream, with four choices of delicious toppings. But we called it a night just after 10 and slept really well, in heavenly quiet even though we are less than 10 minutes from the city center.
