Back to Burkheim, Germany
Next stop for the intrepid wine walker was Burkheim, in the very lovely Kaiserstuhl region of southern Germany.
A train from Offenburg to Freiburg, and another taxi to Burkheim through the beautiful vineyard country. This time my taxi driver came from Iran to Germany in the !980s. I told him how I visited Iran in 1975, the time of the Shah. Although he despises the ayatollahs, he was also glad to see the end of the Shah and his American and British friends. They were milking all the profits from Iran’s oil and gas resources.
Upon arrival at Burkheim, I walked up the main street of the village. Everything was closed!. Apparently this is common in Germany on Mondays. If Putin attacks on a Monday, he might get bored and go back home.
At breakfast, I met the hotel owner, Rainer. His family has owned this beautiful hotel, which displaced a religious chapel, for over 220 years ago. It goes back to the time when Napoleon was rampaging through Europe, long before Hitler thought of doing the same.
Rainer told me that his biggest challenge is staff shortages. He simply cannot find enough staff to run the hotel. The irony is of course that Germany’s anti-migration political party, the AfD, is rising in strength.
After breakfast I went for a gallop through the vineyards rising up behind Burkheim. This is among the most beautiful vineyard areas I have ever visited. Most of the vineyards are in the form of terraces rising up and up, like rice terraces in Asia.
As I walked up through the terraces, there were stunning vistas back over the landscape. Although I walked through these vineyards last year, this time I walked much higher, indeed as high as I could. Stunningly beautiful.
I popped into the “cave cooperative” on my way back down. As I wrote last time, Kaiserstuhl is rather unique. It is one of the very hottest regions in Germany, such that the Riesling grape is not grown, and red wine is important. Indeed, this is the region of the three Pinots, with Pinot Noir and Pinot Gris (for red and white wine respectively) being the leading grape varieties, along with Pinot Blanc.
Since June loves red wine, I tasted two reds, and bought two bottles for her. Carrying this back home in my backpack required a heroic effort. But it is worth it, this German red wine is excellent.
Having spent a bomb on taxi fares to get to Burkheim, I decided to return to Freiburg by the local train. The first time I went to Freiburg, the tourist office deterred me from going to Burkheim via local trains. Too complicated, they said. They were wrong! It is rather easy.
For anyone who’s reading and for my future reference. When you arrive in Offenburg from Strasburg, you can take a train directly to Riegel-Malterdingen. From there, you can take a local train to Burkheim-Bischoffingen. And then there is only a 20 minute walk around the vineyards to my wonderful hotel.
Going around in circles as I did can add some interest. On one train I met a Turkish man of Kurdish origin (see photo). He spent 7 years in a Turkish jail for criticising Turkish President Erdoğan, and then he was able to migrate to Germany as a political refugee. He is now a taxi driver, but misses his previous life in Turkey as a farmer.
He was proud to share two things with me. Some time ago he had seen a news story about Australian wildlife being killed in bushfires. He was also a fan of former Australian soccer champion, Harry Kewell. (We communicated thanks to Google translate.)
On another train I met a young man from Somalia, who is doing business studies at Freiburg University. He said that Germany is great in that you can study, have health care, and find a job. But there is no freedom. There are so many written and unwritten laws, rules and customs. Germany is a controlled society. To some extent at least that is the case of most countries.
Anyone who is an admirer of German efficiency would be disappointed by the German train system. Trains are almost always late and sometimes cancelled at the last minute. The French trade system operates much better. But German trains still have Germanic cleanliness!