Travelog for: Thiele

Thiele was named after a great Australian author, Colin Thiele, who wrote a book about a boy and his pelican, Mr Percival.
Thiele has decided that he would like to be released and start his adventures in London - home to many other great authors.
He'll be released in April / May 2008.

Thiele has been part of the prize for one of the winners of the Melbourne Cup competition and found his way to Germany. We're very happy to welcome him to our family of Toyvoyagers.

Thiele has decided to travel around Germany, now that he is here. He's making his way to olgamaus now.

Hello Mummy,
I arrived in Remscheid today! My new host Katja came home from shopping when she found me sitting on the stairs in my envelope.

I was welcomed by some curious ToyVoyagers. There were SaruMaru and Theodore, also coming home from shopping, Moley and Titch. I brought a nice christmas card for my new host.





I'm glad that I am here.

Bye
Thiele

Hi Mummy,
I went with Katja to the law firm where she is working today. SaruMaru also came with us. Katja showed us the town hall with the christmas market when she finished work. She said that it would look much better when it's dark outside and the christmas market would be illuminated. We'll go there in the evening also this week or next week.

This is the town hall, built in 1906, nearly destroyed in world war II and rebuilt in postwar period in a more modern way. The tower is 48 m high!



On the space in front of the town hall the christmas market is taking place at the moment. Usually the farmer's market is here twice a week.

They also built a large ice skating rink in the middle of the space.





Can you see the lion on the pillar? This is the heraldic animal of remscheid, you can find the lion in the city arms.





Here we are on our way back home.



At the moment I'm living in the attic storey of this house. It was built in 1904.



This is the view out of our living room window.



Today it's Theodore's birthday. We're going to celebrate in the evening!

Bye
Thiele

Hi Mummy,

we celebrated Theodore's birhday today.

We had fruit in rum (Rumtopf) in the evening.

Rumtopf is a favourite delicay which is made in the summer months with fruits, rock candy and of course rum.  Our Rumtopf is containing strawberries, cherries, apricots, peaches, plums, ananas and kiwi.

It is tasted usually in late autumn.

We had a lot of fun with the Rumtopf.











I'm afraid we'll all have a bad hangover tomorrow.


Bye
Thiele

Hi Mummy,
it has snowed again!

We went to the attic and had a look out of the roof light. The sky is full of heavy clouds.



We were watching Katja when she had to shovel snow. We were sitting in front of the house.



We went into town. The next photos are made on our way to the town centre. We have to walk for about 10 minutes to get there.



We are living in one of the parts of the town which were not destroyed in world war II.

Again the town hall.



When it was dark we went to the christmas market.



We bought a nice small present for one host who wrote her wishlist here.

Bye
Thiele

Hi Mummy,
today we visited a christmas market in Cologne, in  Stadtgarten (a park area). You could buy nice things there.





We had raclette to eat. Raclette is melted cheese, served over boiled potatoes or rye bread with black pepper. This delicacy comes from France. The lady on the photo is scraping pieces from the hot cheese.



One of the town's landmarks is the telecommunication tower which was built in 1981. It's height is 266 m.



We did not visit the part of Colone where Cologne cathedral is located.

Bye
Thiele

Hi Mummy,
we baked christmas cookies today! We made farmer's little hats (Bauernhuetchen).



You need
250 g flour
125 g sugar
150 g butter
1 egg yolk
1 tablespoon sour cream

for the filling:
2 egg-white
80 g sugar
125 g ground almonds

coarse sugar for dredging



First we had to knead the ingredients to a smooth dough and put it into the fridge for an hour.



For the filling we had to stirr the egg-whites, add sugar and ground almonds.





We than took the dough out of the fridge and rolled it onto the working space. Now we had to cut out round cookies.



Katja helped us to put some of the filling onto our dough circles and to put them into the right shape.





We put the cookies onto a baking tray. They now had to be brushed with egg-white and dredged with coarse sugar. Than they were put into the oven for about 20 minutes.

When we took them out of the oven there was only one cookie that looked exactly like those in our book.



I'm afraid we put too much of the filling into the cookies. In the oven they lost their shape.



But that's  not so bad, they taste delicious anyway.

Bye
Thiele

Hi Mummy,
we had fantastic weather today. We already had planned a trip to the most interesting touristic highlights of this region. We wanted to visit Muengsten Bridge and Schloss Burg, a medieval castle with a christmas market.

Here you can see the river Wupper which marks the border between the towns Remscheid and Solingen.

In the background you can see a lookout pavillion. Later we came to another pavilion similar to this one.



We reached Muengsten Bridge, the  highest railway bridge in Germany. It was completed in March 1897. It is 107 meters high and 465 meters long. It was built with about 5.000 tons of steel (5.000.000 kg). The bridge is overstretching the valley of the river Wupper. A few years ago a theme park was established. There are beautiful playgrounds for children, takeaways, lawns for relaxing, a miniature golf and souvenir shops. Katja told me that every year in summer a big festival is held underneath the bridge with fireworks.







We found a plate with some facts about Muengsten Bridge.



From here we walked to Schloss Burg. Along the path you can find artworks. On the surface of this table shaped rock  these impressions of hands are engraved. On other rocks poems are engraved or riddles. Most of them are not so easy to discover because they are partly covered with leafes and dirt from autumn and winter.



We had to cross the river Wupper here.

We walked along an old cemetary. It was built here in 1732.



The tombstones were all made of a special sort of sandstone in a similar style.



From here we saw Schloss Burg for the first time, located on a hill.



We reached Solingen-Unterburg then. Here you can see many old houses, covered with schist or half-timbered houses.



Solingen-Unterburg is located at the river Wupper. Here you can see the chair lift which goes uphill to Schloss Burg. We were not lazy and walked there through the forrest.



We than reached the lookout pavilion. From here you have a good view across the valley with the river Wupper and Unterburg.





We reached the castle then. It is the largest reconstructed castle in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany and one of the most popular tourist attraction. Its early history is closely connected to the growth of the Duchy of Berg.

In the beginning of the 12th century (after 1133) count Adolf II von Berg built Schloss Burg on a mountain over the river Wupper.

In 1632 the castle was under siege  by Swedish soldiers. After the Thirty years war, in 1648, Imperial troops destroyed the fortifications of the castle including the keep, walls, and gates. In 1700, the main building was partially reconstructed and thereafter used for administrative purposes. 1849, the castle was sold to be scrapped, decayed, and became a ruin.

Today’s appearance is not exactly the original castle was. The reconstructed castle of today is a major public attraction. It also contains the Museum of the Bergische Land.








We went inside the castle courtyard to visit the medieval christmas market.



We had a coffee here.





On the market you could buy many handcrafted things like jewelry, leather bags, ceramic pots and figurines.

We had to rest here for a while.



We than had to walk back to the car for at least another hour. We reached the parking lot just in time before it was getting too dark outside.

We are all tired now.

Bye
Thiele

Hi Mummy,
we decorated the christmas tree today, a really cute little christmas tree.





Bye
Thiele

Hi Mummy,
today we had to pick up two packages from two different post offices. We went to the post office in Katja's lunch break. Katja received a package with a beautiful carved wooded rat in it. It was the package which you sent to her. She really loves the cute little rat.

Than we had to walk to another district to pick up another package, some bocks she had ordered. Nobody knows why the postman did not send it back to the post office in the town centre, but to one in a different district.

On our way I saw a little bit more of the town centre although we had foggy weather today. Here you can see the beginning of the pedestrian area. On the space behind me a farmer's market is located on Thuesdays and Fridays.



This is one of the churches in the town centre.



Parts of the municipality are located in this building, as well as  the adult education centre.



We than walked to the district Hasten where we had to pick up the second package. Here many old houses remained, as well tenements as factory buildings.








Katja's boss was celebrating his birthday. So we already had some glasses of sparkling wine when we went to the christmas market for the last time to drink one or two eggnocks.

Here you can see the illuminated town hall.



The average German drinks Gluehwein. (hot spiced wine), but Katja is allergic  to cinnamon which is always used to make Gluehwein, so she takes an eggnock (or two). Eggnock is made of hot white wine, egg yolk and sugar or sometimes with advocaat, It tastes really good



Bye
Thiele

Hi Mummy,
it's christmas eve today. Most people in Germany are celebrating christmas today and the following two days.

Here we were sitting with the christmas presents, watching over them.





In the afternoon we had coffee and self made cookies.



Later we were sitting next to the christmas tree. Katja put all the christmas cards onto the dresser.





For dinner we had a fantastic meal: Savoy cabbage with several sorts of fish and pasta. Katja's daughter had cooked the whole meal on her own.

After dinner the presents were changed. What an exciting day!

Bye
Thiele

Hi Mummy,
after eating too many sweets during the last days we decided to take a long walk today. Katja's daughter had to go to work, her son had planned to visit his Dad and Grandmother so nobody was missing her. The sun was shining although it was really cold. This photo was taken only a few steps from my current home. I'm living in a district with many old houses.



We met Katja's friend Erika, she also likes to take walks through the forrests and surroundings of Remscheid. To meet Erika we had to walk to the district Hasten, one of the oldest districts of Remscheid. We walked through the muncipal park to get there. From here we already could see Hasten. I already have been there on Tuesday when we had to pick up a parcel there.



This is the church in Hasten.



We than walked to Katja's friend to pick her up.



From here we left the streets and walked into a woodland area. You can see that it was very cold today, the ground was covered with hoar frost.





Here you can find grazing land and cropland.



Later we had a rest on a tree trunk.



This is also one of the outskirts.



We walked for about three and a  half hour. We had a last rest when the sun already began to go down.





Bye
Thiele