Travelog for: Bobi

Today I joined my host on a trip to Blaustein. Her son studies at the university of Ulm and she visited him over the weekend. He has a nice view out of the window and today we had been really lucky, because the sun was shining.

Blaustein is a municipality in the district of Alb-Donau Baden-Württemberg in Germany. It is situated on the Blau River, 6 km west of Ulm and has about 15,000 inhabitants.

It was created in 1968 after the union of Ehrenstein and Klingenstein and some more municipalities joined.

It is home to one or more prehistoric pile-dwelling (or stilt house) settlements that are part of the Prehistoric Pile dwellings around the Alps UNESCO World Heritage Site.


View to Löwenfelsen in Ehrenstein




The river Blau really shimmers blue sometimes. The name comes from the celtic name Blava. The blue colour comes from light scattering due to the high chalky spring water. River Blau is a left tributary to the Danube.




It was so so cold, that we hurried home again after these two photos.

The next day we joined our host's son and her on the way to the university and after we said goodbye to him, we walked back home. The way was rather steep and I had a lot of fun on the icy way. But you can see, that the sky was grey again.








Back in Blaustein we walked through the Szeklertor, which is a present of the partner city Cernat in Romania. The Székelys derive their name from a Hungarian expression meaning "frontier guards" and were regarded as the finest warriors of medieval Transylvania, but it isn't completely proven.

Today I watched tv, because it was a special day. We followed the flight of former Pope Benedict XVI. out of the Vatican.

Wow! We have another sunny day! I really had no chance to see the flowers in the garden behind the house until now, because the weather was that bad. I can't remember, that we had springweather like this before. All flowers are blooming at the same time and the trees got leaves within minutes it seems.

Today we decided to bake a rhubarb cake. Our host allowed us to do it all alone without her help. So please take a look at the recipe. We explain it step by step:

At first we had to find a place - we are quite a few



Of course we aren't all traveling. Some of us are here as active toyvoyagers, but many of us are guests, who decided to stay here as long as the owners don't find time to get in contact with our host. And of course some of us live here, but we all have one thing in common - we are toyvoyagers.
At next we had to get the eggs. We need six eggs for the cake.




It was Sausi Karl's job to beat the eggs.






Then one of us - don't know who - added 50g sugar for each egg, so it was 300 g sugar. It's quite a lot, we know.




Madam Miff added one packet of vanilla sugar to the dough.






Of course we had to beat the dough again, but we couldn't handle the camera while beating the dough.
Matcha and Ted added 300g flour and one packet of baking powder.






Then we had to stir the dough again until it was fluffy.




Melek helped




and Nathalie




Then Matcha prepared the dish for the dough. We baked without bottom on a foil.




Nathalie was still busy stiring the dough.




And the she filled it in the dish.




Then we all were sitting there and waiting for the cake to get baken in the oven. Man it was boring at first. But we didn't expect, that half an hour can be such a short time, when so many tvs are together.






After this break we had to prepare the rhubarb, because we wanted to fill the cake with rhubarb cream.






Little Dragon helped to skin it.








And Matcha helped to cut it in pieces.




Billy helped Matcha to stay on the pot during cutting the rhubarb pieces.










Then we had to prepare some ingrediences for the cream. We needed two packets of vanilly pudding powder, one egg white and one yolk. We had to stir the egg white.




Before adding the stirred egg white, we had to add the pudding powder. We had added a little bit of water to it and shook it until it was smooth. Then we added the pudding powder to the cooked rhubarb. We also added the yolk.




Then Louis the Rat added the stirred egg white and gently folded it in.






Finally we cut the cake in two layers and filled the cream on the first and then on the second layer and put the last layer on top of it.

Today we drove to Ulm. Ulm is a city in Baden-Württemberg,  located at the border of Swabian Jura to Bavaria and was founded around 850, but the oldest traceable settlement of the Ulm area began in the early Neolithic period, around 5000 BC. . Ulm lies at the point where the rivers Blau and Iller join the Danube.
Internationally, Ulm is primarily known for having the church with the tallest steeple in the world, the Gothic minster (Ulm Minster, German: Ulmer Münster) and as the birthplace of Albert Einstein.

The Minster is a Lutheran church. Although sometimes referred to as Ulm Cathedral because of its great size, the church is not a cathedral as it has never been the seat of a bishop.

It is the tallest church in the world, and the 4th tallest structure built before the 20th century, with a steeple measuring 161.5 metres (530 ft) and containing 768 steps. From the top level at 143 m (469 ft) there is a panoramic view of Ulm in Baden-Württemberg and Neu-Ulm in Bavaria and, in clear weather, a vista of the Alps from Säntis to the Zugspitze. The final stairwell to the top (known as the third Gallery) is a tall, spiraling staircase that has barely enough room for one person.

We had a wonderful view around, but the weather was not as nice as we would have liked it. It even started to drop. (wikipedia)




Here you see the river Danube. The houses in my back belong to the so called Fischerviertel (fishermen's quarter), where we will go later. The houses on the other side of the river belong to the Bavarian city Neu-Ulm.

Today we drove to Blaubeuren. Blaubeuren has about 12 000 inhabitants. At first we visited the Blaubeuren Abbey, which was a house of the Benedictine Order. The monastery was founded in 1085.
I love the halbtimbered houses.







I'm sorry, but there was only a bit of battery left in my host's camera, so we had to safe it for the next place and couldn't take a photo inside the abbey. I'm also sorry, but there is no photo with me and the second halftimbered house - it was too blurry. Nevertheless I wanted to show you this beautiful house, that's why there is one with Tsukumo.

The Blautopf (German for Blue Pot; "blau" means blue, "topf" means pot) is a spring that serves as the source of the river Blau in the karst landscape on the Swabian Jura's southern edge.

Numerous legends and folk tales refer to the Blautopf. Its characteristic colour was explained by the account that every day someone would pour a vat of ink into the Blautopf. Another myth stated that every time someone tried to measure the Blautopf's depth with a leaden sounding line, a water nix stole the sounding line. Therefore, it was not possible to determine the depth of the Blautopf.

The entry to the Blauhöhle lies at a depth of about 18 metres (approximately 60 ft). Therefore, access is restricted to experienced and well-trained divers. The size of the Blautopf depends greatly on the level of rainfall, though it never entirely dries out. The Blautopf is the second largest spring in Germany, after the Aachtopf.

he water's blue color is the result of chemical properties of limestone densely distributed in the water.

We only could take one "bunch" photo due to the battery problem and because it started to rain.

Geislingen an der Steige is a town in the district of Göppingen in Baden-Württemberg in southern Germany. The name relates to its location "on the climb" (an der steige) of a trade route over the Swabian Jura mountain range.
Helfenstein Castle represents the remnants of the fortified castle (burg) Helfenstein of the counts of Helfenstein. During the peak of their power the Helfenstein family ruled Heidenheim, Blaubeuren, Wiesensteig and Sigmaringen.

We really enjoyed the view over Geislingen and the hills.




View from the castle to Ödenturm.












Here am I in front of the Ödenturm.




From here we had a nice view to Helfenstein castle.

There will be a big event in this family this year: the wedding of one of the sons. Petra is happy, that she is allowed to bake the wedding cake. It will be a cake with strawberries and maybe some marzipan. She still doesn't know the other ingredients, so she has to try some cakes and find out the best version. And of course we are part of this.
Here's the first cake - I can't remember the ingredients anymore, I'm sorry.