ASIANOVERLAND.NET KATHMANDU TO LONDON  DAY 161/73: MUNICH TO COLOGNE, GERMANY

 29 November, 1980

The Black Forest represented the border area of the Marcomanni ("border people") who were settled east of the Roman Empire. They were part of the Germanic tribe of Suebi, who subsequently gave their name to the historic state of Swabia. With the exception of a few Roman settlements on the perimeter, the Black Forest was not conquered or colonised by the Romans. The most famous local dish is Black Forest Cake, an essential part of a morning coffee stop.

Swabia is a cultural, historic and linguistic region in southwestern Germany which includes the Black Forest. The name is derived from the medieval Duchy of Swabia, one of the German duchies representing the territory of Alemannia, whose inhabitants interchangeably were called Alemanni or Suebia, and are the original Germans.

Swabia included all of the Alemannic German area (including the German speaking part of Switzerland), but modern Swabia is more restricted, due to the collapse of the duchy of Swabia in the thirteenth century.

Tuttlingen was a Celtic settlement long before the Romans erected a border post there (pictured). The town received its town privileges before 1338 and belonged to Württemberg since 1376. Since that time the town has been ruled by the "Twelve", consisting of the Mayor, the Sheriff, and 10 other members of the judiciary/court. During the Thirty Year War, Tuttlingen as the southern outpost of Württemberg, was constantly embattled. A key event was the "Battle of Tuttlingen" on 24 November 1643 in which the entire French army was defeated by Bavarian troops.

Tuttlingen has special significance for me, as I lived there and went to High School there in the winter of 1970/1971 to improve my German. I’m forever grateful to the Cremer family, my second family, which hosted me and treated me as one of their own. One consequence of learning German in Tuttlingen, is that my German accent is Schwabish, and leads most Germans, who speak High German, to think I am a native from Swabia. The German language has many benefits, particularly in ski fields and Central Europe, but also in the Middle East, especially Turkey and Syria, where German is a more useful language than English, especially when needing mechanical repairs for our double decker.

The Rhine is the second-longest river in Central and Western Europe (after the Danube), at about 1,230 km, has its sources in Switzerland, and flows in a mostly northerly direction through Switzerland, Germany and the Netherlands. The river begins in the south-eastern Swiss Alps, forms part of the Swiss-Liechtenstein and Swiss-Austrian borders, flows into Lake Constance (Bodensee) where it forms the Swiss-German border, forms the Franco-German border, flows through the German Rhineland and the Netherlands, and eventually empties into the North Sea.

The Rhine and the Danube formed most of the northern inland frontier of the Roman Empire and has been a vital navigable waterway carrying trade and goods deep inland. Its importance as a waterway in the Holy Roman Empire is supported by the many castles and fortifications built along it, which were tollways. The prevalence of castles and tollways along the Rhine and Danube, ultimately led to the formation of International Law and, in turn, the European Union.

Cologne Cathedral is a Catholic cathedral and a renowned monument of German Catholicism and Gothic architecture. It is Germany's most visited landmark, attracting an average of 20,000 people a day. At 157 m, the cathedral is the tallest twin-spired church in the world. It is the largest Gothic church in Northern Europe, and has the second-tallest spires. The towers for its two huge spires give the cathedral the largest façade of any church in the world.

Construction of Cologne Cathedral began in 1248 but was slow going for three centuries, and building halted in 1560, unfinished. Work did not restart until the 1840s, and was completed to its original Medieval plan in 1880.

Cologne's medieval builders had planned a grand structure to fit its role as a place of worship for the Holy Roman Emperor. Despite having been left incomplete during the medieval period, Cologne Cathedral eventually became unified as "a masterpiece of exceptional intrinsic value" and "a powerful testimony to the strength and persistence of Christian belief in medieval and modern Europe."

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