Birthday Weekend: Swing Jazz, Sundial, Waterwheels, Cheesecake Competition, Portuguese Fireworks (continued)

The Wennigsen sundial includes just about every possible way to interpret every planet and references as many astronomers and cultures that built sun calendars as they could pack onto it. They call it a super-sundial.

Sundial, Wenngisen

 

Double Helix Sculpture

We enjoyed a craft exhibit in this old firehouse. Rich bought a small cream pitcher for me.

 

Tree in bloom, slate & tile roofs

Half-timbered brick house, Wennigsen

 

Sometimes one sees round shields on houses signaling that the owner won a marksmanship contest of the local Schützenverein. The Schützenverein is the local militia and the winner must sponsor drinks all round and is hailed in the yearly Schützenfest in a parade through the streets. In Wennighausen, instead of just a round shield with the name and year, the shields included markers showing where each shot landed on the target.

Schützenkönig Shield

  

In order to make it back into town in time for cheesecake, we finally tore ourselves away from the sights of Wennigsen. We rode along some intensely green wheat fields with bright yellow rape-seed fields and the Diester hills in the distance.



Line of Trees along Wheat Field

 

We tried to ride fast, but it was uphill through the forest and by this time we were getting hungry and thirsty. We stopped at a small pond for a picnic,

Picnic Spot, Pond in Deister Forest

and then on to the waterwheels. These are charming. In the middle of the forest, someone has built 23 brightly-painted whirligigs powered by waterwheels: men sawing, a gondola ride, Max and Moritz figures being threatened by a lady with a broom, carousels...

 

Waterwheel Toys

 

The sign changes from "Wir Wünschen Ihnen" to "einen erholsamer Tag in Deister,"

which mean we wish you a refreshing day in Deister.

The link below to a youtube video of the opening day for 2011 gives you some idea, but it shows a very different kind of day: crowds, speeches, a German band playing, and people dancing. Yesterday it was a rainy day and there were only a few people.  

 Wennigsen Wasserräder

 

We took a different path through the forest back and then raced the rain to get to the cheesecake competition before all the cheesecake was gone.

Homemade Cheesecake Assortment

 

We sat under a pop-up during the drizzle and chatted with our neighbors across the table sampling 3 different kinds of cheesecake. Then we stopped to see if the church was open, since we had 45 minutes till the train. They were getting ready for a wedding, so we snuck in to see the monastery church, an old pilgrimage site from the 13th century.

 

We were glad to take the train home to hot tea and dry clothes. We weren't soaked, but damp and cold. We decided to forgo tickets for the Portuguese fireworks competition celebration, since it was cold and rainy and went to a piano-accordion concert at the Leibnizhaus and skyped with Sarah and my mother. We took the streetcar up to the palace gardens at 10:00 and watched the fireworks from outside the walls. All-in-all a very nice birthday.