Once a Week (magazine)/Series 1/Volume 9/Die fränkische Schweiz
DIE FRANKISCHE SCHWEIZ.
If you take a map of Germany and look for the kingdom of Bavaria, you will find, about midway between the ruins of Rhineland and the sources of the Danube, a small triangular tract of country lying between three cities. To the north and on the left hand there is Bamberg, with its noble cathedral and donjon of Altenberg, from which you may look down on countless acres of cultivated land, rich in vineyards, orchards, and fruit gardens. On the right there is Baireuth, cheerless and deserted by the courtly patronage it once enjoyed; and at the southernmost of the three points, from the midst of a flat country, and surrounded by goodly walls, rise the fair steeples and the high-pitched roofs of Nuremberg.
I am selfish enough to be thankful that the ordinary route of continental tourists merely skirts this same triangle and does not enter it. In these days, when Londoners swarm up the Rigi with no more ado than if it were Primrose Hill, drink bottled stout in Venetian palaces, post up their names on the Pyramids, and go shooting over Mount Sinai, it is pleasant to find some part of the accessible Continent unfrequented by Cockneys. Now and then an artist wandering in search of “mountain beauty,” sometimes a geologist who wishes to enrich his museum, but oftener a cunning angler with an eye to trout, finds his way here to revel in luxuriant scenery, grub for fossils in the caves of Kuhloch, or fill a fishing-basket on the Wiesent’s banks.
The line of rail from Nuremberg to Forcheim (which is the best starting-point for a tour in Franconian Switzerland) is not very interesting, and therefore, luckily, not very long. The only place of note on the road is Fürth. This part of the railway was the first laid down in Germany, and was opened in 1835. Fürth owes its importance to the unamiable policy of an ancient law which prohibited Jews from residing, or even sleeping, within the walls of Nuremberg. They were allowed to settle in the adjacent village, which, from being at first merely their refuge, has gradually risen to be their seat of trade. Brass and metal wares, gold-leaf and buttons, toys and trinkets, pipes and mirrors, are among the manufactures of Fürth. The nationality of its inhabitants—or, at least, a large proportion of them—is plainly indicated. One meets the Jewish type of feature in the shops, at the cafés, everywhere. That unmistakable nasal twang peculiar to the race greets the ear at the corner of every street. Young sons of Israel sell their fruit along the trottoir; old Shylocks, with gold headed canes and profusely jewelled shirt-fronts, hobble to and fro. We might imagine ourselves in the Ghetto at Rome, or the Judengasse at Frankfort, except that the inhabitants here are prosperous and their shops clean and respectable. The Jews here have schools and a college of their own, a separate court of justice, several synagogues, and a Hebrew printing establishment.
The celebrated museum, or rather warehouse, of mediæval antiquities, now removed to Nuremberg, was originally formed here by Herr Pickert, a dealer whose collection is one of the most valuable and comprehensive in its spécialité, and compared with which the largest establishment in Bond Street would sink into utter insignificance. There we may see not only whole suits of armour, but complete wardrobes of costume, from shirt to doublet, from cap to shoe, illustrating male and female dress of the middle ages from all parts of the world, to say nothing of a collection of silver and gold smiths’ work, of majolica, ivories, and jewellery, which would have attracted notice even in the midst of our magnificent “Loan Museum.” Some of the armour has served as a model to Fleischmann of Nuremberg, from whose manufactory is annually exported to America and elsewhere a large quantity of papier maché facsimiles, so like their originals, even to the rust upon them, that nothing short of touch distinguishes the good knight’s sword and breastplate from their counterfeits. The spurious spirit of chivalry which induces our Transatlantic friends thus to decorate their walls with these sham relics of fictitious ancestry at, say, a couple of guineas apiece, is sufficiently characteristic of Yankeedom.
The train rattles on past Fürth, and in two or three hours arrives at Forcheim, a small fortified town near the junction of the Wiesent with the Regnitz. It was here that the bishops of Bamberg took up a position of defence during the Thirty Years’ War, but the goodly walls which so long withstood the siege of Gustavus have gradually succumbed to the attacks of time. It is now one of the dullest of dull German towns. We put up at a homely little inn, where we were besieged by peasant boys who came to sell their rustic schoppen-cups made of variegated wood, for the manufacture of which this neighbourhood is famous.
Here, at the usual hour for German dinners—viz., one o’clock—was an apology for a table d’hôte, at which we sat down in company with three or four Bavarian officers. These gentlemen, to whom the Guards’ Club-house in Pall Mall would seem a palace of regal luxury, and the amusements of our military youth, utterly incompatible with a soldier’s lot, were dining at the rate of eightpence apiece on boiled beef (from which the soup had been made), sauerkraut, veal cutlets (about the size of a British cheese-plate), lentils, kartoffel-salat, and a sweet pudding, washing the whole down with a pint of good Bavarian beer, brought up, as it always is, in the humblest wirtschaft, icy cold. The repast concluded, they abandoned themselves to the enjoyment of halfpenny cigars—quite as good, by the way, as most that are sold for threepence in this country—or repaired to some adjoining café for a game of dominoes. I do not say that these warriors, as a class, are such fine gentlemen as those who lounge in Hyde Park, and, strange as it may sound in English ears, they are rarely seen out of uniform, but they are good soldiers, with a keen sense of discipline; and, though they may have a little of that military swagger peculiar to their profession, are much more affable in their bearing towards civilians than some I have known whose commissions dated from the Horse Guards.
Having paid our modest reckoning, we step out to inspect the vehicle which our host has provided for the journey. I have travelled by “road” a good deal in Germany, France, and Italy, but never in the whole course of my experience have I seen, before or since that memorable expedition, anything in the form of a carriage to compare with this one. It was a sort of ancient compromise between a battered gig and a vegetable cart, but by way of joke they called it a fiacre. There was a seat for two inside, and another for the driver, of the size of an ordinary pie-dish, and about as comfortable. The horse, which it would be idle compliment to call a “screw,” was harnessed, or rather tied in, with odds and ends of heterogeneous ligament—a complicated arrangement of leather straps, ends of rope, and whipcord. The chief characteristic of the animal itself was its inquisitiveness. Whether it had derived a sort of interest in natural history from long and frequent association with geologists and botanists I cannot say, but it had a very remarkable habit of stopping short on the road now and then, sniffing at the soil with a knowing air, and pawing up the ground with its forefeet. It also insisted on devoting a minute or two to look over every other gate on the right hand of the road from Forcheim, and when I add to the drawback of these equine impulses the fact that our driver, a stout young man in tight trousers, had to jump from his seat every ten minutes to replace our portmanteaus, which fell off alternately all along the hot and dusty road, and, having properly secured them, took to tumbling from his seat on his own account to that extent, that at last he was obliged to give it up and walk,—when, I say, these circumstances are taken into consideration, the reader may have some notion of the rate of our progress.
At last a cloud of dust is seen in the distance. It is occasioned by another fiacre, home-returning and empty. As they near each other, the drivers interchange first significant glances, and then seats. They evidently belong to one concern. Our pie-dish is occupied by the recent comer, and the boy takes the other trap back. Our new charioteer is evidently an old hand. He understands the little weaknesses of our Rosinante. With a skilful tug at the reins, and a vigorous application of the butt-end of the whip in the neighbourhood of the crupper, he sets us en route again, jolting and tumbling over ruts and stones until we come in sight of Streitberg, where a strong pull up a tough bit of hill lands us in front of the hotel, wondering that the wheels of our carriage, fore and aft, have held on so long together.
Streitberg is not a large village; but, being a fashionable retreat for the Germans in summer, its two inns and lodging-houses are full to overflowing. We are therefore for the first night accommodated with, or rather incommoded in, a small tenement, the interior of which looks like a Dartmoor cottage, and in which a mingled smell of burning peat and soap-suds rises to our bed-room door. All these places are in connection with the inn, where the guests meet for an early breakfast, a mid-day dinner, and a supper about seven o’clock. This inn is built on an artificial terrace by the side of the hill, and at the foot of a steep limestone cliff, round which a winding path leads to the ruined castle above. And so long is it since the old grey lichened walls of this fortress were raised there, that the stones have become naturalised and half-assimilated to the rock on which they stand, so that it is difficult to say where Nature ended and where man began. Standing at the end of this terrace, we look across the broad and fertile valley below, far away to the feudal watch-tower of Neudeck, and stretched on either side we see a range of hills rich in larch and silver fir. Down the neighbouring roads come herds of goats, their bells tinkling an accompaniment to the bauer’s humble ditty as he drives them homewards. Along the flat distant table-land in front, you may see the Wiesent flowing in a clear blue line, reflecting here and there in its course the last rays from the sun as it sinks behind the glowing horizon.
Such is the view which the inmates of the Golden Kreutz have before them every fine summer’s evening as they pace the terrace in front of their hotel after supper. That meal usually consists of trout, the ubiquitous veal cutlet, and the beer of the country, which has a peculiar smoky flavour not unlike that of Irish whisky, and rather unpalatable until one is accustomed to it. The trout is much larger than our own, though not so delicate in flavour. The fish are often kept in tanks supplied by some breeding pond in connection with the hotels, so that it is easy to select the plumpest “forelle” for the frying-pan.
Hard by the inn lives the doctor. It is the business of this gentleman to attend those patients who believe in the Molkenkur, or efficacy of whey in cases of indisposition (chiefly ennui with the ladies). The doctor is the general friend and confidant of all the visitors. He sits at the head of the table d’hôte, and has a pleasant word or a prescription for everybody. He is something of an artist: he is something of an angler: he is something of a naturalist, and has a wonderful taste for shells and fossils. The morning after our arrival, he conducted our party over his museum, where, I am ashamed to say, I affected such a deep interest in his collection that he presented me with a fine specimen of the echinus coronatus, which I carried back to England with great care, and discovered the other day enshrined with old medicine bottles and superannuated boots in my bedroom cupboard.
The doctor sings a little, though he doesn’t play. His sister, on the other hand, plays a little, though she doesn’t sing. Therefore, when the ladies are tired of “Les Graces” upon the terrace (an ingenious game in which three nymphs toss light hoops of painted wood from one to another, by means of little rods of the same material), there is no difficulty—as indeed there never is anywhere in Germany—in getting up an amateur concert in the salle à manger. The male portion of the audience lounge smoking at the entrance door which opens on the terrace. The non-performing ladies—at least those who can, for their crinolines are beyond belief and almost beyond control—sit down and knit. The waiters subside. We look round the room and find ourselves the only English present: we have caught the Germans at home.
The excursions from Streitberg to the different points of interest are all within a few hours’ drive. The scenery is very beautiful and continually varied. It is generally like that of the Tyrol in miniature, but now and then one comes upon a copse or patch of meadow land, through which some trout stream leaping over boulders of half-embedded rock, or eddying round in pools of dark deep water, and lashed into creamy foam along its banks, reminds one of the anglers’ haunts in Devonshire.
We hired an indigenous carriage and native horses—both of great antiquity—and during our few days’ stay visited Muggendorf, the Riesenburg, Tuchersfeld, and the Castle of Rabenstein.
Muggendorf is in the heart of Franconian Switzerland, and is often made the rendezvous for tourists. In addition to the lovely scenery by which it is surrounded, it is famous for a cave called the Rosenmüller’s Höhle, which they say is interesting to the geologist. But a far more remarkable feature in this neighbourhood is the Riesenburg, or Giant’s Castle, an enormous natural vault, intersected by arches formed by the decomposition of the rock. It is open at the top, like the Pantheon at Rome, and is surrounded by crags and rugged soil. You may walk over the turf-covered crowns of some of these spurious arches, which really bear some resemblance to artificial work, and have thus suggested the familiar name of this natural phenomenon. Lichens, ferns, and tufts of grass are plentifully scattered, and spring from crevices in the rock, and the sun gleams in through little chinks, casting purple shadows here and there, across which long green lizards dart at the first approach of footsteps, and scramble out of sight. It is here, too, that the valley of the Wiesent is seen to best advantage,—now as rich meadow land, stretching to the river’s brink, now broken by wooded slopes jutting anglewise upon the plain, or dotted here and there, by huge masses of limestone in fantastic shapes. Accidents of colour, form, and composition, which delight the artist’s eye, are here in all variety, and have this advantage over the details of most landscape, that for the most part they are upon unbeaten ground, at least by English painters.
The village of Tuchersfeld, a few miles from this spot, consists of a cluster of cottages, built in the midst of enormous crags or pinnacles of rock, towering one above another to a giddy height. Some of them taper like huge obelisks, others resemble elongated cromlechs, and seem to rest on such slight foundations, that nothing but long acquaintance with the genius loci would allow one to forget the apparent danger which they threaten.
There is a famous cave near here—the “Sophienhöhle,” which, being an affair of torches, guides, and many florins, we did not go to see. It is full of fossil remains—bones of hyenas, bears, and deer, and I believe even antediluvian relics, something like 200 feet below the natural level of the ground. The owner allows none to be removed, no doubt deriving a little income from the fees paid by tourists, who would hardly care to visit the cave if stripped of its contents.
On the road to Rabenstein there is a little wirtschaft, or beershop, where we stayed to lunch, and the owner of which was one of those insatiable old ladies who, come of what nation they may, look upon the rest of mankind, and tourists in particular, as their legitimate prey, from whom the greatest bonus of remuneration is expected in return for the least possible amount of civility. Without the slightest necessity for it, she had thrust her son or servant on us as a guide, and we paid her for his unsought services, during a couple of hours, certainly as much as he could have earned in one hard day’s work. To our great surprise, however, she looked on the fee with supreme contempt, and, with many airs and scornful smiles, handed it back to us again, declaring she would not take it. Unfortunately for her, a German friend who was with me took her at her word, coolly pocketed the money, and drove off. As we returned that day the carriage stopped by the house, and she assailed us again, but in a different tone. She had discovered that she was a poor woman, that times were bad, and that she had a large family. Finally, she said that she would be very glad to take what we had offered. At first my German friend was inexorable, and, indeed, would have driven off without giving her a kreuzer, if I had not begged that this argumentum ad misericordiam might prevail. The castle of Rabenstein is a picturesque old schloss, which has been added to and altered from time to time, until it was finally modernised into a German summer residence. It belongs to Count Schörnborn, and is plainly fitted up—the frauenzimmerisch details of the furniture contrasting strangely with the grim and solemn aspect of the walls and ceilings.
Nothing can be more romantic than the situation of the castle itself, perched as it is on the edge of a lofty precipice overhanging the Ahornthal. You walk out of one of the portals in the rear across a trim little garden, and look over an ivy-clad wall, almost straight down a depth of 150 feet, into a maple valley below, through which the Essbach winds its course, half hidden here and there by the dense foliage with which it is surrounded. The grandeur and beauty of the view from this point pass all description. Gösweinstein, a little hamlet also situated on a lofty eminence, commands a splendid panorama of the surrounding country, and will amply repay a visit.
It would be difficult indeed, to mention any of this lovely country which has not some attraction, be it artistic, geological, or piscatory, for the tourist. Those to whom time and economy are objects, will find it more accessible and infinitely cheaper than Switzerland. Five francs a day will cover the traveller’s expenses at the inns of Muggendorf or Streitberg, and it is even possible to live for less, en pension, at a lodging-house. A carriage at either of these places may be hired for a few shillings a day, but the short distances which separate the principal points of interest offer peculiar advantages to the pedestrian. You may “do” the place (as the phrase goes) in a week, but those who seek real seclusion from town life, who enjoy pure invigorating air, and charming scenery, may spend a month very pleasantly in Franconia.