pilgrim

Walking Der Ökumenische Pilgerweg – Gröditz to Kamenz

On the morning of Friday 21^st August 2015, Sybille and I set out from the Pilgerherberge at Gröditz, to walk 20km to the large town of Bautzen. As you can see from the photographs, we were blessed with fine sunny weather.

Our route took us along a series of tracks and minor roads across undulating countryside.

The Pilgerweg approaching Drehsa © Ricky Yates

Here is the way approaching the village of Drehsa.

Within Drehsa, there was this fun mural of a flying pig and piglet 🙂

In view of the sunny weather, we both appreciated the shade provided by trees along parts of the route.

As on many pilgrim routes that I’ve walked, the approach to larger towns and cities is often not that pleasant for walkers. The last few kilometres into Bautzen involved walking uphill, alongside a busy main road. But we eventually made it, obtained the key to the pilgrim accommodation provided by the Lutheran Church, where we were able to shower, change and leave most of our belongings securely.

In the early evening, we enjoyed a drink, sitting outside in the main square, opposite the Rathaus.

St Peter's Cathedral, Bautzen © Ricky Yates — St Peter’s Cathedral, Bautzen © Ricky Yates

Nearby is St. Peter’s Cathedral, an example of a simultaneum or Simultankirche. Here Lutherans and Roman Catholics have shared the same Church building since 1530! After exploring more of the historic town centre, Sybille took me a very nice Sorbian restaurant which she had discovered during her pilgrimage earlier in April.

The Milleniumsdenkmal featuring St Cyril and St Methodius, Apostles to the Slavs © Ricky Yates

Fortunately, the route out of Bautzen the following morning, was along a series of quite quiet roads, though we did have to pass under the busy Autobahn 4. After 8.5km of walking, we reached the top of Roter Berg, a low hill on which has been erected the Milleniumsdenkmal featuring St Cyril and St Methodius, Apostles to the Slavs. Methodius was made a bishop therefore he is the one wearing a mitre 🙂

That afternoon, we walked on a further 8.5km, to the town of Crostwitz. Just outside the town, the correct way was indicated by a yellow arrow, painted on the road!

Roman Catholic Church in Crostwitz © Ricky Yates

In Crostwitz, we stayed overnight in this Pilgerherberge owned and run by a lady called Monika. She is a native speaker of Sorbian, the West Slavic language I mentioned in my previous post. In Crostwitz, the secondary/high school, teaches through the medium of Sorbian, with German only being taught as a second language.

Monika explained that when this area was part of the Soviet satellite state of East Germany, the communist authorities actively encouraged the use and preservation of the Sorbian language. This was because of it being a Slavic language and so much of what happened was orchestrated by the Russians in Moscow, their ‘fellow Slavs’ 😉 It is ironic that now, one place where the language continues in active use, is within the Church. On the evening of Saturday 22^nd August 2015, Sybille and I went to a very well-attended mass in the Roman Catholic Parish Church, conducted only in Sorbian.

Street name in German & Upper Sorbian with waymark for the Pilgerweg © Ricky Yates

Believe it or not, despite only being spoken by about 50,000 people, there are two different versions of Sorbian! About 40,000 people speak Upper Sorbian and live in the Bundesland of Freistaat Sachsen, the area we were walking through. Immediately north, in the Bundesland of Brandenburg, there are a further 10,000 speakers of Lower Sorbian. Upper Sorbian relates more to Czech; Lower Sorbian to Polish.

Our final day on this first part of the Ökumenische Pilgerweg was Sunday 23^rd August 2015, when we walked 16.5km from Crostwitz to Kamenz. Once more it was fine and sunny and my main recollection of that day, was finding nowhere that was open to serve us a cool drink! Fortunately, when we reached the eastern outskirts of Kamenz, we had to walk right through where a travelling fair was set up for a week and we finally were able to purchase a couple of beers.

We then walked on to the town centre to the tourist information centre, where we collected the key to the Pilgerherberge. Following that, we treated ourselves to a further beer, sitting outside a hotel on the town square, opposite the Rathaus. One problem we encountered throughout our week on the Ökumenische Pilgerweg, were an abundance of wasps, who tended to take a great interest in any beer we were drinking. This was a novel way of preventing them doing so 🙂

My other recollection of the whole week was the almost total absence of anyone who spoke English. My normal experience of trying to use my limited German when in Germany, is being spoken back to in word-perfect English! But the first time this happened to me during our five days on the Ökumenische Pilgerweg, was in Kamenz, ordering this beer and a different one for Sybille, who had gone off to use the toilet facilities in the hotel. I presume the reason for the lack of English was being in the former East Germany and being places not normally frequented that much by non-German tourists.

Brass plaque outside the Kamenz Pilgerherberge © Ricky Yates

Suitably refreshed, we then walked on a further kilometre uphill 🙁 , to the Kamenz Pilgerherberge.

Rucksacks, walking poles & hats © Ricky Yates

Walking Der Ökumenische Pilgerweg – Görlitz to Gröditz

Peregrinus Herberge, Görlitz © Ricky Yates

As explained in the opening two paragraphs of my previous post, back on Tuesday 18th August 2015, Sybille and I drove from Prague to Görlitz, in order to spend the following week walking the first part of Der Ökumenische Pilgerweg. We stayed overnight in the Peregrinus Herberge, where we were also able to leave the ‘Carly’ securely parked, before setting out along the Pilgerweg the next morning.

With Görlitz being located in the valley of the Neiße river, it was inevitable that initially walking westwards to leave the town, involved walking uphill! However, we were soon out into open countryside and having covered 5km……

……reached the attractive village of Ebersbach.

Path through the forests near Hochstein © Ricky Yates

From Ebersbach, there was then a gentle further climb along a minor road to the small village of Liebstein. The way then heads into a large and hilly forested area, following a series of gravelled tracks. 15km after leaving Görlitz, we finally arrived at Hochstein, at 406m above sea level, the highest point on the Pilgerweg east of Leipzig. Fortunately, it is also the location of the Hochsteinbaude where we were able to enjoy a drink and a late lunch. We were glad that we hadn’t arrived the previous day as Dienstag ist Ruhetag!

Sybille walking towards Arnsdorf © Ricky Yates

Suitably refreshed, we then continued to walk a further 5.5km, eventually leaving the forest and gently descending to the village of Arnsdorf.

Pilgerherberge at Arnsdorf © Ricky Yates

In Arnsdorf, we stayed in this delightful Pilgerherberge which has been created in the outbuildings of the Protestant Pastor’s home.

Protestant Pastor's home in Arnsdorf © Ricky Yates — Protestant Pastor’s home in Arnsdorf © Ricky Yates

The next day, our route took us along paths like this…..

…and this,

Weissenberg or Wóspork © Ricky Yates — Weissenberg or Wóspork. Also note the waymark on the pole © Ricky Yates

sometimes following minor roads, until we reached the small town of Weissenberg. Weissenberg marks the beginning of this part of south-eastern Germany where Sorbian is spoken, which is a legally recognised minority language, hence the town’s alternative name Wóspork. Sorbian is a West Slavic language, closely related to Czech and Polish – more in my next blog post.

After lunch at an outdoor table of a restaurant situated on the main square, opposite the Weissenberg Rathaus, we walked on, heading for the village of Gröditz.

Sybille nervously crossing the rickety bridge © Ricky Yates

Our route took us along the Gröditzer Skala, an attractive deep valley. But it also involved crossing a river on this somewhat rickety footbridge!

A weary pilgrim resting outside the Gröditz Pilgerherberge © Ricky Yates

We eventually climbed out of the valley to arrive directly before the door of the Gröditz Pilgerherberge. For those interested in distances, Arnsdorf – Gröditz is about 15.5km.

A tale of two Advents

The Advent Ring hanging from the ceiling of St. Clement's Church © Ricky Yates — The Advent Ring hanging from the ceiling of St. Clement’s Church © Ricky Yates

Last Sunday, 30^th November, was Advent Sunday which marks both the beginning of the Church Liturgical Year and of the season of Advent. Contrary to what the manufacturers of Advent calendars all believe, Advent only occasionally begins on 1st December. Instead it begins four Sundays before Christmas Day.

The word ‘advent’ means ‘coming’, from the Latin ‘adventus‘. And particularly at the beginning of the Advent season, we are encouraged to think seriously about the promised second coming of Christ – his second Advent, as in turn we prepare ourselves to once more celebrate his first coming at Christmas.

The tradition of having an Advent ring/wreath/crown, with four candles, an additional one to be lit on successive Sundays during Advent, is very popular here in the Czech Republic. Whilst our host Ceskobratrská církve evangelické / Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren congregation, are not great keepers of the Liturgical Year – for example, they do not mark Ash Wednesday – they do mark and keep the Advent season. As part of doing so, each year they provide this amazing Advent ring which hangs from the Church ceiling, just behind the altar. I took this photograph at the end of our Advent Sunday worship last Sunday morning, just before snuffing out the first lit candle, as part of our duty of leaving the Church building safe and secure!

I thoroughly enjoyed our Advent Sunday worship with the regular congregation being joined by numerous visitors from around the world. Our service began with the singing of, ‘O come, O come, Emmanuel’, and ended with a rousing rendition of Charles Wesley’s ‘Lo, he comes with clouds descending’. But as well as celebrating Christ’s promised ‘second Advent’, I was very conscious that just a couple of days later, I would experience a personal ‘second advent’ – that of my wife, Sybille, returning to Prague from her nearly six-month walking pilgrimage, from Prague to Santiago de Compostela.

Having left from the front door of the Chaplaincy Flat on Monday 9^th June, Sybille successfully walked into Santiago on the morning of Sunday 23^rd November. After her arrival, she spent a few days enjoying the city and also visited a friend in Lugo. With no direct flights available to Prague, she instead flew to Barcelona and spent the Advent Sunday weekend staying with another friend there, before being booked to fly to Prague on Tuesday 2^nd December.

Over the few days before Sybille was due to return to Prague, it was cold but dry. However, soon after dark on the evening of Monday 1^st December, it started to rain. But because the air and the ground were so cold, the rain almost immediately froze, forming ice everywhere. Prague, together with much of the rest of the Czech Republic, experienced what has been described as an ‘ice storm’. Ice forming in large amounts on the overhead wires, caused the whole of the Prague tram network to close down along with much of the Czech railway system.

The 'Carly' on Tuesday 2nd December © Ricky Yates — The ‘Carly’ on Tuesday 2nd December © Ricky Yates

Eventually, the rain did turn to snow and this was how my car looked the following morning, in advance of driving out to the airport to meet Sybille. But underneath what appears to be just a light dusting of snow, was a thick layer of ice covering the windscreen and all the other car windows. It took a major scraping exercise to get the car into a condition to be driven safely with good visibility all round!

Therefore, having been sitting alongside the sea, sipping a glass of wine the previous afternoon, it came as quite a shock for Sybille as she flew from a temperature of +16C in Barcelona, to one of -2C in Prague. She did humorously request that I put her straight on a plane back to Spain, when she saw the snow and felt the icy cold.

Fortunately, the weather and temperature has improved from the atrocious conditions of Monday night and Tuesday. I’ve taken the inside of this week as annual leave and we’ve begun to adjust to once more being together in the same flat, for the first time in nearly six months.

‘Cleanliness is next to godliness’

My clean study bookshelves © Ricky Yates

According to the ‘Oxford Dictionary of Quotations’, this proverb dates from the late eighteenth century. Apparently, an early example of its usage is found in one of the sermons of John Wesley published in 1788. Whether I’m godly I’ll leave others to judge, but after one last, major effort over the past few days, the Chaplaincy Flat is now in a state of cleanliness that it hasn’t known in the more than six years Sybille and I have lived in it.

As I explained as part of my answer to question three in this post from mid-July, whilst Sybille is away on her long distance walking pilgrimage from Prague to Santiago de Compostela, I decided it was the perfect opportunity to completely clean every part of the Chaplaincy Flat. As I also explained, the task was both prompted and aided by Sybille completely sorting out all her papers and belongings which were previously scattered on and under her desk.

After a bit of a lull in cleaning activity during September, as I wrote in the opening lines of my previous post, in October I tackled the kitchen. Whilst our kitchen might be small – realistically it would be better described as a kitchenette 😉 – getting everything contained within it clean, was no small task!

With the kitchen complete, this meant that only my study remained to experience my cleaning blitz. But it was the room that I was least looking forward to tackling, which is why inevitably, I left it until last. My study does tend to be the room where things that don’t have a proper home, get dumped. For example, there is a box of papers which my predecessor was going to take to the Diocesan Record Office in London, but didn’t quite get around to doing so 🙁 There are also two more boxes of papers and photographs which are mine, waiting as they have been for over six years, for me to go through and sort them out!

Eventually I decided that the best way to proceed was to start on one side of the study entrance door, and work my way slowly round the four sides of the room. Therefore, the ‘business end’ came first, where my desk, computer, printer/scanner/photocopier, phone, wifi router, paper shredder and two lamps, are all located. My greatest fear, as I pulled furniture away from the wall to remove the large amount of cobwebs and dust lying behind, was that I would accidentally disconnect some of the various wires, plugs and adaptors that make everything work. Fortunately, I avoided any mishaps and things probably work far better now they are no longer covered in dust 🙂

Then it was the aforementioned boxes, piled on a trunk of my belongings, under the windowsill. The contents still are not sorted but at least they are no longer covered in dust.

The remaining walls of my study are all lined with bookshelves – all of the genuine IKEA variety 🙂 They were put together and erected for my predecessor as Chaplain, when he and his wife moved into the flat after it was purchased by the Chaplaincy in January 2006, almost nine years ago. We are most grateful to have all these bookshelves as, despite massively downsizing before moving to Prague, both Sybille and I have great difficulty in parting with books and are experts at buying or collecting additional ones 🙂

However, apart from giving the bookshelves a quick wipe before stacking our respective libraries on them, I have to confess that they haven’t received much attention with regard to cleaning since, save an occasional cursory wipe with the duster along the most exposed parts at the front. Therefore you can probably imagine the amount of dust that arose as I completely emptied each shelf of its contents.

As part of this exercise, I made two other ‘interesting’ discoveries. The first was that, whilst the bookshelves line the walls of my office, they are not actually attached to the walls. Therefore, having emptied each unit of all the books contained on them, I was able to move each unit away from the wall to reveal dust, cobwebs and dead insects which had been taking up residence over the past nearly nine years! The second, was that the back board of each unit had either detached itself or was coming detached from the unit. So as well as cleaning, I also spent time firmly nailing each back board, back into place.

This whole exercise of cleaning my study, has been tiring and quite time-consuming. But upon completion, I have been left with a real sense of satisfaction. And having had a run around today with the vacuum cleaner and the duster, through most of the other previously, thoroughly cleaned rooms, I’ve achieved what I wanted to achieve in advance of Sybille’s return home this coming Tuesday. The only danger is that I’m becoming a little obsessional, promptly wiping any dirty mark I see and picking up every speck of dirt off the floor 🙂

Whilst cleaning the boxes, whose contents await me ‘sorting them out’, I did make a most pleasing discovery – this delightful photograph of Sybille taken on our honeymoon in France just over nine years ago.

Gland – Geneva

My final two days of walking through Switzerland, accompanying Sybille on her pilgrimage from Prague to Santiago de Compostela, took us through a series of towns and villages that are predominantly home to people who commute to work in Geneva. Whilst the surroundings became increasingly urban, there were still some attractive stretches of countryside in-between settlements.

On the morning of Tuesday 19^th August, we left the Pilger Herberge and walked through the town of Gland, passing under the main Lausanne-Geneva railway line by Gland station. Walking along a series of minor roads, we reached Prangins with this delightful Church at the centre of the village and a peaceful outdoor café where we enjoyed a mid-morning coffee.

Prangins then merges with the much larger town of Nyon which we traversed, parallel to the main railway line, before the chemin took us away to the more peaceful surroundings of the Bois Bougy where we found a bench to sit on whilst we ate our picnic lunch.

The next commune we walked through was Céligny, which is clearly aware that it lies on the Chemin de Saint-Jacques as it features five scallop shells on its coat of arms.

From Céligny, the chemin once more entered woods and fields before arriving at the impressive Château de Bossey, home of the Ecumenical Institute of the World Council of Churches.

Liturgical & Hymn book choice © Ricky Yates

Whilst we couldn’t see inside the main building, the chapel was open to visitors. We both smiled when we saw the bookshelves at the back of the chapel with an amazing variety of liturgical and hymn books in several different languages.

We had hoped to stay that evening in Commugny, about four-and-a-half kilometres on from the Château de Bossey, where there was another family who were listed as accueil jacquaire; people who offered overnight accommodation specifically for pilgrims. Sybille tried phoning their number two or three times during the day, but got no answer. We found the house as we entered Commugny, as it is situated right alongside the chemin. But ringing the door bell also received no reply.

So we walked on another couple of kilometres, into neighbouring Tannay where we stopped at a little shop and café and each had a small beer. Whilst we enjoyed our liquid refreshment, we agreed that we would stay in whatever accommodation we next reached when we walked on. Much to our amusement, immediately around the next corner was Auberge Lion d’Or. Our enquiry about the availability of a room received a positive response. It was expensive, but we both agreed that, as it was to be our last night together for three months, we might as well treat ourselves. So we did!

Sybille with her tablet & glass of red wine © Ricky Yates

We also enjoyed a splendid evening meal together on the terrace of the Auberge, where I managed to take this photograph of Sybille, checking out something using her tablet, especially bought for her pilgrimage, to enable her to keep in contact with ‘her world’. It also has a Kindle app to which many books have been downloaded, without adding weight to her rucksack 🙂

Although I did get a slightly askance look when I asked for a third cup of coffee 🙂 , breakfast at Auberge Lion d’Or was otherwise fine. Afterwards, we set out on our final day together, walking from Tannay, through Mies, Versoix, Bellevue and Chambésy, to the hillside village of Pregny where we enjoyed a lunchtime drink sitting on the garden terrace of a bar-restaurant.

We visited the village Church before the chemin then began to descend quite steeply and we had this first view across Lac Léman, of the city of Geneva with its famous fountain.

Yours truly has arrived in Geneva © Ricky Yates

Our actual entry into Geneva was where we had to walk alongside the main Cantonal road for about a kilometre. Sybille suggested I should pose directly under the sign, just to prove I did get there 🙂

Soon afterwards, the chemin took us from the busy road, through a park, to the side of Lac Léman where we ate a late picnic lunch. Then, after taking in my final view of both the lake and the fountain, we walked to the main railway station. There we said farewell to each other. I went to buy my ticket and catch the train to Bern and then on to Langenthal. Sybille walked on through Geneva to the Swiss – French border, some seven kilometres further away.