May Day

Start of May had been exciting – a hike, badminton, pizza and spike ball! That was my how the month started.

Walberla

A long weekend was ahead of us. We wanted to do anything but stay home. So, on the suggestion from my roommate, we decided to head towards the Frankonian Swiss.

This place is called Walberla. These hills are roughly 20 kms and are visible from my high rise apartment.

The hikes are always interesting with more people. So, we sent out invites. Some were lazy, while a few others occupied as they had their own plans for the long weekend. Finally, we were able to gather 10 people who made up their mind to join the hike. On the day of the hike, however, only 5 turned up.

The smaller group had its own charm. We could get to know the two new friends better.

To our delight we chose the perfect day to travel to Walberla. May 1st sees huge crowds arriving to Walberla for Walberla festival. Originally, it was a pilgrimage and church festival at the church at the top of the hill. But like all things in Germany now, it is more about the hike, Beer and food stall.

There was good connectivity from Erlangen to Walberla. I am not sure if it is like this all year round or just this time of the year due to the festival.

A short train ride from Erlangen to Forscheim followed by another short ride to Kirchehrenbach brought us to the foothills. The train ride took us less than 30 mins and we were teleported to this beautiful landscape straight out of windows wallpaper.

The hike was easy. We took a slightly longer way to walk around the hill to finally climb the hill. On the way, we could see my apartment. Then there was a huge cross and soon we arrived at our destination.

There were a lot of beer and food stalls. And A LOT OF PEOPLE. We were surprised to see so many. It has been 6 months since I saw so many people together in one place. This view brought memories from my home country.

Hidden between these shops was the small church – The church which was supposed to be the center piece of this festival. Now it looked almost forgotten. We also forgot to click take any photos of it 😆

After the hike we were getting a bit hungry ourselves. The ice cream stall was very inviting and so we started with it. It was a bit expensive as expected – 1.5 Eur for a very small scoop.

Then we found a place and settled there. We ate some food that we had brought from our homes. But the highlight was the surprising treat of home baked cake.

One of our friends in the group teaches math to a German school kid on Sundays. This family had also come to the festival. We met them and they offered some cake that they had baked. Usually, I don’t enjoy sweets but this cake, I liked!

The pleasant warm weather was very welcoming and we spent a long time lying on the grass. We did not realize that the cool breeze was hiding the strong intensity of the sun rays. That, along with the clear skies in Germany makes it notoriously easy to get sun burns.

None of us had sunscreen on us. The effects of which were felt over the next days. The change in color was quite immediate but the skin only started peeling off after 2 days.

Yes. Now we have our lessons and our sunscreens.

The crowd kept getting denser. People would stay here till late evening. We decided to head back before the trains get crowded with so many people returning.

I also have been carrying a boomerang with me ever since I got it. This was roughly 5 months back. Finally, we found some space to play with it. There was an open field and we played for sometime.

We got on a train back and reached Erlangen quite soon. We still had reserve energy left when we were at the station. The sun also wouldn’t set for another 2 hours or more. So we decided to head towards this open space along side the river.

After 2 long hours of chit chat it was finally time to head home. I decided to walk back home. That was another 40 mins and finally I made it home at 9. A bit tired but excited about badminton the next day.