I asked Hudson to take me to the city center, which was about, oh, 30-45 seconds into my 30 kph drive into the city. I didn't spot the usual city center types of things like a post office or even a store. I continued on and found a large church and another building that looked like it might be something but seemed to be described as a parking garage. I continued on just driving around randomly since there didn't really seem to be a good place to park and then just wander around on foot. I continued and then happened upon a cemetary. What better way to learn about a town than through its cemetary.
I don't say that because I'm a morbid person or anything, just that in many US cemetaries you can get an idea who the big families are, a feel for particular difficult times for the town (e.g. disasters, wars, or diseases that seem to cause a lot of deaths in a relatively short period of town), as well as about the people based on what they inscribe on the tombstones.
Well, this cemetary was a bit different than what I am used to. For starters, it seems to be a relatively new cemetary with tombstones primarily dating from the 70s and on. I didn't find a single old stone that was so weathered that you could no longer read the stone. To the contrary, each headstone (which is an understatement as I will explain shortly) seemed to be in very pristine condition in a shiny, conditioned marble with inscriptions seemingly added to the stones rather than being engraved into the stone itself. And they were primarily just names and dates of birth and death, rather than any inscriptions about the life the person led. For example, I might normally expect something like "Loving father and husband" or something like that. the only thing close was the German translation of "Here lies with God..."
The headstones themselves were quite interesting. Instead of just a headstone, they also had either a solid flat panel of granite or other 
stone that covered the entire grave site, or what amounted to a beautiful stone border surrounding a patch of earth transformed into a beautiful garden. These gardens were incredibly beautiful and varied, as if describing the beauty and type of life lived by the person interred in the particular grave. Some had bushes, others were rock gardens. The ground was entirely covered in beautiful flowering plants in some cases and in others by dark earth carefully raked in the manner of a Japanese garden. Many had a special place for a candle or lantern and one even had a small bird bath engraved into the stone. And as in American cemetaries that I am more familiar with, there were, in many cases, also double or triple sized graves, for both husband and wife and perhaps a child. I did not see a single mausoleum (I think that's the right word) for a family, though. As with churches (even without a flash), I struggle on whether it is disrespectful to take photos of cemetaries. I made an exception here because it seems like such a celebration of life. However, I may be entirely wrong here since I know nothing about German cemetary practices. (And if you click on the photo and see it in a larger window, you can also get an idea of the idyllic town that lies beneath it.)
After this brief stop, I headed back into the town and stopped to take a picture of the parkhaus kind of place that still looks like it should be a restaurant. As I got out of the car and turned to face the building, I found myself also facing a gray-haired man and woman looking out of said building at the far end and watching me with a great deal of interest. As I've explained before, the license plates of cars indicate where they are from, so some chick showing up in a handsome A5 (not exactly an agricultural vehicle) with MTK license plates would elicit the same response in Germany as in the U.S. -- "You ain't from around these here parts, are ya'?" I waved at them, took my picture, and drove on. I found a parking place by the church and started walking on foot.
I encountered only one other person on my 10 minute walk, a young woman walking on the other side of the street. She, too, looked at me with a bit of suspicion, but gave me a hearty "Guten Tag!" which I returned in my best German as I pretended to belong. Alas, there wasn't really all that much to see, so I headed out of town shortly thereafter. And that's where the town's true beauty is -- the small village set against a patchwork of hay fields, stands of trees, round bales of hay, green fields, plowed fields and everything in between. The photo at the top as one enters the town perhaps captures that beauty best, though it doesn't contain the village itself.
