Rundlinge Dörfer

One of the unique features of this part of Germany, the Wendland, is the large number of Rundlinge Dörfer, round villages. They are small villages that are basically built in a circle around a central community area. I'd call it a "square", except it's circular! Typically, the houses have large double doors facing into the centre of the village, which open into the barn. Further back is the human habitation, which faces outwards. No-one really knows why these villages were built in this formation, but they are really lovely. They date from the late 1600s to the late 1800s, and are currently under consideration by UNESCO for World Heritage listing.

Rundlinge are really difficult to photograph. Only aerial shots do them justice.

The closest Rundling to Proitzer Mühle is Göhr, 2km away. It's very small and an incomplete Rundling. There are only three or four houses, and they make a semi-circle.

House 1 on left, house 2 behind spruce, house 3 down drive on right, house 4 visible

Further afield, Satemin is a nice village. It's pretty close to a full circle. The main road does a 90 degree turn through the middle of the village, and the houses on that quarter are newer and in a straight line rather than conforming to the circular.

No fences between houses is generally the case in Rundlinge Dörfer

Lots of grass as the houses curve around

Schreyahn is another example of a complete Rundling. Smaller than Satemin, its shape is more regular. In some Rundlinge, several houses are set back from the others, but in Schreyahn, most are at the same level.

Everything radiates from the centre

You can see the grassed community area quite clearly in this shot

The houses are lovely.  Note the stork's nest on the left

Luckau has a special meaning for me. There is a lovely children’s book which I have translated here, about a stork who was born in a Rundlingdorf. He falls off the nest and ends up living with a small herd of calves until he learns to fly. It’s written and illustrated by a local author (the same one who wrote Der Zwergenstein) and contains several local references. There are some liberties taken with the geography, but Heike tells me the village is Luckau. When we visited Luckau, there were four chicks on the nest.

In the book, the stork's nest is on a house.  In the real world, it's on a pole

Four well-grown youngsters

It was a pretty hot day. No shade on a stork's nest

Der Elberadweg

Yesterday we packed the bikes into the trailer and drove to Dömitz in Mecklenburg-Vorpommen, another "state". It's just across the Elbe River, which was the East/West German border, so it's in the old East Germany. From there we rode along the Elberadweg, the bike path along the Elbe, which runs from the Czech Republic to the North Sea, some 1220 kilometres. We only did a small section.

Unloading the bikes

The Elbe has a wide floodplain.  The river is quite low at the moment

Lots of people stopped at this cafe

Heike, Sally and Bence rode reclining bikes. Zsuzska and I were on normal, upright bikes.

Getting started on a recliner can be challenging

Left to right: Heike, Sally and Zsuzska

I love the self-timer!

Note the stork's nest on top of the thatched roof in the centre

We stopped for a picnic lunch on a river beach.  Warm sand to sit on; lots of birds flying over.  I saw Red Kites, Black Kites, Common Buzzards, a Rough-legged Buzzard and an unidentified falcon, as well as a couple of small flocks of Greylag Geese, some gulls and some passerines.

Bence and Zsuzska sat at the river's edge most of the time

Sunbathing - although not much sun, thank goodness

The loop we rode involved heading inland from the river a little

We took up the whole width of the road where we could

Selfie on a bike!!

This was colourful, though not very attractive

The final part of the circuit was on top of a dyke. It was flat, but the wind was a really strong headwind, and I found it tough going. The others were far ahead for most of this part of the ride. The whole circuit that we rode was about 30 kilometres.

Germany's largest inland sand dune

This is a canal, not the Elbe, but it was lovely scenery

There's a whole ridge of sand dunes behind the canal

Farmland on the left, canal on the right

My obsession with storks continues. The Elbe is a great place to find them. Along the river there are many houses with stork nests on their roofs. Some are empty, but most contain chicks, which at this time of year are almost the same size as the adults. There are also nests built atop high poles which are erected for that purpose. Stork nests can weigh up to a tonne as the birds add to them year after year.

Storks lay up to five eggs, but generally raise two to four youngsters. The storks in this part of Europe migrate to Africa during the winter, then back to Europe in summer (once they are three years old).  Most only migrate to southern Sudan, but some fly as far as South Africa. That's 10,000 kilometres!

This nest is on a pole, and contains four chicks.  The adults are off hunting

This nest also has four chicks.  Note the band on the leg of the chick standing

When we got to the dyke, there were tractors working in the paddock. They are stork magnets. There’s almost always a stork when there’s a tractor working, as the machines disturb all the prey, so the storks have an easier time hunting. They eat worms, slugs, snails, grasshoppers, frogs, mice, young rabbits – whatever they can catch. The adults eat around 500 grams each per day; each young stork needs up to 1.2 kilos per day! That’s a lot of hunting!

A huge paddock containing these two machines and a dozen storks

Checking out the prey after the tractor has passed

They can live for 30 years in the wild

They stand over a metre tall, with a wingspan of around 2.2 metres

Such stunning birds!

I'm also convinced that I saw three Black Storks, which are rare. Bence, as leader of our little peloton, scared them into flight a long way ahead of me. By the time I thought: hey - they're different, and stopped and got out my binocs, they were even further away. However, I got a clear view of them in flight, looking quite like Straw-necked Ibis - but there are no ibis here. Heike says Black Storks are not uncommon around the Elbe and even around the Schnega area, but they are forest dwellers and are rarely spotted.

Crops

I’ve never seen so much land given over to growing crops as I have here in Germany. Paddocks are relatively small, they begin on the fenceline of the last house in the village, and more often than not, two paddocks side by side contain different crops.  On the other hand, animals are few and far between.  I’ve seen cows and some horses, but no sheep.

On a short walk around Proitzer Mühle, I’ve found:

Onions

Wheat

This wheat was harvested last week.  Proitzer Mühle is behind those trees

Corn.  They grow a lot to use for Bio-oil

Barley.  This is looking towards the Unnererdschenberg

Corn on the left, barley on the right

Spinach, with corn at the back

Spinach foreground, potatoes background

Potatoes foreground, corn background

More wheat, with onions the bluey coloured crop in the background

Der Zwergenstein

Today I walked to the Zwergenstein (literally - dwarf stone). According to a local legend, it's a rock that marks the entrance to the place where the Unnererdschen live (literally - under the earth, and -chen is a diminutive).  It's the local name for a race of dwarves. There's a children's book that I read and translated here that tells the story.

Note the shape of the rocks

A group of farmers discovered the Unnererdschen grinding their grain in a mill (Proitzer Mühle). When they realised the farmers had spotted them, the dwarves quickly gathered their stuff and departed.  The farmers chased them as far as the hole in the ground into which they disappeared, and which was marked by a large rock, the Zwergenstein.  Later, the children of one of the farmers heard him talking about the Unnererdschen and decided they wanted one of the dwarves to play with.  The farmer and his hand, Jochen, went out and caught one of the dwarves and locked him in the stable. When they went to show the children their new playmate the next morning, he'd gone.  They went to the Unnererdschenberg again to catch another, but discovered that the hole into the Unnererdschen home had been covered by a second large rock. That night, the Unnererdschen paid a visit to Jochen and stole his nightcap.  He went to the farmer and they organised a night visit to recapture one of the dwarves, as the hole was obviously open at night. Jochen went down the hole again but never came out. The farmer ran away in terror some time later. The hole in the ground is once again covered by the rock, and Jochen was never seen again.

The main track through the forest

The turnoff onto the little track up to the Unnererdschenberg

The tall stone marks the hole, the other flat stone covers the entrance

I'm standing on a legend!  Awesome!

A slightly different version is on the information board marking the small track

The Wind Turbine

This afternoon, Zsuzska, Bence and I (and a bunch of other people) climbed a wind turbine.  Up long ladders inside the column, which was 3-4 metres across at the base, narrowing to just under 2 metres at the top.  We climbed out and stood on the turbine at the top. Fifty metres up!!  It was easy to tell we weren't in Australia - there were no safety precautions at all.  No harnesses, and worse - no railings at the top!  Hold on tight to whatever you can and watch your step!

Dieter stopped the blades rotating before we climbed

The first ladder in the widest part

Looking down......

Nice views from the top. Mostly agricultural land

Looking past the nose cone

Here we are, all crowded round the turbine...

...most of us hanging on tight

Look out - there are gaps everywhere!

One step back for this chap and it's a 50 metre drop through the gap!

Anemometer, lightning rod and a village in the background

You can see someone disappearing into our exit hole - bottom right

And, yes - I was really up here!!