Mönchberg

This is where we live! The village is divided into 2 sections, Unter- and Über-Mönchberg. We stay at the top, in Über-mönchberg at the top of a 4 floor apartment block. This means we have an amazing few of the fields away to the South and West, and the Schönbuch Forest away to the Northwest. Being mostly agicultural, we have a lot of farm life around us, LOADS of fruit trees, and a fair amount of farm animals, within walking distance.

We are roughly 7 kilometers from Herrenberg (5 minutes by car, 15 minutes by bike and 35 minutes walk). There are no shops, although there is a bakery, a butchery and a small cafe in the next village, which is 5 minutes walk from us.

Here are the pics.

Front door to our apartment block. The lady who lives on the ground floor changes the welcoming flower arrangement often.


This is a view of our apartment. The balcony is for our lounge, and the window upstairs is for our bedroom.


This is the view from our Kitchen. The clock chimes regular chimes every 15 minutes and at 6am and 7pm it sounds off, a serious cacophany of sound, but I think we are pretty used to it by now, we hardly even notice it.


Here is part of the view from our lounge. Those are all fruit trees down below, with the forest in the background.

Here is more of the view from the lounge, but looking up towards the forest.


Below the kitchen is the church courtyard. Every 1st of May there is a mini festival, with wurst, other typical German food, and of course beer.



Although our aparment is quite modern, we are pretty surrounded by a lot of the older buildings. This is just outside our front door.


A lot of the old way of life is still maintained here. Old farming equipment is still used, a lot of the people have really old looking wooden ladders for getting the fruit. There is no hired labour here, so everyone has to do the farming themselves. I was quite surprised to see 2 little old ladies driving in a tractor, the one driving the other sitting on the back hitching a ride (sorry, no photo for that though).



The area we live is split into 3 areas actually, fields, fruit trees and the forest.


The bright yellow stuff is for Rape Seed oil, I think its called the Rape plant?


Cherry blossoms


Apples

The forest paths in winter


Some local wildlife. We also have wild pigs, but I haven't seen any of them yet.




This area is also quite famous for its bees and beehives. There is a nature school here for training bee keepers, and there is a bee trail for those energetic folk, with descriptions of the bees and their processes.

What do bees need? Flowers!!




Being a farming community, a lot of the people here keep animals about. Most people are quite freindly and let Levi come in and look at the animals and touch them.








Its quite exciting, for us this is now our back garden, and even when it is cold outside, its always a pleasure to go for a walk and see what our village has to show us.

Herrenberg

Herrenberg is the closest town to where we live. We live in a village, about 5 kilometers away.

It is typical of a lot of towns in Germany, with an old market place and town square, with newer buildings around the edges of the town, as it has expanded.

Here are some photo's of Herrenberg.

There are a lot of statues and sculptures, not just here but all over Germany.




This is the Herrenberg Marktplatz (Market square). In winter they cover up the fountains so they don't freeze and crack the pipes. The restaurants here still have the chairs outside when it is sunny, but they provide nice thick blankets for those willing to brave the outdoors.



In the foreground you can see the Municipal Buildings of Herrenberg ( Rathaus). In the background is the Bell Museum Church, THE famous landmark of Herrenberg. It has a whole bunch of old bells.




The style of the house at the end of this road is quite famous, and is common throughout Germany (and maybe elsewhere). I don't know exactly what it is called, when I find out I will update this.

The style of building is called Fachwerk. (Thanks Anita!)







In the "old" days, the German house owners had to pay tax on the amount of ground space they used, so they used to build the houses outwards, thereby minimizing the tax and getting more house for their land usage.



This residence is about 50m away from the Municipal buildings, so it is literally right in the center of town.



Because the residences are so close together, there is often not enough space for gardens, so when there is space, they make the most of it.


The houses are REALLY close together in the older parts.





This is a newer shopping area in Herrenberg.

Do they ride bicycles where you come from?

Before we get started with this post, a quick update. Things have been really busy for us since December, which is why there have been no posts. We have 9 posts planned, but they will be mostly pictures. If you have questions, please feel free to leave a comment or to actually e-mail us, the old fashioned way :)

We were visiting friends a while ago, and someone asked us "Do they ride bicycles where you come from?".


For those of you that are still not sure, here are some photo's from around here.





The Traffic lights also include bikes in their planning. "frei" means that they ARE allowed.


Pedestrians to the left, bikes to the right.


Bike lanes.


Just random bikers ...





Rental bikes in Stuttgart. Quite common in Europe I hear :)