Via Romea Germanica Day 42: Fremdingen - Nördlingen

Das zuerst verborgene und verschlossene Wesen des Universums hat keine Kraft, die dem Mute des Erkennens Widerstand leisten könnte.

(The original hidden and reserved essence of the universe has no force capable of withstanding the courage of knowledge.)

- G.W. F. Hegel (1816)

Rain was predicted in the afternoon today, but I started out quite late nonetheless, because my landlady had specified breakfast at 8:30, so she would have time to get fresh bread from the baker, if I understood correctly. She asked if I wanted cheese or scrambled eggs with my fresh bread buns, and I opted for more of those delicious fresh eggs from the family's own chickens that I had eaten for dinner! I then set out across the fields, watching Raustetten recede into the distance. 

I walked through the village of Enslingen, and then Minderoffingen, where I went into the little church in search of a pilgrim stamp - and found a lady arranging flowers who talked my ear off for a quarter of an hour, not realising, or not caring, that I could only understand about five percent of what she was saying 😅. Luckily she didn't ask many questions or require much in the way of answers! 

On today's walk I came across a different aspect of the maypole tradition. In certain parts of Germany and Hungary, on the night before 1 May, young men erect young birch trees in front of the homes of their sweethearts. These trees, which may reach five meters of height or more, are sold beforehand by local foresters; they are usually decorated with multicolored crepe paper and a red heart of wood with the suitor's name written on it. 

In another village. Is Simon a two-timer? Or are boys called Simon particularly romantic?

Andy! I didn't know you had a girlfriend in Bavaria! 😄

As I came over the fields into the village of Marktoffingen, I had the distinct feeling that I was standing on the edge of something. And, being familiar with the history of Nördlingen - I have been there twice before - I could guess what it was: the Nördlinger Ries. An impact crater 24 kilometres in diameter, this depression was formed almost 15 million years ago, when a meteorite weighing approximately 115,000 tonnes and measuring over a kilometre in diameter hit the earth at an estimated speed of 72,000 km/h. The resulting explosion had the power of 1.8 million Hiroshima bombs, and ejected 175,000,000 tonnes of rock, about 1500 times the weight of the meteorite projectile itself, which evaporated entirely in the explosion. Boulders and chunks of rock were ejected from around the site of impact so violently they can be found 400 kilometres away.

An area about 200 km in diameter was devastated, destroying all plant and animal life and covering the area up to 25 km from the impact point with a layer of ejected material. The pressure wave emanating from the impact most likely felled trees all over southern Germany.  

But what was at the time an ecological disaster created a new lake, offering ideal conditions for new life to develop, and the Ries crater was most likely green again within a century. Ries Lake covered 400 square kilometres and lasted 2 million years before it dried up; fossil finds indicate that the area was populated by ducks, pelicans and flamingoes, as well as a variety of small mammals.

Another side effect of the impact was the creation of 72,000 tonnes of tiny diamonds, many of which are enclosed in the stone used to build the cathedral and other buildings in the city of Nördlingen. 

Nördlinger Ries is an easily accessible, large impact crater, a convenient analogue for lunar craters which was used in 1971 to train Apollo 14 astronauts to investigate lunar impact structures and related rocks. It is also the only example on earth of a rampart crater, a specific type of crater normally found on Mars, formed by a process analogous to firing a bullet into mud.

I descended inyo the crater through the streets of Marktoffingen, and could see low hills all around me, in every direction - the rim of the crater, eroded over the past 15 million years.

Looking back at Marktoffingen, on the rim of the crater

I walked along the cycling path beside the road for a while, then turned off across the fields to Wallerstein, where I stopped in a bakery and café for a cheese pretzel and a wine spritzer. 

Allotment gardens in Wallerstein 

The local fire department erected the maypole in Wallerstein 

Downtown Wallerstein 

The home of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde? 😄

I used the café wifi, the electrical outlet to charge my phone, and of course the washroom, then got moving again. I stopped again in the next village, Ehringen, and sat in a bus shelter eating strawberries until some threatening black clouds had blown over; it only actually rained for a couple of minutes. I walked the remaining couple of kilometres into Nördlingen, and stopped at the Rieskrater Museum, located in a 16th-century barn just inside the city walls. 

Nördlingen 

In the museum, I learned more about the meteorite impact, and bought a book called "How to find stardust", which tells you how to identify micrometeorites. The Earth is hit by around 100 tonnes of cosmic dust every day - around 40,000 tonnes per year, and though large impactors are very rare, in one giant event they can deliver millions of tonnes of cosmic material. The majority of the mass of tiny micrometeorites, however, results from the large number of particles falling from space every year. These are mainly grains of cosmic dust. Most of these tiny particles burn up in the atmosphere, and can be observed at night as shooting stars. But around 1,600 tonnes of these particles survive the passage through our atmosphere every year, landing on the earth's surface in the form of micrometeorites.

In other words: every year a particle with a diameter of 0.1 mm falls on every square metre of earth. Cosmic dust is everywhere! I hope to learn how to identify it from the book!

Next door to the Rieskrater Museum, and included in the same ticket, is the Stadtmuseum, which goes into great detail about the town's history. I didn't have time to give either of these museums as much attention as they deserve, because I arrived at 3 and they were closing at 4:30. But I took a quick look at the exhibits on local history, and one captured my attention in particular: about the tomb of a medieval pilgrim. During the renovation of the Nördlinger Hospital Church in 2018, archaeologists discovered a number of well-preserved graves from the 13th to 15th centuries. At this time, people were normally buried without any objects, in simple wooden coffins or shrouds. So archaeologists were surprised when they discovered five distinctive seashells on the upper left part of one body: symbols of the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela. The location where the body was found indicates that it was the body of a returned or returning pilgrim, who had received shelter and care in the hospital prior to departing on his final pilgrimage.

It was raining when I came out of the museum, which cut short my exploration of Nördlingen! This is, however, my third visit to the town, so a visit to the cathedral made of diamonds and a quick stop at the grocery store across the way were sufficient, before heading out of the old town centre to my hotel by the train station!

But if you would like to see more of Nördlingen - from above - just watch this video!

Fremdingen - Nördlingen 18 km