Travel Back in Time and Get a Village Feeling!

Not too far away from the Schwabenmetropole Stuttgart in the south of Germany are a few small villages you might want to visit because you can travel back in time. Some places there haven’t changed since the 70s. I know because I grew up there. It’s only 15 minutes by car from the airport of Stuttgart and while you’re at it: visit the incredible butcher there, get some great Schnaps from a more than 100-year-old family business or if you have the money, have dinner in one of the best restaurants of the whole country! But that’s not my opinion because I haven’t been there, I just read that from a gourmet guide.

The Village I grew up in has the name “Gniebel” and on the map below, it is not even written even though the village is marked on it.

It is like it always is: if you get older, there are some things you miss and you think you had a good time where you grew up. It is what happened to me. When I was a young adult, everything was too small and I had to leave. But I like to come back there.

The village itself is pretty small and there are places which haven’t changed at all since I was a little child. In the middle of the village, there used to be a bus tour operator but the business has been closed for about 25 years now but the garage is still there, the huge floodlights, and the gasoline pump.

Just around the corner, there is a very old farmhouse in the middle of the village and I passed there each day when I had to get to the bus stop to get to school. There is a bench in front of the house and the grandmother sat there all day and talked to the people passing by and while she was talking, she cleaned the vegetables from the garden, and sold milk and eggs. Last time I was there, I took out the camera for the first time to take pictures of “my village” and there on the bench was my daughter sitting and doing exactly what her mother was doing years before.

There are also plenty of barns in the middle of the village and old dungheaps/middens.

Some half-timbered houses and a few buildings with paintings on the wall from the late 60s. I guess it must have been modern back then to have deer or horse paintings on the wall of your house.

There are old water wells and three really nice paths passing between buildings that are shortcuts to get faster from one street to another.

And if you ever go there just for fun because you pass there you can go to the butcher there who is famous in the whole region. If you buy something, ask for the Schnaps family and I’m sure they’ll tell you how to get there as it is only 100 meters away, it is not complicated. My tip: get a bottle of plume and blackthorn. And if you have the money – and you’ll need it – drive or walk to the next village named Dörnach, and if you stay on the main street you’ll find a small former tavern on your right, which is today, according to a gourmet guide, one of the best restaurants of Germany (place as #171, I think): the Landgasthaus Linde. And if you still want to take a few more pictures, there are other small villages nearby or probably you might even visit Tübingen with it’s famous historic center and plenty of half-timbered houses and small streets.

written by bloomchen on 2012-02-13 #places #location #local-flavor #select-type-of-location #village-time-warp-farmer-feeling-animals-barn-painting-wall-straw-butcher-restaurant-schnaps-guide-gourmet-meal-diner-frame-half-timbered-house