This whole Mosel Valley has a special light and mysticism brought on by 1700 years of history. Romans and Celts lived here - Trier, the oldest city in Germany is aroundabout 70 kilometres from here as the Mosel Dolphin swims...... as told by Ausonius.
Ausonius, as we all learnt in school, was a Latin Poet and a teacher. When he lived in Trier (or 'Treves') he wrote a poem called the 'Mosella'.
This is all about the Mosel/Moselle River, with some verses all about the fish which live within the waters. There is romance and practicality combined here, for not only do we learn about the fish, we also learn about the best way to cook them......(Jaysus, there's lots of bones in that one...)
The presence of the Mosel Dolphin was disbelieved even at the time the poem was written, but the creature could have been a member of the catfish family. Perhaps it could have been a.....
Sheatfish
Silurus
Wels Catfish
This one is swimming around today, a giant catfish which can grow up to five feet long, but sometimes nearly seven feet. These fish have been caught in German rivers - here? I don't know. They live at the bottom of rivers and their colour is dependent on the water, so they could be be out there in the river watching and listening (if that's what fish do) to the barges chugging away overhead.
Perhaps there's a new picture there somewhere - but I'll have to make it up a bit......
The painting above is of the Kloster Stuben - a ruined Augustine abbey on one of the huge meanders of this old river. One day it will be cut off by the slow wearing away by the water and the river will become young again, flowing in a straighter line - but it won't be for a while yet...
Haus in Ediger-Eller - Ediger-Eller has many wonderful old houses. I particularly like this house (which is a Guest House today). It has a lot of decoration and nothing is quite straight, which makes it wonderful to paint. Painting with rulers was never my strong point - you have to give a little bit here and there......
It was also good to paint it when there was snow on the roof. I don't think that the tiles would have given the same effect with the strong sky. White and blue is one of the best combinations there is.
Gipfel Kreuz - The word 'Gipfel' means peak and there are many crosses like this in Germany, built on high-up hills and ridges. This particular Cross is made from a red coloured wood, with flourescent lights on the arms. Every evening, the lights come on just as it's starting to get dark - they flicker on just as a flourescent would in your own house, then go off every evening at midnight.
St. Petersberg Kapelle - this lovely church is just down from the Gipfel Kreuz. I don't think that I've ever seen a church just like this one. It's situated up high on a meander ridge. There are Roman graves too as the Romans believed in burying their Dead on higher ground, which was a good idea considering the 'Hochwasser' - the time when the Mosel floods. If you haven't seen it, you can't believe the river waters would ever be so high.
The
Swan and the Stuben - There are lots of
swans living by the banks of the Mosel in Ediger-Eller, so
I thought that it would be O.K. if one of them migrated
half a mile along the River and posed for me by the Kloster
Stuben .
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