Afton---Missed Out

OK, I have a confession. A couple of places you and I missed seeing(tho we did drive bys) that I hope no one else who travels to Germany will forgo.

The one I missed that hurt the most was Hitler's Eagle Nest. My Dad had been there shortly after the Allies' victory, following Hitler's suicide. One of the few stories he had shared about wartime experiences, and so as a little girl this was an intriguing place that held sway in my mind. Then your Dad had spent a weekend there at a Church Conference while you and I were still in the States, so this was #1 on the list. Mine. But while in that area, we had a fight, Dad and I, and he refused to take me. Not a happy camper about that. (Moral: pick your fights when you don't have a lot riding on the outcome)

One highlight we spectacularly missed was the Passion Play in Oberammergau. We went to Oberammergau, an artisan town of woodcarvers, cuckcoo clock makers, and painters.


Many of the outside walls of homes and stores are colorfully painted with fairy tale like scenes.
Extremely picturesque. While we saw the town, we missed the point.


A little insight from Wikipedia:

Passion Play

The town's residents vowed that if God were to spare them from the effects of the bubonic plague ravaging the region, they would perform a play every ten years thereafter for all time depicting the life and death of Jesus. The death rate among adults rose from one in October 1632 to twenty in the month of March 1633. The adult death rate slowly subsided to one in the month of July 1633. The villagers believed they were spared after they kept their part of the vow when the play was first performed in 1634. The most recent performances took place in 2000 and the next will be a season of 102 performances on dates from Saturday, May 15 until Sunday, October 3, 2010.
The play, now performed repeatedly over the course of five months during the last year of each decade, involves over 2,000 performers, musicians, and stage technicians, all residents of the village. The play comprises spoken dramatic text, musical and choral accompaniment and tableaux vivants, which are scenes from the Old Testament depicted for the audience by motionless actors accompanied by verbal description. These scenes are the basis for the typology, the interrelationship between the Old and New Testaments, of the play. They include a scene of King Ahasuerus rejecting Vashti in favor of Esther, the brothers selling Joseph into slavery in Egypt, and Moses raising up the bronze serpent in the wilderness.

Wow, since 1634! We were actually there in a year it would be performed, 1970, but knew nothing about it. If I win the lottery, I'll take you in 2010. Or 2020. Or....
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