We said goodbye to Switzerland this morning and boarded the train to Germany. We are stopping in a few places where Susannah can meet up with former students and shadow them at their work. Our destination today was Darmstadt, a city slightly south of Frankfurt. Our hotel there is called the Moxy.

Some might accuse Darmstadt of being an unlovely place, and we might be a little hard-pressed to repudiate that claim. (Blame the Allied bombing campaign in WWII for its lack of many old buildings.) Be that as it may, we went for a walk after arriving in the late afternoon and managed to discover a few interesting and even charming features.

We were pleased to discover here and there some remnants of the old city walls that still survive despite the devastation of war. The locals clearly value them as well, since they designed a whole building to accommodate one such relic.

We also discovered a small but lovely garden, privately owned but open to the public, with a warren of cozily meandering paths punctuated by interesting and quirky sculptures. Many of these featured a theme of swirling water, and thus the whole place was called the Vortex Garden.

We also came across a number of interesting water features in the city outside the garden. Besides these, we saw the buildings of Mathildenhöhe and the Darmstadt Palace. The latter hosts a pleasant beer garden on its grounds, where we had a fresh pretzel with a toothsome crispy crust and a few half-glasses of different beverages. Nick tried the cider, which according to local custom is mixed with sparkling water for a refreshing treat. Finally, after we had finished our exploration we went for dinner at a restaurant with a Mongolian grill, which are hard to find where we’re from. All in all, a satisfactory day!