Europe Trip
#education #trip #Europe
For three weeks in September/October, I went to Europe with friends, attending Feldlager Brandenburg and the Harnischfechten Symposium, had a cool riding lesson and visited museums, castles, churches and other fun places.
I rarely travel, let alone for longer periods of time. Not only is travel not my thing, but it takes a lot of planning and help to look after the horses and dogs at home while away. Thanks to a good friend, the home fires were kept burning, which allowed me to tag along with Cherilyn and Craig on a trip to Europe.
A lot of planning went into this trip, as we decided to take our harnesses (armour), and there were a lot of things to prepare before the trip. When we arrived, we started with two events in Germany before a road trip to Vienna, Innsbruck, St.Wolfgang, a quick trip into Italy to Castle Coira, and then a few days in Switzerland before returning to Germany and finally coming home. It was an amazing trip, with so many stopovers at famous places, coming face to face with famous extant armour pieces, catching up with family in Germany, and meeting new people.
The first event we participated in was a medieval reenactment/war games event at the castle ruin Brandenburg, organised by Arne Koets. We were provided with horses and rode as cavalry in the event. The landscape around the castle is amazing. While a long way from where I grew up in Germany, it reminded me so much of the places I used to ride in.
Photos by Amanda Melchior
After helping take down the camp on the Monday, we had a few days at Lauchroeden, which we utilised for day trips to Erfurt, the Wartburg and otehr places. It also provided the opportunity to have a riding lesson with Arne on Sultan, his Lusitano stallion. This gave me the opportunity to ride a highly educated horse and feel passage and the beginnings of two time canter, to help me with advancing my horses back home. This was a very valuable session. I also had the chance to watch several other horses being ridden, which provided further valuable insights.
The following weekend was the annual Harnischfechten Symposium (Armoured foot combat), also organised by Arne. This attracted people from all over the world and while I had already met many via Facebook, it was really nice to meet so many people in person. The autumn weather was lovely and it was an enjoyable event.
The next two weeks were a roadtrip of Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Italy, which included crossing the Alps and clocking up 3000km in our hire car. The various museums we visited (including a private visit to see a reserve collection) were amazing, not just the artworks and buildings, but of course all the armour and the horse gear. It was somewhat stupefying to stand in front of items that were worn by Emperor Maximilian and his contemporaries, a famous horned helmet from the 14th century, or hold horse bits (with gloves, of course) that are thousands of years old. It was a real learning experience. I took hundreds and hundreds of photos to allow me to study the things we saw.
The beautiful European autumn weather held for us until the last night when we dropped off the hire car.
