On this rather hot Friday afternoon (currently 32°C/90F), my husband and I went downtown Oberursel to eat at this tiny eatery La Vita Italiana. Four cloth-covered tables grace the inside and two others on the side of the street. They also sell Italian bread and groceries.

La Vita Italiana, a.k.a. the first paninoteca (snackbar) In Oberursel, serves panini, pizza, pasta, oven dishes, salads, antipasti, desserts, and much more. Everything is made from fresh ingredients only, and therefore only available when ordered beforehand.

The prices are very reasonable and our antipasti was excellent. The little white pitcher held olive oil marinated with basil leaves, garlic, rosemary, and possibly other herbs. My husband and I both took whiffs from this wonderful olive oil to figure out its contents.

We had ordered zucchini, eggplant (the best vegetable to keep cool in hot weather), artichokes, and pepper/onion mix.

Generous portions of antipasti

I want to take my children there next time for some highly cherished pana cotta (cream pudding).

La Vita Italiana

Untere Hainstrasse 1b

61440 Oberursel

Tel: 06171 – 86 60 920

Hours of operation: Mon-Fri 10:00 – 19:00       Sat: 9:00 – 16:00

Come summer time weather, Germans are out and about, if the weather allows it. The country is full of Biergartens with people eating and drinking.

As my Heimat is Bavaria, this might explain my aversion to Apfelwein (a.k. as Eppelwoi and Äppelwoi). I try this wine every few years, but I still don’t care for it.

Äppelwoi (apple wine) in Hesse

The drink itself looks delicious on a hot summer evening. This is a 0.5 l glass (one pint), but many Germans will turn this into a Gespritzter (apple wine diluted with mineral water).

Bread dumplings with chanterelle

I had ordered this dish called Semmelknödel mit Pfifferlingen. It looked very fancy with this herbal decoration, but the food quality itself was average. The Gasthaus seems to get good reviews, though. Service was very good and quick.

If you are in the Frankfurt area, you might enjoy visiting this guesthouse Land Gasthaus Zur Sonne located in Oberursel/Stierstadt.

View onto Frankfurt

On a clear day, you can also make out the skyline while sitting outside drinking German style.

Last night we went to Null Zwo in Bad Homburg to watch the game Germany – Australia. Great game, especially with Germany beating Australia 4:0.

Null Zwo's Biergarten in Bad Homburg

Again, the Biergarten was full with people eating and drinking. There were no signs of a slowing economy.

Our waitress was dressed appropriately.

A plate of roast beef

This dish was advertised as Roast Beef “Englisch”, yes, Englisch in quotation marks. At € 12,50, this almost equaled the price of four tall glasses of beer.

We had a very good time watching the game with friends while cheering for Germany. Our teenage son reminded me a few times to behave better and refrain from rooting too loudly. What would I do without him?

Children seldom misquote. In fact, they usually repeat word for word what you shouldn’t have said.

-author unknown -

Yesterday, I joined Mr. Kopp’s guided tour through the Camp King areal. He, as our local historian and Camp King archivist, offers these two-hour tours twice a year. They usually end up at the local Kirchencafé, where the basement houses all the Camp King documents, gathered by him over the years.

The photo on the bottom shows  the original Musterdorf Haus (exhibition house) for Germany’s Siedlungspläne (settlement plans), set up for the fair in Frankfurt in the fall of 1938. The top photo shows the house after it had been transplanted from Frankfurt to Oberursel. For the fair, the houses came without basement, but having been moved to Oberursel for a permanent location, basements were added.

Kinderhaus Oberursel, a place for children and teenagers to hang out

The same house from above is our Kinderhaus (child and youth centre) today.

Former Gestapo building

This former Gestapo building had been used as a temporary shelter for asylum seekers in years past. I had seen people occupying the building as late as the early years of this decade, but not so recently. It looks vacated to me.

Silk handkerchief with a complete map outline

This handkerchief served its purpose, especially when a POW got his hands on it.

Our small group walking up the Camp King slope

The chapel at Camp King

The chapel had been given a new coat of paint a while back. This was probably for the new neighbors out back (see left corner of the photo).

The next guided tour is set for 28 August 2010.

Meeting place: In front of the EDEKA supermarket on Hohemarkstrasse (you can take the U3 and get off at the station Kupferhammerweg)

Tour fee: € 3

I learned a lot from this tour and I plan on going again. Mr. Kopp is an infinite source of information and this tour is very recommendable to anyone interested in history and future political science.

For more information in German, visit CampKingOberursel.

As I had mentioned in a previous post a few days ago, the city of Oberursel has a new project going. Curious about the location, I took a nice little walk up Hohemarkstrasse to the end of the U3 line to take this photo.

Construction of the Tourism Office Oberursel

The construction area for this information center is located between the Ausfahrt (exit) Feldberg and Hohemarkstrasse.

At the northern end of Oberursel, where Hohemarkstrasse and the U3 train tracks both reach  their final destination point, a new project is in the making.

Located superbly at the Tor zum Taunus (gate to the Taunus mountains), the city of Oberursel is building an Information Center. The project, estimated at a cost of 2.7 million euro, started on 17 May 2010 and aims at becoming the new information gateway for tourists and residents alike.

Next to providing a multimedia exhibition, the center will also house a seminar room and a restaurant. In addition, there is a discussion on whether to have electric bicycles available to make the mountain destinations more accessible.

For more about the location, visit Hohemark on Googlemaps.

My husband and I try to go out every Friday night. Yesterday evening we managed to get away for an hour and a half which we spent at the only Irish Pub in Oberursel. I believe MacGowan’s Irish Pub opened in March 2009, or was it 2008?

The staff is very good and I should have complimented them for this yesterday evening, but I was too Guinness-happy when we left.  I had asked our waitress for a dinner recommendation and got an authentic one – the cooks are from Bangladesh, so why not try one of the Indian dishes? I did, and the Chicken Biryanni was excellent. My husband had a Lammhaxe (lamb chop in whiskey sauce) with homemade fries and he was pleased, too. This could very well become our regular early Friday night hang-out, especially if we can get a table near the fire place (try getting there before 8 p.m.)

Irish Pub and Restaurant in Oberursel

Once in a while, they have quiz night. Some people like it, some don’t, so check beforehand. Last time we were there, we had a gathering of Wer kennt Wen and it was difficult to get acquainted during quiz time. Nevertheless, I had fun and made second place!

A Guinness brew by the fire place

I like to take my out-of-country visitors to authentic German pubs, but this Irish Pub is getting added to my list of Places-to-show around Oberursel as well.

Last week, I had the opportunity to meet our local Camp King historian, Manfred Kopp, at the neighborhood church café. At the moment, the café’s basement houses all the Camp King documents he has been collecting over the years.

In 2005, I have been told, the City of Oberursel decided to gather all documents related to Camp King with the intent to make the collection available to the public at some point in the future.

The former Mountain Lodge on Camp King has been chosen as the designated location where the archives shall be kept. This project is supposed to be completed sometime this year.

Camp King historian and archivist, Manfred Kopp

Again, most locals do not realize the overall importance of Camp King in its history making. Initially a Siedlungshof (settlement teaching farms), then a camp for the German Air Force to interrogate American and British prisoners of war, until American Intelligence took over.

We are fortunate to have the historian, Manfred Kopp, to have taken such a big interest in Camp King’s history. Without him, more and more information would be lost within the next few years. Not many Zeitzeugen (contemporary witnesses) are left to tell us their stories.

For his efforts in restoring and archiving local history, he had been awarded the Saalburgpreis (Saalburg Award) 2008. He closed his acceptance speech with this quotation: „Nicht die Asche wollen wir bewahren, sondern die Glut weitergeben.“ (We are here not to conserve the ashes, but to pass on the embers).

Thanks, Mr. Kopp.

Edit: Initially, I had mistakenly written that Nazis interrogated the POWs. The interrogators were not Nazis. My apologies.

For a real taste of German cuisine, coupled with an authentic flair of a German Wirtshaus (pub), you should try the guesthouse Zum Schwanen in Oberursel.

Not only was it a romantic night to be out – because of the first real heavy snowfall – but Zum Schwanen is also located in an idyllic area, close to the town’s church and surrounded by other half-timbered houses.

Oberursel with St. Ursula Church (Wall on the left belongs to Zum Schwanen)

Just stepping into the place reminded me of my American/French brother-in-law’s comment two Christmases ago, when we took him there for my birthday: Gosh, this smells like Germany! We explored this point further as I find statements as such rather intriguing. Did the Sauerkraut marinade creep into the table patinas’ veins? Was the smell of beer hanging in the air? Was it the warm German bodies exhaling German food and drink through their pores? What does it mean to smell German, I wonder. Maybe I should not ask…

For the ones who remember Germany from the 60s and 70s: Please keep in mind shower habits have much improved since then. Entering a department store during a German summer no longer requires dwarfed nostrils.

Zum Schwanen

Looking out through the big lattice-windows onto the neighboring snow-covered roofs, while sitting in the warmth of a nice place and looking forward to dinner, put this eating-out experience rather close to the category of: unforgettable.

Leg of goose, potato dumplings, with red cabbage

Besides enjoying an excellent dinner, we also had very attentive service.

Last night, the restaurant earned five ***** from me.

A true Hessian dish is the infamous Handkäs mit Musik. I had it once right after I moved here eons ago and the second time was just a couple of weeks ago at our favorite bar Zum Adler in Oberursel.

What is Handkäs mit Musik (literal translation: hand cheese with music)?

Traditional Hessian dish: Handkäs' mit Musik

It is a patty, or two, made of sour milk cheese, topped with lots of marinated onions and optional caraway seeds, sitting in a vinegar dressing and served with slices of dark bread.

In the picture I am sitting where the infamous Red Baron used to sit, accompanied by the airplane engineers of the local Motorenwerke Oberursel, to enjoy his Dämmerschoppen (sundowner).

Ebbelwoi price list "Zum Adler"

I had my usual beer. Even after 14 years of living in Hessen, I have not become a friend of Ebbelwoi.