California to Bavaria: The Month of June Part I (Roman Fort, Neuschwanstein,

I started the month of June by leading a hike to a Roman Fort not too far away in the village of Pfünz. The Fort, called Castra Vetonianae in its day, was built in the year 90 AD. and was used until around 230 AD. The whole trail generally followed the River Altmühl, going into wheat fields and forest. We also passed through the village of Landershofen. It was a perfect day for hiking as well:

It was a little hard finding the fort since it was on top of a hill and none of the maps I had showed which trail or street to take up. We eventually got there and were greeted with a class of children on a field trip (even though it was the weekend?). Someone remarked: I expect these kids to be screaming and running around and causing mischief, but I forgot...they are german children. They were all chill and did their task of translating some of the latin there, which I tried to do as well. I had to remember that in Latin, one uses many abbreviations and I didn't know all of them. I got some help online. Here were some of the stones there:

IMP(ERATORI) CAE(SARI) TI(T)O

AEL(IO) HADR(IAN)

ANTONIO

AVG(VSTO) PIO

COH(ORS) I BR(EUCORUM) R(OMANORUM)

For the Emperor Titus Aelius Hadrianus Antonius Augustus Pius.

The first cohort of Rome of Breucorus (Bavaria maybe?)

IMP(ERATORI) CAES(ARI) M(ARCO) AUREL(IO)

COMMODO ANTO(NINO)

PIO AVG(VSTO) GERM(ANICO)

SARMATIC(O) CO(N)S(ULI) IIII

COH(ORS) I BREUC(ORUM)

SCIPIO CERIALE

LEG(ATO) AVG(VSTI) PR(O) PR(AETORE)

For Emperor Marus Aurelius Commodus Antonius Pius Augustus,

victor of the Germans and Sarmatians, 4 consul

First Cohort of Breucorus

Scipius Cerialis,

Imperial Governor and Praetor

It was also the visitation of this site that reminded me of how easy German came to me because of my former knowledge of Latin. Since English is no longer an inflective language, it was easy to pick up the subtleties of the Dative, Accusative, Nominative, and Genitive cases. I have already written a blog post on the oddities of the German language, but have forgotten to put it up. It will be up soon. Here are some other pictures of the hike:

The fort as it is today, you can see two of the other gates on the right and near the trees in the background

Amerikanische Eroberung

We sat down there and had lunch. I explored the other gates and found that yarrow, a plant that I am familiar with from Camp Hi-Sierra, grows in Germany as well. I quickly uprooted one and brought it back to the gang. I took off a purple root and soon my mouth was going numb (supposed to happen). I offered it to the others, but only Lucas was brave enough to try it as well.

We decided to take the forest way back to Eichstätt, which seemed a little more adventurous. We wandered off trail into the Frankish Forest and wandered out an hour later about 200 meters from where we started. I should say, I was not leading. Haha. It was fun going through a pine forest though since the one up on my hill is much more diverse.

A few days after the hike, Nick, my roommate at Boston College came to Germany on his way to Frankfurt where he would fly back to Boston (forgive long sentences, there is no such thing as a run-on sentence in german). We started in Munich and actually one of our hostel-mates, Yi, decided to join in on the tour. The weather was not so great; we ended up running from the Chinesischer Turm Biergarten to the U-Bahn Station through a thunderstorm. Nick and I got up early to head to Neuschwanstein, the castle of mad King Ludwig II. We walked around the grounds and a little bit in the city of Hohenschwangau. Here are some pictures (remember you can click on them to make them larger