02 August 2009

summer nights

It's a forgotten delight that I have been absorbing as best I can while here in Germany, after having not seen a properly dark night during all these summertime months in Iceland. The days here are warm and moist but the evenings, after darkness falls, are positively magical. The first evening here, S and I took the long way through the forest and alongside the fields to the small Franconian village nearby. We walked at dusk, interrupting few along the way- a rabbit or two, some kids hard at work on some mini-excavation project. Mostly it was just us and the scents and sounds of the dusk.

On our return route, we stopped by an inn with a friendly-looking terrace, and there we sat beneath a chestnut tree for a wheat beer. There was no music there, just the nearly whispered conversations from the three other tables, and some rattle from the neighboring cowshed. Above us, the stars filled in the sky, and we settled into vacation feeling as our glasses emptied. Finally, time to return, past the cow barn where a few curious ones snuffled at my hand and gazed at me with their liquidy eyes. We followed the path back, by the trout breeding ponds, along the fields now clattering with crickets and overstuffed with wildflowers, ending beside the cornfield, ripening silently in the dewy summer dark.

5 comments:

Holly said...

This makes me miss Germany.

Paul said...

great post!

-Paul in HK

Food, she thought. said...

I love Europe in the summer, this post makes me feel 22 again.

Unknown said...

what a lovely evening walk!

sounds like an enchanting time!

cheers!

ECS said...

cuileann: I just re-read the post myself and now I miss Germany again too. It's definitely got a little special something

paul: thanks!

Food: I pretty much love Europe any time of the year.

Geo: I'm feeling nostalgic for it already now that I'm back in Septemberish Iceland. That means rain here, and lots of it.