round 2: Langnau, Emmental.

From Bern, Mom, Dad, and I made the journey over to Langnau im Emmental, which is the home of the world's oldest continuously functioning Mennonite congregation. They meet in a building from the 1980s, which is attached to the 19th-century farmhouse that used to be the primary church building. It's a weird little conglomeration, but I think that it helps them keep their history close. (During the last century, and even until they had the modern building erected, the congregation met in 38 different farmhouses around the countryside, and at some points only over 1000 meters in altitude...at first for protection and secrecy, and later because it was just what they'd always done, and they had no central facility large enough for all of them to meet together. There's a poster in the old building that has photos and descriptions of all the farmhouses, along with bios of all of the church elders since its official incorporation.) Langnau is a tiny, but ridiculously charming, little town, full of old barns converted to housing, surrounded by steep and extremely green rolling hills, which seem too precipitous to farm, yet have all somehow been converted to grazing and agricultural territory. It's truly beautiful and extremely peaceful.

Super elaborate little barn-y structure along the road to the church.

I have no idea what to call this type of architecture...I just know I love that rounded balcony railing with pink flowers. SO. PRETTY.

The rounded eave overhang is classic Emmental architecture, or so we've been told.

The view from our hotel window. (We met up with Mike and all stayed in the cutest family-run place, but never actually met the proprietors, since they were always across the road working at their high-end restaurant. Which we were too cheap and lazy to try out, but it sounded GOOD.)

Sunday morning we attended church with the Mennonites, who turned out to be quite a modern-looking crowd (thankfully, since Mom and I were a bit worried that we might be inappropriately dressed...that whole bonnets-and-dresses thing again). Very friendly people, who greeted us in Swiss German, then switched to whatever English they knew when we responded in our own terrible German. My mother met a very sweet, older, English-speaking lady in the bathroom, who then told her husband that there were some Americans in the crowd, and he came to greet us after the service. We told Hans and Heidi about our plans to try and visit Trachselwald castle that afternoon--a place where Anabaptists had been held prisoner, and which was turning out to be a bit of a mystery as to how to get to it, whether it would be open, what we would find when we got there, etc.--and they invited us to their house for lunch, followed by a tour of the castle and surrounding countryside in their own car. It turns out that Hans, through his involvement with the church, had led many English-speaking tours around the area, so we had a lovely lunch at his and Heidi's home (complete with visit to their gorgeous garden and pond, and a homemade Linzertorte...!), got to view Hans' watercolors that he was prepping for an exhibit, and set off for the castle. Seriously, the Emmental countryside and its little towns are so charming, and Hans and Heidi were so generous in opening up their home to us and in acting as our tour guide for the entire afternoon. What an amazing and genuinely good people. 

Giant farmhouses with windowboxes!

So! Pretty!

An actual covered, wooden bridge! (Taken from the car...excuse the mirror.)

We got most of the way to the castle, by car when we came across a rather informal roadblock. And then this.

Soapbox derby! 

Originally, we thought these were children, but when we got to the top of the course, it was mostly middle-aged men in their expensive, custom, soapbox cars. Hilarious.

Thankfully, it was a touch overcast, so the trudge up the hill to the castle wasn't too painful. What a seriously interesting, and well-preserved, place.

View of Trachselwald on the approach.

Headed up the stairs to the courtyard.

The prison tower.

One of the lower-level cells. There were two in on each of three levels (except the ground) in the tall square tower; the first and second level of cells actually had some heat, as they were positioned on either side of a stove.

  

The highest level of cells, with arm shackles and a heavy wooden beam that lifts up to allow the ankles to be locked in place as well. Since it's a sitting position, the hole in the middle is the toilet. These were the cells where the Anabaptists and the leaders of the farmers' revolt (concurrent with local Anabaptist activity) were held.

These cells were barely tall enough for me to stand up in, and even in those without shackles, the space and ability to move around was almost zero. The air to each cell came in from a tiny grated window which opened to a near-vertical shaft to the outside of the building, probably 10-15 feet long. No space, no light, no air, no movement...what an awful place.

After our sobering visit to the castle, Hans (thankfully) took us on a bit of a drive through the countryside. So green, so pastoral, so picturesque, and so ridiculously hilly. The farms that run up the hillsides are extremely small-scale--not much more than subsistence--as the terrain makes it too difficult to create any kind of larger-scale agriculture here. But look how gorgeous.

The name of this hill had some variety of "Alp" in it, and it made perfect sense. Seemed like we drove  straight up for a half-hour to get to the top for this view.

What made our time in Langnau, and at Trachselwald, so unique and poingnant was to be there with Hans. His  faith, and the ability of the Mennonite congregation to meet openly as a free church (i.e., without state interference or sponsorship) are clearly of great value to him, especially in the context of Anabaptist persecution in Switzerland, which actually continued, albet in slightly less violent forms than in earlier times, into the 19th century. It has only been in the last decade that the Mennonite church has been able to officially reconcile away the traditional conflict with the state/Reformed Protestant church (or to "shake hands with them," as Hans put it). I find that almost an impossible concept to wrap my brain around: how can this country, which is about as civilized and first-world as a country can get, have allowed this particular brand of repression to last as long as it did? How can it all be that recent? It is obvious, at least for Hans and his generation, that those uncertain and violent times are never too far from memory, and it made me truly appreciative, and even somewhat proud, to be a citizen (...even if not a resident, currently...) of a country whose religious freedom has been written into its constitution since its inception. We got that part right. Pardon my wordiness, but it was all a lot to contemplate.

We spent the night in Langnau again, and tucked into some flammkuchen for dinner (one with the classic cheese/onion/bacon combination, and one with cheese/feta/onions/bell peppers, YUM) after Mike had ridden the motorcycle back to Zürich. The previous evening, however, we'd been able to find a good country-style dinner at Restaurant zum Jaeger, a rustic little restaurant with about ten tables and no other customers. Usually, that's a bad sign, but went for it, as our hostess (and one of the proprietors, turns out) spoke decent English and the menu sounded tasty. Dad, the big winner of the night, got a brat with rösti on the side...and it had bacon in it. WHAT...a tasty surprise. My leek soup and salad were perfect (since I was trying, already, to eat a little lighter...regrettably, too much German food does not work for me!!), but Mike had the most spectacular plate of the evening: a giant plate of venison in mushroom gravy, with sides of brussel sprouts, red cabbage, chestnuts, and spaetzle. It was a ridiculous quantity of food. After we had eaten just about all we could physically fit into ourselves, we had a lovely conversation with the husband and wife team who own and cook in the restaurant...such nice people! If you find yourself in Langnau im Emmental, eat there. You will not be disappointed. (Ooh, and try to have a drink in the wine cellar at the Hotel Hirschen...it's a true underground wine cellar with vaulted brick ceiling and giant wine-aging barrels and all kinds of neat stuff.)

Next up: Basel. Nobody told me it was so charming.