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Bad Fallingbostel and its surroundings
Part One of Two Parts
Once at Bad Fallingbostel I followed the signs to Löns’ grave rather than the directions on this very well done and informative web-site. I appreciated this website greatly since it told me where to go on the train, and what to look for, in terms of signage on the walking path to get to Hermann Löns' grave and memorial monument.
But rather than bypass Bad Fallingbostel I wanted to walk through it. After that I rejoin the route recommended on that very helpful website.
I was surprised by the forceful flow of the river Böhme here. I expected a slow-moving water mass with stagnant stretches. None of that:
Walking through town sent me past a curious park with large boulders, Megalith Park:
Each boulder was labeled with the rock-type and source location. These boulders, it turns out, were from Sweden! They had been shoved here by glaciers, across a frozen sea, to get here!
AN ASIDE ABOUT ICE AGES AND GLOBAL WARMING: Time between glaciations averages about 20,000 years but have been as short as 9,000 years, and as long as 40,000 years. We are almost 10,000 years into this interglacial warm period. Are we staving off renewed glaciations by warming the Earth with our greenhouse gas emissions? Is that bad thing?
Losing most seashore dwellings, and much of many coastal cities, and many species of animals in the far north and south hurt, of course, but would it hurt more–displace more animals and people—than new glaciers scraping all life off the northern tier of nations in the Northern Hemisphere? I have never seen anyone do this comparison. Someone ought to do it.
After Megalith Park, I walked through town, stocked up on water and a few items to chew on, and started to follow the red deer path (marked with little red deer signs on trees and poles). That trail would take me to the Löns gravesite.
At one spot in this very pretty little city I saw heather, in a planter, but still in bloom!
The planter is near this intersection with a sign that says Walsrode (where I planned to catch my train back) is 7 km away on the highway. It is a quite a bit farther when one walks the trails through the woods:
Here is where I met the route recommended, for its scenic value along the river, in the above-cited website:
Now we start to follow the turn by turn instructions, except for two places where the description did not seem to match current reality (things change).
Soon, we make a left turn here and enter the woods:
Leaving Bad Fallingbostel via its surrounding woods requires a new page (click here to go there).
Go to Hermann Löns' grave and memorial markers
Go to Hannover for a quick walk through town
Go to Köln (Cologne) and see the Dom (cathedral), outside only
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