When Hannes came to town I knew it was time to visit the birthplace and the later home of Annette, the well-known poetess, who is some ways reminds one of Emily Dickinson. Annette was of the nobility but lived a rather reclusive, conservative country life. Hannes had driven north from the Odenwald and was on the trail of local history. Hannes and I, we have this nose for history in common. With Hannes at the wheel and me juggling three maps, we set out in his little red Opel with automatic nothing. In fact Rüschhaus, the widow's house, where her mother was forced to live after the early death of Annette's father, and where Annette came to live and keep her mother company, is not that far from Münster. I could have ridden my bike but the Opel was much more comfortable. The first site you see is the back of the house, looking rather like a barn entrance. You must walk about the side garden to the front to see the impressive and noble facade built by Johann Conrad Schlaun, well-known area architect, who had built the house for himself some years previous to Annette's family's stay. We weren't too surprised to find that Annette was on vacation and the interior of the house would remain a mystery to us. The garden was still quite green but the statuary had been put away for the winter in tall wooden sheds reminding the visitor of silent sentinels. The house appears to be built on an island for there is a quiet pond which surrounds much of it and where a diverse collection of ducks have their home. Nearby we discovered a small plot of "Wedding Trees". A couple can purchase a tree and have it planted in their name. Annette never married. The young man who was her muse, influenced her writing significantly and after he married someone else her writing definitely took a turn towards the somber. Just a few kilometers up the road we found Haus Hülshoff the large family compound where Annette had been born. The oldest son inherited it upon the early death of their father and the widow and Annette had to move out. The large fence surrounding the compound was very securely closed so all we could do was gather a few glimpses from afar. It appears Annette's life was dramatically down-sized by the move to Rüschhaus. But perhaps this suited her. She called her room there "The snail house" and her poetry is permeated with images from nature, another reason to consider her in the same frame as Emily Dickinson. From there we decided to explore further to the west and see which sites could be located using our "historical sites map". After a somewhat disappointing stop at the Longinus Tower, the highest point in Munsterland, we happened upon a jewel of an inn called "Marienhof". It was fully top-of-the-line, post-modern interior, interesting works of art displayed for sale, and a fine menu. We decided on the tomato-mozzarella salad, savoy cabbage meal and the prawns in pasta, but of course accompanied by a local dark beer. I was told that one drinks dark beer leading up to and through lent since you are giving up meat. It will tide you over. Of course you don't have to be a Catholic to drink dark beer. In fact, early on, people drank only dark beer. Getting into the car to leave proved to be a problem since the keys were nicely and carefully inserted in the ignition and locked inside the car. The owner of the inn came to our rescue, pulled out his ADAC (the equivalent of AAA), top-level membership card and the call was placed. We knew we could easily have to wait a while since the rescue worker could be called to a more urgent call which would take priority over us, since after all we weren't really in any danger or discomfort. We moved into the room with the fireplace and made ourselves comfortable: coffee, cake, and a fire to tend. Once the ADAC man arrived it took him one minute to open the door and then he was able to sell Hannes a membership which he can choose to keep after a year or not, but it saved him having to pay for the service call. By then it was dark and we had given up the hunt for monasteries and churches and headed back to Münster. The idea was to have one more beer to bring the day to a relaxing end. As Hannes drove and I navigated, we took a couple of turns down very narrow and oddly-angled streets. But what really entertained us was that within a few minutes we stumbled across the same service provider from ADAC, a totally random meeting. He was changing someone's battery. For future historical expeditions, how will I go: by bicycle or by car? Only Annette knows.
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