GUT SUNDER
In the late afternoon we drove to Meisendorf, which is just five miles or so away from Winsen along a forest road with no houses along the way. Every German village has a distinct boundary beyond which there are only fields or forest. Farms in the United States often have farmhouse and a barn with some outbuildings, often shaded by large trees to ward off the summer heat with another similar farm just down the road. Except for national or state forests, we have houses and building scattered everywhere. But not in Germany. Traditionally the farmer lived in the village and often in a large fachwerk building with a red tiled roof which was divided down the middle with the family living on one side and the farm animals and farm equipment housed on the other side. The fields were outside the village.
We were going to Meisendorf to have cake and coffee at Gut Sunder, a cafe in a large fachwerk building on an estate that has a history back to 1384 outside of the village. At one point an owner made a number of large fishponds which were fed by the Meise river, more a wide stream. Now the land around the large central building is a nature park and is visited by school groups and is also a tourist attraction.
But what struck me about the cafe and the surrounding land was how beautiful and quiet and uncommercial it was. There is nothing around Asheville which has the quiet wooded presence and history of this cafe. I can‘t put my finger on it. The old building, the woods all around, the outdoor cafe, the quietness of the place. It seemed so civilized but also so unassuming. In a country that is much more heavily populated to have a quiet place within five miles where you can have an elegant cake and a variety of drinks seemed marvelous.
BILLYBABA’S WANDERING 