Tuesday, 20 June. Offenburg

I arrived here a week ago today and will leave next Tuesday, so I’ve reached the halfway mark of my stay in Offenburg.

On my way to the supermarket I did a detour to find the Borofsky Freedom sculpture, a 20 m high aluminium sculpture of a man and a woman. This is a memorial to the city’s role in the German democratic movement.

The bonus was that as I walked along I saw a stork’s nest on the roof of the public library. I took a couple of photos but the light was wrong. Then, after the sculpture, I crossed behind the library and there they were, three storks in the nest. I think there might have been a wooden one up there as well.

I cut through a residential area to get to the supermarket and there were a few houses as well as apartment blocks. I was amazed by a little poppy growing like a weed out of the pavement.

The supermarket was air conditioned so I took my time doing my little bit of shopping. Got more of the lovely cheese I bought last week - St Andrew(?) white cheese. It reminds me of the cheese Lorraine and I had when we were on the boat in France. I also spent a bit of time inspecting the wine. There were lots of wines for one in bottles about the size of a Schweppes tonic bottle. I was going to buy one of those, but was intrigued by a fruit wine, Kirschwein ( cherry). I think it’s a dessert wine and am hopeful that it tastes better than the pineapple wine I was given a number of years ago. That was powerful stuff!

Back home with my shopping and spent an hour or two reading and cooling down. It’s been 33 degrees out there today. My cool apartment is finally warming up but is still a haven from the heat outside. I noticed the hairdresser up the road had her doors wide open this morning to let some fresh air in. People in upstairs apartments must be really suffering as I don’t think there’s much cooling and ventilation would be limited in older buildings. It was a good day for getting my washing dry though.

Had my usual ice cream this afternoon and decided I should take a photo of the place I seem to visit every day. Tomorrow I plan to catch a bus a bit further afield so I’ll be double checking the timetables in my Deutsche Bahn app.