Black Forest Hams

Plotting on The Aurelius Dupondius or whatever the novel's going to be called. I put an archaeological dig in Germany because I felt I could fake Germany a little better than I could fake Italy.

And then I remembered some of the things I'd seen there (besides Rhine Castles. Lots and lots of Rhine Castles).

Things like this medieval street faire. Along the narrow cobblestone alleys (well, not this pic, but mostly) between more-or-less older looking houses, were craft stands and food stalls and lots and lots of beer (which many people drunk from cow horns...probably because then you didn't have to return your stein for the three euro deposit.) Many people in costume (some better than others).

And there was even a tournament:

Which besides being fun in itself is also probably explanation for why some of the people at the street faire were walking around in steel armor. Which means it is the kind of detail that's very cool to have in there for Penny (with her near-lack of any spoken German or much local knowledge) to try to puzzle out.

Yes it is cool but yes that’s a problem. Because it is cool enough for the reader to want to visit themselves. That is, it is reproducible. That is, I do a disservice to the reader if I name the wrong town.  And, heck...six years later, I don’t even remember the name of the town I was in.

So now I’m trying to track down an actual location that’s preferably in East Germany and/or in the Black Forest and has a medieval faire and is on the circuit for the Jousting associations and preferably has a nice schloss in town as well. Oh, yeah. And includes a potential Iron Age archaeological site. Romans I can leave or take but a cistern or two would be lovely.

Yeah, so much for “no research.”



Okay, where I was appears to have been Bad Münster am Stein-Ebernburg, a small and rather quiet town mostly rehabilitation spas and clinics. The only record I've pulled up so far of a medieval festival is from 2013, which sounds like about the date I was there. They do claim it is annual, though.

I'm leaning quite a bit towards Rothenburg ob der Tauber, in the Franconia district of Bavaria (Bad Münster is West of Frankfurt). Rothenburg has one of the bigger medieval faires, including a torchlit parade. The central Old Town is very medieval, very backlot Bavarian, so much so it featured in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (along with King Ludwig's wedding cake Disney castle, Neuschwanstein). 

There have been some experimental archaeologists casting bronze and smelting iron in a nearby forest. As far as other archaeological digs, I have no idea. I need to hit the more academic resources for that (my membership to JSTOR has to be worth something.)

Another problem to contemplate is it is a long way back to Athens for my protagonist. Especially if she's avoiding airplanes. It is either a long train ride to the Italian coast and a 30+ hour ferry to Greece, or an even longer train ride.

But then, there was that Danish princess who according to stable isotope analysis was not only born in the Black Forest, but went home for a visit before finally being buried in Denmark. In the Bronze Age. I hope she made a big detour around the Forest of Tollense, though.