Mittelbrunn, Germany: In Search of the Menhir
North of England
Many years ago, I visited my sister who lived near Oxford, England. She took a couple of weeks off from work and we drove up to the north. Our intent was to visit the city of York, and various towns that possessed castles associated with Richard III (1452-1485).
So we drove through three townsâÂ?¦each time keeping our eyes peeled for signs that would lead us to the town’s castle. And invariably, each time, we got through the entire town without seeing signs of any kind. We would then turn around and retrace our steps – and then we’d see the signs and finally find our way to our destination.
If it had happened once it could have been sheer bad luck or unobservance on our part – but it happened three times. Which means that the good people of these towns had been extremely sparing with their signs. I said at the time, jokingly, that it was a conspiracy – the townsfolk didn’t want all the tourists coming up from the south to find their castles – the signs were intended only for people coming down from the north.
Or it could just have been bad signage.
Virginia
My experience with bad, or inadequate signage didn’t end there, of course. The United States is just as guilty. Take for example the drive from Virginia down to the Outer Banks of North Carolina, which I wrote about for Associated Content in an article called the “Cape Hatteras Lighthouse and Wright Memorial Travel Guide.” The sign for the Outer Banks Visitor Center is situated at least 200 yards too early on the highwayâÂ?¦I am willing to bet that 50% of the people who want to stop at the Visitor Center turn off one driveway too early.
And that brings me to Mittelbrunn.
Mittelbrunn, Germany
Mittelbrunn is a small village in the southwest of Germany. At first glance it may not seem like a village that is worth being be on a tourist’s list of possible destinations, but it is, as I’ll explain in a future article. For now, though, I just want to talk briefly about one of Mittelbrunn’s two main claims to fame – the menhir.
A menhir is a “large, single upright standing stone (monolith or megalith), of prehistoric European origin.” There are several of them scattered throughout Europe (the most famous being the Carnac Stones, in Brittany). Germany has several single menhirs (or *langstein, as the Germans call them), and one of them is located on the outskirts of Mittelbrunn.
How it Started
In researching an article about this little village, I did a google search for pictures of Mittelbrunn. (I was in search not of photos, which I’m taking myself, but rather maps.) However, the first photo that came up on the page was of a menhir. (This was the first time I’d ever seen the term ‘menhir.’ I did know what “standing stones” were).
The photo was from a German website, and had directions in German. My German wasn’t up to it, so I decided to try to find something in English.
In doing a text search for “menhir in Mittelbrunn”, I came across The Megalithic Portal. [http://megalithic.co.uk/]. It had an entry which was of no use (the person who’d entered the info had clearly never seen the menhir.) All it did was give a latitude and longitude and say: “Site believed to be near this position. 1.7 Meter tall Limestone Menhir, In fields about 1 KM north of town, close to large antenna.” It continued: Condition: 5 (5 is best) Ambience: 4 Access: 4 (5 is best).
WellâÂ?¦seeing photos of the menhir on the web was not enough, of course. I wanted to see it with my own eyesâÂ?¦I wanted to take pictures of it with my own camera – not only to write an article about it but just on general principals.
The Sister’s Directions
I asked my sister (who has lived in Mittelbrunn for a year, and with whom I am staying) if she had heard of the menhirâÂ?¦and she said she had. She said there were signs to it, but even with the signs she hadn’t been able to find it. But then, she said, she might not have known what she was looking for. Whereas *I had seen a picture of it, so I figured I would be able to recognize it. Also, according to the Portal website, it was located next to a “large antenna,” so I figured that would help me find it.
My sister told me how to get to the first sign that pointed to where the menhir was. (“Follow it past the hair salon, and then there’s a dirt road, just follow the signs..”) Follow the signs indeed…
Day One
Mittelbrunn is situated in a valley and every road leads up. Steeply up. So I decided to walk rather than try to ride my sister’s fat-tired mountain bike (which takes twice as much effort to pedal as a thin-tired bike).
All began well. I walked to the middle of town and found the sign that pointed the direction to the menhir. I started walking up the steep cobblestone road. Soon that gave way, and I kept walking on the macadamâÂ?¦or whatever the technical term for paved road is. I passed by the Pilstube, or pub, as my sister had told me I would. Several more yards of huffing and puffing and I passed by the Hair Fashion Point – a hairstylist’s located in what looks like a person’s private house.
And then I came to a fork in the road. There were no signs. The paved road kept going straight, and up, whereas a dirt road led off to the right. But my sister had said to take a dirt road..so I did so.
As I walked, I certainly got a good view of the countryside. Cows stood in a field as I passed by. I was hot and my legs were tired. I turned my head and looked down to the right, and saw what looked like 3 stones set in a field, next to a telephone pole. There didn’t seem to be any way to get to themâÂ?¦as they were in a farmer’s fieldâÂ?¦but the stone in the middle certainly looked like the menhir, although shorter than I thought it’d beâÂ?¦although I wondered why, if this were the case, the two stones on either side hadn’t been mentioned. Also, although the stones were in the middle of a field, a road did run past that fieldâÂ?¦and surely if that road ran past the menhir the sign wouldn’t have directed me way up here.
Nevertheless, I took some photos of the spot, just in case it turned out to be what I was looking for. And then I turned and began the hot walk back to the house.
Day Two
The next day, I retraced my steps on foot, but instead of turning right onto my sister’s dirt road, I kept on heading straight. (My sister was on travel and not available to be quizzed on her directions, but the lesson here isâÂ?¦if someone has looked for something and hasn’t found itâÂ?¦don’t ask them for directions to it!
So I kept walking straight up this road. It was a narrow road, but if I read the signs right it was for farm vehicles only, and I wouldn’t be encountering any cars. (Like England, roads in Germany are very narrow, and what counts as a single-lane road in the United States is the width of a two-way road here.)
So I kept heading up and up, wishing that the sign that I’d seen initially had happened to mention the mileage (or the kilometerage, if I may so term it!) of how far away the menhir was.
I passed a couple of other roads diverging from the one I was onâÂ?¦and I wondered if I should take them. But no, I thought. The Germans are a logical people. If the menhir was down one of these roads there’d surely be a sign. So just keep going straight.
And eventually I did come to a sign that pointed me on the road heading right. Frankly, that was a relief. So I headed to the right, walking through fields of what I assume to be wheat. On the left was a freshly-paved road, upon which a steamroller was going up and down, and to the right of that paved road, about 50 yards away, was a big antenna, one of several running in a line through the fields. But there was no sign saying “menhir.”
I tried to be logical. I said to myself, the Germans are a logical people. If the menhir was down this road, there’d be a sign saying so. So I kept on walking. I kept on walking until I came to another field with cowsâÂ?¦and a road that disappeared between a stand of trees on either side of it. I decided to go no further – I was tired of walking and next day I’d take the bike.
As I walked back towards the main road, I eyed that big antenna again. I had a suspicion that that was itâÂ?¦but that steamroller was barring my way. Its handler stopped at the juncture of the two roads, presumably waiting for me to walk past so he could turn the steamroller around. “Sprechen Sie Englisch?” I asked him. He shook his head no. “Wo ist der menhir?” I asked. He shook his head, smiling.
I was a woman with a camera, on a road that had begun with a pointy-little sign saying, in essence, “This way to the menhir.” Why would anyone be up there with a camera unless they were looking for the menhir? So I was hoping that the driver would use some common sense and know why I was there, but he merely shook his head. I said, “Danke,” anyway and kept on walking.
It was easier walking down than it was walking up, of course, but I was still hot and tired and frustrated when I returned to the house.
Third Day
On the third day, I took my sister’s fat-tired bike and retraced my steps. I rode on the relatively level stretches, and walked up the steep passages – which were most of the way, frankly.
I returned once more to the spot where the 2nd sign for the menhir had been. I looked behind me and got quite a nice view of Mittelbrunn nestled among the trees far below me, and the wind-generators on the horizon�and then I got on the bike and started riding down the road.
I thought about taking the left down the one road that led past the antenna, but then decided against it. No, if the menhir was on that road, there’d be a sign on that road saying so.
So I kept on riding, passed a middle-aged man walking down the road, and kept on going�until I came to a spot where the road ended and a dirt road began. Could this be the dirt road my sister had spoken of? I road down it�and very shortly the dirt road split into two, and neither one had a sign saying menhir. They seemed to be logging roads more than anything else.
And at this point I decided to admit defeat. So I turned around and started retracing my steps. Then, when I came abreast of the walking man, I stopped and asked, “Sprechen Sie Englisch?”
He did speak English. Not very wellâÂ?¦but certainly better than I spoke German. I asked him where the menhir was. “The menhir.” I tried to spell it, making the sounds of the letters as pronounced in the German alphabet. I gestured with my hands to illustrate a long stoneâÂ?¦
“Ah, lang stein!” he said. “We call it the lang stein!” And he pointed back the way I’d initially come and said it was in the field about fifty meters back. Where that antenna was, as I’d originally suspected. I thanked him and rode on.
So, I thought to myself as I biked on. Germans call menhirs lang stein (long stones), and apparently don’t know what menhirs *are. So why did the sign say menhir instead of *Lang steinâÂ?¦or why not have both? Did the locals even pay attention to that sign?
So, I got to that newly paved road once again, and turned onto it. There were a couple of tractors working in one of the fields, but there was no sign of the guy with his steamroller, for which I was grateful. I headed down the road, my eyes on the antenna. But when I crested a rise in the road, I saw the base of the antenna and there was no stone by it. I then turned and looked to my right�and there it was�not quite in the middle of the field�perhaps about 10 yards away from the road. It was half obscured by the wheat, and had not been visible from the road. (Although, presumably, in winter and before the wheat had reached a certain height, it would be.)
I wanted to walk up to it, but hesitated to do so, as I didn’t want to trespass on someone’s farmland. But then, as I walked the bike back down the road the way I’d come, I noticed what appeared to be a path in the field. The wheat grew around it but the narrow path itself was full of some clover-like plant.
So, I walked down this path to the menhir.
Frankly, if I hadn’t known what it wasâÂ?¦.I wouldn’t have known what it was. The entry at the website that I mentioned before (Megalithic Portal) said that its condition was 5, and that 5 was “best.” Perhaps all that meant was that it was still standing, as opposed to knocked over, because it certainly wasn’t in the best shape. Someone seemed to have poured grey paint over the top of it, and there were several names carved into it (doubtless done by American teens as I seriously doubt German kids would have done itâÂ?¦but that’s for another articleâÂ?¦)
There was nothing to protect the stone from mischievous personsâÂ?¦there was nothing near it to identify it at all. Anyway, I felt like I’d accomplished something, and I took a few photos.
And then I biked back to the house. It took me probably over 45-minutes to walk up to the menhir�it took me 5 minutes to zoom back down. I love bicycles.
What’s the second lesson to be learned here? That if a location is deemed important enough to put up signs pointing the way to it, and if this location is in a spot that is obscured for 3 months out of the year for whatever reasonâÂ?¦put up another sign at the exact point!
