Stay put!

Train travel may be better than flying or driving, but the most environmentally friendly solution is also the simplest don't go anywhere. While this may seem radical, don't dismiss it out of hand; when's the last time you visited a local museum or hiked through a local trail. People are often so blind to their surroundings that most New Yorkers have never been to the Statue of Liberty except as a child, most Londoners last saw the Tower in primary school, and most Australians know Europe better than their own outback. It's a surreal experience being a tourist at home especially if you do it properly: buy a guidebook (Let's Go or Lonely Planet, naturally), stay in a hostel, eat out every night, and don't go home until you've seen everything there is to see!

Exploring Swabian Jura

To the north of Hall, Steinbach, the only suburb of Hall that remained Catholic during the Reformation, appropriately holds the Kloster Grobcomburg (tel. 0791938185)-a former castle and later Benedictine monastery dating from the 11th century. The fully preserved 460 meter long wall that the monks used to pace provides peep holes for gorgeous views of the valley, but you must take a short tour (in German only) to see the museum and the extremely ornate inside of the Baroque church reconstructed in the 18th century. To get to the town, take bus #4B to "Steinbach/Mitte," cross the street, and head left around and up Bildersteige.

Only a train ride away, in the same beautiful region, lies the town of Schwabisch Gmend. Over Schwabisch Gmend, its people like to joke, the sun laughs, while at the rest of Baden-Warttemberg, the world has a good chuckle. While all the towns around it reformed in the mid-1500s, Schwabisch Gmend persistently stayed loyal to Catholicism. The motivation may have been slightly opportunistic; the town's main source of income came and still comes from gold and silversmithing of-among other things-Catholic icons. In 1802, when the Dukes of W?rttemberg began ruling the once free imperial city and tried to convert it to Protestantism, the Gm?nders answered with a song on the marketplace crudely pointing out in unison the body part those reforming Dukes could kiss. They promptly kept their lips shut from then on, but the townspeople still sing the humorous lyrics during one of their many boisterous carnivals. In addition to their high spirits, the people of Schw?bisch Gm?nd also have very good luck; their town has never been bombed or destroyed, so most of the Altstadt is composed of those darling 14th C. half-timbered houses or ones that were covered over in a Baroque style.