Vacation Report, Part 2: The Narrowest Street and the Most Expensive Bridge

Okay, I misled you yesterday when I told you I'd write today about the Big Wedding we attended in Germany. I changed my mind, because that post will need a lot more time for me to pick out and prepare the right pictures and write the text. So today I'll talk about another part of the trip, and we'll do the Big Wedding on Sunday (since we'll pick up Cartoon Saturday again tomorrow). It'll confuse Mike, but he'll get over it.

Okay?

So, then, today let's talk about our visits to the Narrowest Street in the World and the Most Expensive Bridge in the World.

You will recall from yesterday's post that Agnes's cousin Anna enjoys taking us on visits to interesting places in the vicinity of the city of Reutlingen. One day we were walking in the city and she asked if we'd ever seen the Narrowest Street in the World. We hadn't, and so we took a small detour and visited Spreuerhofstrasse, which is indeed recognized by the Guinness Book of Records as the narrowest street in the world. Here's the sign that's posted at each end of the street ...

and here is Yours Truly squeezing his way through. Don't try this after a big lunch ...

If you're going to visit Reutlingen to see the Spreuerhofstrasse, you should probably do it soon ... while looking for some background information I discovered this story from July of last year, which reports that water seepage is causing the walls lining the street to bow inward, which could eventually squeeze the poor Spreuerhofstrasse out of existence.

A week or so later when I reported on Facebook that we were in the city of Singen*, my friend and fellow local blogger Buggie commented that she used to spend a lot of time there some years ago, and asked if I knew that Singen was the location of the Scheffelbruecke - the most expensive bridge in the world. I didn't know that ... as it turned out, it was only a short walk from our hotel, and Agnes and I happened to walk across it the very next day!

The Scheffelbruecke was built in 1923, during the period of raging inflation that crippled Germany during the years following the First World War. Here is what it looks like today ...

Nothing special, right? Here is the plaque mounted at the other end of the bridge ...

It reads, "Cost of construction: 1,520,940,901,926,024 Marks." An older plaque next to it helpfully breaks down that enormous number: one quadrillion, 520 trillion, 940 billion, 901 million, 926 thousand and 24 Marks ...

I'm not sure what that would have been in 1923 dollars, but I expect it would have been a princely sum, even at the prevailing rates of exchange. If they'd had Republicans back then, they'd have been screaming louder about the cost of that bridge than about the evils of Obamacare**.

And we'll round things out with another little tidbit about Singen. In this picture taken by our friends Marcel and Vreni, we're on a footbridge over the Aach River as it runs through the city garden ...

You may notice that there are a whole slew of padlocks fastened to the railing. According to Vreni and Marcel, young couples inscribe their names on a padlock, fasten it to the bridge, and throw the key into the river as a symbol of being forever locked in love. Here's a closeup of one of the locks, commemorating the undying love*** of Dominik and Melina ...

and here's one section of the bridge rail with all the locks on display ...

I commented on my Facebook page that I figured some enterprising entrepreneur in Singen was probably making a fortune selling bolt cutters to couples when things didn't quite work out, but was accused by some of my friends of being a cynic****.

So there you have three interesting (at least in my opinion) things I learned on our trip. Tomorrow, we'll have the return of Cartoon Saturday, and on Sunday we'll go back and look at the Big Wedding. Be here!

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

* About 4 km from Agnes's hometown of Rielasingen.

** Well, no ... probably not.

*** Or lust, you never know.

**** I prefer "realist," myself.