Lieber Kelbra,

I passed through your Kleine Dorf on Sunday. I hope never to do so again.

You see, I was returning home from a fine day: I’d traveled from my home in Weimar up to Drei-Annen-Hohne. Once there, traveling via Erfurt and Nordhausen, I had a splendid day. I caught the Brockenbahn up to the top of Brocken. I really enjoyed myself: the narrow gage steam train was wicked fun, the views of northern Germany were really spectacular. I immediately understood why it was declared a national park.

At the top, I enjoyed the scenery even more—wandered around, discovered that I was only 104 kilometers from Weimar, even though I was more than 1,100 meters above sea level. I watched another train come and go—and I paused to reflect about the first time I ever took a narrow gage train—back when I was around 10, my (now deceased) uncle took me on my first plane trip to Durango, Colorado, where we caught the Durango & Silverton Railroad for a trip into the past.

Once I was finished, I consulted my map and discovered that the B85 went south from Berga to Weimar, and I decided that this would be a most excellent opportunity to explore and see more of Germany than I might otherwise see.

Unfortunately, upon arriving in Kelbra, I learned that I was going to get to see even more of Germany than I anticipated. You were having some kind of festival. What kind specifically, I am not certain, but I suppose it had lots of beer—in addition to blocking the road south, thus forcing me to take the detour around your festival and off into the wild blue yonder, but not before I was displeased to discover that your posted detour was under construction: half of your street was missing.

Having no idea where I was, I faithfully followed the detour. Now that I have a map I can see that I was sent down some small, narrow, winding, un-named road to the lovely City of Steinthaleben, where, I might add, the detour abruptly ended. Yes, the detour sign was there, but it was crossed out and it was not immediately apparent to me that I was back on the B85, because, in retrospect, I wasn’t.

I was in the middle of nowhere with no signs to guide me.

Fortunately I had the good luck to cross some other road which had a sign pointing to the city of Bad Frankenhausen, a town name I vaguely remembered having seen. It was there, unguided by your nonexistent detour signs, that I found myself crossing the B85, once again able to reorient myself toward Weiamar.

Next time you hold your Dorf-festival, please do not block the B85, put it off on a side street.

In the meantime, I am thinking that another trip north of Weimar is in order—I saw lots of cities I would like to return to: Steinthaleben, Stoberg, Tanne, Hasselfelde, Rotteberode, Uftrungen, and Bad Frankenhausen, to name a few. Your Dorf that is not on that list.

You will never see any of my €uros.

Auf Wiedersehen,

Adam

P.S. See my photos from the Brockenbahn on Flickr.