I think it’s an aura that surrounds these places. We wonder who walked these same steps, peered through these same windows, touched these same stones. What kind of world did they live in? When I’m in a place that has such an ancient history I try to imagine what life must have been like for those who lived there at the time. In a place with many years of history behind it you know that you are treading in the footsteps of many other people. It may have been common folk, it may have been kings and queens. One thing you know is that the world was a very different place when those statues were carved, those stones were mortared together and those gates were smelted. It“s one of the things I love about going to Europe. I haven’t been able to go too many other ancient places but I’d love to see Stonehenge, the Acropolis, Easter Island, the Lascaux caves and many other ancient places.
I have been to this monastery which is one of the oldest in Europe. I remember peering into the hall where the monks used to take their meals. My host told me the story of how the monks weren’t supposed to eat meat during Lent so they hid it in pasta!
Here is the source I can give you to say that my host was not making it up!
“Maultaschen are rumored to have been invented by monks of the Maulbronn monastery to conceal the fact that they were eating meat during lent. The monks hid the meat inside of the Maultaschen, believing that God couldn’t see it that way. (This is reflected in the humorous alternative Swabian name Herrgottsbescheißerle (roughly: “little ones to cheat on the Lord”
I just love the sense that we are all connected some way in time. On this same trip we had homemade Maultaschen! It was soooo good!
Here is the monastery where those crafty monks sought to cheat the Lord! See? Some things just never change, do they?