Hello Wangen 1

An Old, Old City

Today we spent getting to know the little gem a bit. We had a tour with a guide to get some of the stories of flea capsules, cowherd children, and a cat lady in the city’s history, and we strolled around by ourselves, to discover pigs, enormous breads and cheeses, painted tower gates, and, of course, a brewery. 

We are rooming at the Mohren Post, here…

It is on a very picturesque street by a city gate, that used to allow entrance through the city wall, which today are only partly surviving. 

Wangen is first noted in historical writings in 815! It then belonged to the cloister of St. Gallen, so there are various pictorial references to St. Gall and his bear throughout the city. The settlers were of the Germanic Alemannic tribe (who displaced the earlier Celtic peoples). At the very beginning of the Holy Roman Empire, in the 1100’s, in the High Medieval  period, under the Hapsburg Rudolf I, the city was given the conveted status of “freie Reichsstadt,” allowing them various independencies. This is noted in the eagle symboling the present day shield of the city. 

Later changes of power led to French rulers, adding the Lily to the city shield. The word Wange in German means “cheek,” thus the Wappen below:

 In the pre-and Post-Reformation/Baroque era, the city was a wealthy commercial center on the trade route from Italy northward. For a while it was a prosperous grain-growing region, but its fairly wet climate was not as conducive to that type of farming, as to the dairy farming started later, when the Hapsburgs induced many regional farmers to move to Hungary to begin grain farming in that drier area, more suitable for grains. Today, this whole region is a major producer of cheeses and dairy products. They got some considerable help from Swiss farmers in acquiring that reputation. 

In subsequent years, the city had three major fires, that caused the reconstruction of much of its old center. In Napoleonic times (1802), Wangen lost its old independent status, and was absorbed into the Bavarian state, and is now part of Württemberg. In the 1970’s, a major effort was made to preserve and protect the city’s historic character and treasures. 



A map of the Altstadt/old town. 

Fasnacht is about to begin. This is the pre-Lenten celebration period that leads up to the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday that starts Lent, when everything is supposed to go somber and serious. What used to be one day of wild carousing before Lent has become a whole season with colorful costumes, decorations, and music. So, today we met, street corner after street corner, a group of people putting up pennant strings all over the streets. It looks like one year they got a half dozen  kinds of fabric, cut an innumerable amount of triangles out them, attached them to strings, and put them up every year about this time. 

…to be continued (it’s Dinner time!)….