Christmas-card perfect: Bavarian village a seasonal — and year-round — delight
OBERAMMERGAU, Germany — The cosy wooden interior of Oberammergau’s 500-year-old Gasthaus von Stern could hardly be more welcoming.
Families tuck in to hearty meals of sausages and rye bread, and men play cards over glasses of locally brewed beer, while outside bright snow can be seen piled on the eaves of massive dark-wood buildings, whose windows glow with goodies.
It’s a Christmas-card-perfect scene.
This south Bavarian village’s Passion Play, staged roughly every 10 years since 1634, involves about half of the village’s 5,000 population. But while over half a million people will attend in 2020 there’s no need to wait until then to visit. Sleepy, out-of-the-way and thoroughly charming Oberammergau has much more to offer.
Long, cold winters at 850-metres above sea level meant living solely on farming was always difficult. The village museum displays evidence of settlement as early as Roman times, but Oberammergau only began to prosper in the 14th century with the beginnings of its woodcarving industry.
Oberammergau’s shops are crowded with wooden sculptures of secular and religious figures in all shapes and sizes, the original source of the village’s wealth. PETER NEVILLE-HADLEY/HORIZON WRITERS’ GROUP
Woodcarvers began to produce religious figures, sometimes carving the same image repeatedly their entire lives. Sellers tied large numbers of figures to frames on their backs, and tramped as far as Russia to find customers. Eventually the village sprouted businesses to trade in carvings, selling wholesale to merchants passing through on a trade route from Venice to
Article source: http://torontosun.com/travel/europe/christmas-card-perfect-bavarian-village-a-seasonal-and-year-round-delight