“You coming Bridg?” Con enquired of our beligerent camper.
“Come on Brid, you can sunbath later,” I added.
“Go on then, wouldn’t want to miss the culture.”

And so it was that a bit after nine our flock of teenagers mounted our motley group of steeds and headed towards Bad Dürkheim. It was almost like being back home and heading down to Silverberg Gymnasium, a group of friends chattering about rubbish without a care in the world. The day was promising to be a typical mid August example, hot and sunny, a day to not do too much but a bit intense for sitting out.

We retraced yesterdays route past the water thingy and through the Kurpark into the centre where we found the tourist info office – well its a good place to start right?

“There’s loads of stuff,” Nena opined.
“Some of these are miles away,” Pia pointed out waving a leaflet for the technical museum at Speyer.
“Not that far,” I suggested.
“Far enough,” Con put in, “hey we’re on the Deutsche Weinstraße.”
“And I thought Gabs was the dumb blonde,” Steff stated.
“Hey, dumb rosa-in if you don’t mind!”
“What about this,” Heidi suggested, “Limburg Abbey.”
“Thought that was up near well, Limburg,” Anna mentioned.
“Nope, according to this its a couple of kilometres up the road to Frankenstein.”
“Frankenstein? you’ve got to be kidding?” I put in.
“No, it says its three kilometres up Kaiserlauterer Straße towards Frankenstein,” Heidi confirmed.

Maybe its an English thing, wonder if Shelley knew there was a place called Frankenstein?

“Well we could take a look,” Donna added.
“Three kilometres?” Brid groaned, “its bound to be uphill too.”
“Give over Brid, you used to ride ten each way to school,” Nen pointed out.
“That was different.”
 

It was no contest really, we collected various flyers and one of those free sightseeing maps and after a stop to purchase refreshments, set off on the Frankenstein road. there’s a cycle path so we were at least protected from the traffic, even at our relaxed pace it took us less than twenty minutes to get to the Abbey. Well when I say get to the Abbey, to the entrance in the valley, the Abbey is actually up the hill above the valley.

There was of course more complaining from certain parties but after transferring supplies from baskets to backpacks and of course securing the bikes we set off to hike to the ruins. Our group split into several smaller ones as we each found our own pace and company, I ended up with Anna with Pia and Brid behind us and the rest a little way ahead. It’s not a steep, well very steep path allowing us to chat on the way up.

“So what’s up Gabs?”
“Why should anything be up?”
“Come on Gab, its me, you’re usually the life and soul, last night you were almost party pooper, so spill girlfriend.”

Do I just play dumb, say I was tired or something or do I come clean, ha, how's that for an ironic choice of words?

I checked to see how close the others were, satisfied they were out of earshot I took a deep breath, “look this doesn’t go anywhere, not even Con or Steff, promise?”
“You serious?”
“Very.”
“Okay I promise, so?”
“There’s an issue with my racing, I’ve been suspended.”
“Suspended?” she squealed.
“Shush!” I checked to make sure we were still being ignored, “you know I have to do the drug test thingies?”
“I think you’ve mentioned a few dozen times,” she confirmed.
“Well I tested positive from a race a few weeks ago for, wait for it, too much testosterone.”
“Gab, you’re a girl, you don’t do testosterone.”
“Which is why I’m suspended.”
“So how’d it get in the sample?”
“No idea,” I admitted.
“So what happens now?”
“Dad’s getting more tests done, he’s coming down here later today to get another sample for a base line or something.”
“That makes sense,” my friend agreed, “but in the meantime you can’t race?”
“Nope, if I get done for it it’ll finish my career, Anna, I’m scared.”
“Come here,” she pulled me into a hug and I could feel salty tears start to roll down my cheeks.
“Whats up?” Pia enquired as the back markers caught up to us.
“Bit hormonal,” Anna suggested, “go on, we’ll follow in a few minutes.”
“Okay, see you in a bit then.”
 

“Thanks,” I mumbled as the others continued up the path.
“What are friends for eh?”
“Dunno.”
“So when’s your dad getting here?”
“Not sure, he said he’ll ring when he gets to Bad Dürkheim, he’ll come and find us.”
“Well in that case we’d best get up to this Abbey place for a look eh?”
 

Limburg Abbey is, apart from its hilltop location, not dissimilar to many of the ruins back in England. In Germany there aren’t so many monastic ruins, never having had Henry VIII’s sixteenth century dissolusion so the others were perhaps more interested than serial ruin visitor, Bond. My previous experience with Dad does mean that I could act as guide there being not a great deal in respect of information around the site.

So if you want to know about reardortir’s, undercrofts and cloisters I’m your girl – of course it helps that nearly every monastic site across northern Europe is built to a very similar plan. I’m pretty good at Roman remains too, they are even more predictable. But I digress, we wandered about for a while before finding a spot for an impromptu picnic.

“Hmm, this is nice,” Con sighed.
“Its cooler here than at the site,” Steff suggested.
“No boys though,” Heidi noted.
“Wonder where the ones on the site were last night?” Pia mused.
“They were still there?” I asked.
“Well their tents were,” Brid told us.
“So what’re we doing this afternoon,” Donna enquired.
“There’s Hardenburg,” I proposed.
Brid sighed, “that sounds like a castle.”
“It is,” Anna confirmed waving the flyer I’d been looking at, “’biggest castle ruin in the Palatinate’ apparently.”
“Not more rocks,” Con moaned.
“Oh and its five euro entry.”
“Count me out,” Bridg told us.
“Yeah, one lot of ruins is enough in a day,” Heidi proposed.
“It was just an idea,” I mentioned.
“If you want to go I’ll go with you,” Nena offerred.
Anna shrugged, “I don’t mind.”
“Well you three go play Indiana Jones, we’ll go hit the beach,” Donna countered.
 

We all descended to the valley floor where the sun worshippers headed back to Bad Dürkheim whilst the smaller group of explorers headed the extra kilometre out to the Hardenburg. Perversely at the pay for ‘attraction’ there were more visitors than at the Abbey, we paid our entrance fees and after acquiring ice cream made our way up to the castle itself. I blame Dad for this, this visiting ruins when I could be sunning myself by the lake.
 

Brrrp, brrrp...brrrp, brrrp

“That your Handy Gabs?” Nen suggested.
“Er yeah,” I dug in my bag to retrieve my communication device, “Dad,” I advised the others.
“Dad?”
“Heya kiddo, we’re just coming off the autobahn, where are you?”
“Up at the castle, Hardenburg, its on the Frankenstein road.”
“Frankenstein?”
“Thats what I said,” I chuckled, “I think it goes to Kaiserslautern too?”
“Er okay, stay there and I’ll see you shortly.”
“I’ll go down to the entrance.”
“Okay kiddo.”

I closed the call and re-stowed the phone.

“He here?” Anna enquired.
“Yup.”
“He? who’s he?” Nen asked.
“Mr B,” Anna filled in.
“I’ll go down to meet him, you guys stay up here, I’ll be back soon as.”
“What’s he here for?”
“Tell you later, see you in a bit.”
 

Its a long way up and it takes time to go down too, I arrived at the entrance just in time to see Dad come in.

“Dad!”
“Heya kiddo, improving the mind eh?”
“It was either this or sunbathing.”
“Hard choice, oh sorry, Gab this is Natalie Bruns from the testing lab.”
A pleasant looking woman, maybe in her mid twenties stepped forward and offered her hand, “nice to meet you Gaby.”
“Erm hi,” I allowed, slightly confused.
“Nat will supervise your new sample,” Dad informed me.
“Shall we get started?” Fr. Bruns hinted.
“Where do we do this,” I asked.
“I think maybe they have a disabled toilet at the restaurant,” Natalie proposed.
 

Ten minutes later it was done, samples deposited, sealed and shared.

“You going straight back?” I enquired.
“We’ll get a quick coffee then head off,” Dad supplied.
“Quicker we start the process, quicker we get you cleared eh,” Natalie observed.
“Yeah, oh bum, I forgot, Nen and Anna are waiting for me up the top.”
“Go on then kiddo, enjoy the rest of your time down here.”
I gave him a hug, “i’ll try.”
He kissed the top of my head, “ bye kiddo.”
“Bye Dad, thanks for coming down Natalie.”
“My pleasure Gaby, its nice to get out of the lab for a change.”

I left the restaurant and started the climb back up to where my friends were waiting.
 

“Gab,” Anna called over.
“Ah,” I managed, “Gott that climbs steep.”
“All sorted?” Anna asked.
“Yeah, well I hope so, sorry I was so long.”
“You weren’t that long really,” Nen suggested, “so when do I find out what this is all really about?”
 

Maddy Bell © 19.01.2018