Heavens Unholy Waters

Had to pop a signed form in to the tax accountants in Memmingen this morning. They had completed the 2015 return without needing me to come in and as expected there isn't a big refund. So didn't get personally told off for next spending enough i.e. not having enough tax deductible expenses.

Took the opportunity for a very rare walk in neighbouring Buxheim, best known for it's "Charterhouse", a 15th century Carthusian monastery and now a Salesians. I previously never thought about where the various Charterhouse names one sees in the UK come from. Well it's the Carthusians founded by a German, Bruno of Cologne, in 1084 based near Grenoble in France and since 1737 they have been making the famous Chartreuse liqueur.

Why is it that monks were such great brewers and distillers? Here in Swabia, Cistercian monks are reputed to have gone further and created one of the most famous food dishes here - Maultaschen - a sort of Tortellini type dish, where they disguised meat from God on fasting/meat free days and wrapped it in dough and popped them in a soup. They are also known as "Herrgottsbescheißerle" - Little God Cheaters.

We walked around the lakes, the main one and nowadays a centre for swimming and fun is fed by a stream but above it are a number of ponds that were created around 1450 by the Carthusian monks to raise fish. A sign (see extra photo) says the monks were vegetarians and thus fish was important in their diet. I have checked and confirmed this Order is indeed vegetarian but I guess there are different interpretations of "meat". These ponds are known as "Himmelsteiche" - Heaven Ponds, a double meaning as they are totally reliant on rain and are not fed by a stream.

The sign describes the danger of going on the lake when frozen - there is on much of it a very thin film of ice now but in millimetre thickness. The red wooden ladder is there for rescue purposes. 

Anyway we all enjoyed it thoroughly, Flash even breaking in to a canter a few times. Quite a few families out walking. There is a route with quite a few "attractions" for children including in Extra photos, these two upside down trees, using the roots as hair and then face carved on the trunks. Sadly my camera battery had died and my mobile took a very dark image which I have tried to post-improve with sadly a poor result. Plus a couple of tree carvings again with mobile.