I suggested to Jan that we should go to Rottweil as it’s the oldest town in Baden-Württemberg (the German state we live in). He then suggested that, since it takes roughly an hour and a half to drive there, we should stop somewhere else on the way… and that’s how we ended up going to Nagold.
The town of Nagold takes its name from the river that flows through the town. It’s known for its ruined castle, Hohennagold (which we didn’t see) and for the many half-timbered houses in the town centre. Can you guess why I wanted to go there? (Hint: It’s the same reason I love Tübingen…)
The day we were in Nagold was right in the middle of their Kermes – a word that I wasn’t even able to find a translation for until I changed the spelling to Kermis, and even then it only took me to a Wikipedia article about the Dutch Kermesse! But, reading through the article, it seems to be the same thing. Basically, it’s a town fête or festival, usually in the form of a funfair although we didn’t see one in Nagold (if there were funfair rides, they wouldn’t have been directly in town). What we did see, were things like this:
Judging by the other items that were lying around, the aim of the game was to throw rings into the mouth of this… whale? At least that’s what I think it was meant to be! A killer whale with a surf board…
Nagold is in the district of Calw, and with all the half-timbered houses, the two towns are pretty similar (click here to read about my trip to Calw). Most of our time in Nagold was spent just walking around taking photos. We tried to visit the town museum, but it turned out to be closed on Saturdays… because nobody would ever want to visit a museum on a Saturday. Clearly. Here, have some photos:
It had been raining quite heavily while we were in the car, but by the time we stopped in Nagold, it was only cloudy. Not bad considering the forecast was for nothing but rain all day!
After I had taken a photo of every single half-timbered house in the town (well… maybe not quite, but definitely a lot of them. What can I say? They’re just too pretty!), we decided to go for a coffee. We ended up at a place called Il Due, where I drank a Latte Macchiato with vanilla syrup and Jan had a cappucino. We didn’t eat there (although, in retrospect, I think we should have!) but the pizzas that were delivered to the table next to us looked – and smelled – amazing! But time was moving on and we still wanted to go to two places that day, so we paid for our coffees and headed back to the car. Next stop: Rottweil… but that’s a tale for another blog post.
Update from August 2014: I’ve decided to include this post in the Travel edition of the Expats Blog Hop over at Young Germany. Find the other entries here.
Confuzzledom 
Lovely town 🙂
I know the spelling as “Kirmes”. Maybe I’ve got it wrong, though.
I think it might be a south-western thing – all the posters in this area say Kermes, but the Internet only recognises Kirmes.
You may have just updated the internet, then 😉
So pretty!
Isn’t it?
Thos building really are pretty – I can see why you like them. The killer whale-surfboard-‘game’ though – just a bit odd… 🙂
I dfon’t think the kids were too impressed with the “game” either.. all the other stalls had queues (which is why I could only take a photo of this one… can’t be putting pictures of random kids on my blog ;-))
I want to live in a place with buildings like that! Karlsruhe has about 3, in a part of town I never go to.
How crazy is that – Il Due is the place I had lunch yesterday! Just across from the Hotel Post, right? I should have had something Italian, but I was in the mood for a salad.
Yes, exactly!! Small world! I don’t know about the salad but the pizzas looked lovely. Sadly, we ended up eating at a horrible Indian restaurant in Rottweil.
What adorable buildings! I sadly have never been to the parts of Germany with this charming style of architecture, so until I do, will have to live vicariously through photos like yours. Thanks for sharing your discovery.
There are loads of places like this here in the Schwarzwald area 🙂