Bill and I gave serious thought to taking the train to Stuttgart this afternoon and catching the Hamburger Fischmarket and Africa Festival.  But we went to both events last year and were wary of big crowds.  I really didn’t feel like taking the train to the big city, nor did Bill feel like driving.  So we decided to go to Nagold for a couple of hours.  Turns out that was a good choice.  Nagold is a nice, laid back little town that offers pretty much all we need, anyway.

It looked they they were either setting up or tearing down a “beach” area.  No one was there today.  It was funny we passed this because earlier, I was talking about wanting to go to the beach.  ETA: My German friend Susanne says it’s the Anker Beach.  Guess we’ll be heading there soon!

Bill gives me a sly look as we wait for our lunch.

We shared a Greek Alsatian pizza.  I’m not usually too hot on these, but I wasn’t very hungry and didn’t want a big meal.  Sharing this was about right for us.

Although there was a kids’ football game we could have watched, I really just wanted to sit by the river and drink some beer.  Because it was so hot and sunny this afternoon, most of the good tables by the river were taken at Longwy, the little bar/cafe/restaurant where we usually go when we want to drink beer on Sunday.  But we did manage to find a spot with some shade and we had a round of beer and split a Greek flammkuechen.  I didn’t want to stick around for too long, though, because we were surrounded by smokers.  Besides, some guy had brought his three sleek, well-trained, water loving, dogs with him.  I wanted to watch them for awhile.  I did, and got some video footage.

The dogs were having a blast!

We walked past a very small festival where a band had been playing the French national anthem, some small kids were singing, and it looked like they were selling food in an attempt to raise funds for a music club.  They even had a bouncy house.

Then we passed the Nagold pool, which was extremely crowded today.  I didn’t see a single bare spot of grass.  As we headed back into the old town, we stopped for gelato.  I had strawberry and peppermint chocolate chip.  Bill had chocolate and walnut.  We stopped and watched the kids playing football, having a lot of fun.  I observed several small kids throwing water balloons at each other, completely and joyfully unsupervised.  It was a very refreshing sight to see these little children having fun with no adult helicoptering nearby.  I was reminded of the good old days in the 70s, when I was a little kid given total freedom to roam the neighborhood all day if I wanted.  I love this about Germany.

Kids playing football…

We could have sat and watched over pizza or pasta.

Ice cream hit the spot.  Strawberry and mint is a good combination!

I really love spending time in Nagold.  It’s a cute little town just minutes from where we live, yet totally different to look at.  I could hang out there all day.