Terps, borgs and the pink granite coast: Colourful Celle and white spargel

Some places are made for a long lazy weekend in the sun. Celle in Germany is one of them. We first came to Celle (correctly pronounced Tsel'-ay, a darling old lady in one of the squares told us today) over 30 years ago. We came, not because we'd heard much about it at the time, but when we were in Legoland in Billund in Denmark then, we saw a lego reconstruction of the village of Celle and could not believe that any place could be so colourful and so medieval after so many destructive wars, so we wrote down its name then, and tracked it down. And today we returned.

Celle is nearly as beautiful even today tho' its outskirts of light industry and its role as a service centre for surrounding villages make its periphery easily able to be ignored.

The Zentrum ranks up there as one of the prettiest historic Alstadts (old town centres) anywhere and it is the sort of place I would love to come for a long romantic weekend: sipping wine, eating spargel, photographing medieval half timbered houses in-between times.

There are always sad bits in Germany: Anne Frank died in the Belsun concentration camp which was not far from Celle. A British bombing raid destroyed over 60 lovely old half timbered houses in the last part of the war, and at the same time a trainload of prisoners being railed to Belsun was hit. Many escaped but over the next two days hundreds the escapees were hunted down in the woods, and shot. These tales are hard to bear.

A rare Jewish synagogue in the downtown, however, was saved from fire during the pogrom burnings of 1938, mainly because of its strategic location next to an important leather factory. As were most of the fine and historic houses in the Alstadt.

And there are hundreds. Which are well cared for and colourful, as the Germans, unlike the British, go in for multi-colours. Some are so old they are in the process of being propped up with external buttressing. Bec and I even saw a blue and gold house that was quite blingy and gorgeous.

Spring is the time to go to Celle. When spargel is on every menu and the sun is shining. The surrounding area must be a real spargel-growing area as white asparagus was available in little temporary markets all along the sides of the road. For the first time, too, we saw it being harvested, so stopped and asked if we could see all the action.

The harvest foreman was from Bologne. His busload of sweat-shop labourers were from Rumania. No one spoke Engish. We were forbidden to use a camera until the man from Bologna discovered we were Australian. Then we could take all the photos we liked. Clearly not immigration personnel.

The asparagus grows in long mounds of sandy earth, set in parallel lines and covered with long lengths of white plastic. It grows beneath the soil and the harvester pulls the soil away with his hand, swipes the top few centimetres to find a batch growing. He would then dig down beside these and cut with a big sawing action about the length of the asparagus underground. This would remove lots of loose soil which he would then replace, rebuilding the mound with this trowel, and covering the growing bed for the next harvest.

Around this part of Germany spargel is for sale for about 3kgs for 10E. In Den Haag, for 1kg we paid over 20E. We eat it every night we see it at this time of the year no matter what the price. And from now on I will think of, and thank, the illegal Rumanian men who worked hard out in the hot sun to harvest this delicious white vegetable at its prime eating time, for our pleasure.