Darmstadt: Two Weeks in Germany

We were in Germany for two weeks in February handling the AV and streaming for Miss Germany. Not something I'd have predicted being on my calendar, but that's how these things go. Someone needs the production done right, you're the team that does it right, and suddenly you're in Darmstadt setting up cameras and monitors for a pageant.

Darmstadt is a small city of about 160,000 people, 30 minutes south of Frankfurt by S-Bahn. It's home to the Technische Universität Darmstadt and the European Space Agency's operations center, which means it has this weird mix of engineers, space scientists, and university students in a place that looks like a quiet commuter town in the middle of Hesse. It's not trying to be Berlin. It's not trying to be Munich. The streets are clean. The trams run on time. Nobody's performing for you. Germany at its most German.

The hotel was the Best Western Plus Plaza Hotel Darmstadt, near the Hauptbahnhof. Functional. Clean. Firm beds. The breakfast buffet runs the German standard: hard rolls with seeds, cold cuts arranged with geometric precision, sliced cheese, boiled eggs, and coffee that's stronger than you expect. The bread at this buffet was the quiet highlight. Four types, all from a local bakery, all better than they needed to be. Germany has over 3,000 registered bread varieties, and even the hotel buffet stuff is better than artisan loaves at most places in North America. Vollkornbrot (dark whole grain) with butter and a boiled egg is an underrated breakfast.

The Miss Germany event kept us busy, but two weeks is a long time and we had days off. We drove out to Europa-Park in Rust, about two hours south near the French border. It's the largest theme park in Germany and one of the biggest in Europe. If you've never heard of it, that's because it doesn't have Disney's marketing budget, but the rides are on par with anything in Orlando or Anaheim. The Silver Star is one of the tallest and fastest coasters in Europe. The themed areas are designed around different European countries, and the level of detail in each section is impressive. The French quarter actually feels French. The Scandinavian section has Viking ships and wooden architecture that looks transplanted from Norway. It's less corporate than Disney and more charming than most people expect. In the Baden-Württemberg or Alsace region with a free day, it's worth the trip, especially if you have kids. We don't, and we still spent the full day.

We also made it to a soccer match. Bundesliga energy in a German stadium is a different animal from North American sports. The fans are organized. The chanting is coordinated and loud and never stops for 90 minutes. There's a standing section (the Südtribüne or equivalent, depending on the club) that operates like a wall of noise. Beer is cheap and comes in real glasses. The whole experience makes you wonder what NFL and NBA games would feel like if the fans ran the atmosphere instead of the PA system. If you're in Germany during football season (August through May, roughly) and can get a ticket, go. It doesn't matter which club. The atmosphere is the attraction.

For food, the best thing I ate in Darmstadt was at Bockshaut, a restaurant that's been open since 1670. You walk through a heavy wooden door into a low-ceilinged room with dark wood tables and benches, and you're eating where locals have been eating for 350 years. The move is the Handkäse mit Musik (a sour milk cheese with raw onions and vinegar, named for the sounds your stomach makes after) with Schwarzbrot and a glass of Apfelwein, the regional hard apple cider that comes in a blue-grey ceramic jug called a Bembel. The schnitzel is also correct: veal, pounded thin, breaded, fried in clarified butter, served with potato salad dressed in vinegar the Hessian way. Nothing fancy. Nothing reimagined. Just the dish done the way it's been done since before anyone alive was born. Our crew from the Miss Germany production went together one night and the waiter didn't speak English and we didn't speak German and somehow we all ended up with the right food and too much Apfelwein. The universal language of pointing at what someone else ordered.

On a free evening we took the S-Bahn to Frankfurt and ended up in the Sachsenhausen district, south bank of the Main. An entire street of Apfelwein taverns. Wagner is the classic. We didn't leave for three hours.

Also in Darmstadt: Mathildenhöhe is an Art Nouveau artists' colony on a hill that became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2021. The buildings were designed between 1901 and 1914 and still look modern. The Wedding Tower at the top has panoramic views. And the Russian Orthodox Chapel next door, with its gold onion domes, was built for Tsar Nicholas II's wife, who grew up in Darmstadt. A Russian chapel in a Hessian city because a princess married a tsar.

Two weeks in a place most people will never visit. Ran a production, went to a theme park, watched a football match, ate 350-year-old cheese. Not bad for a work trip.