Hosted by the Mayor of Ediger-Eller

On a crisp, sunny afternoon, the white-haired Mayor in ceremonial robe stood erectly outside his beloved city waiting to greet Uniworld's three tour buses.  Alongside him, a boy of about ten, in the garb of a medieval sentry, stood at attention, a serious look of duty on his face.  The Mayor introduced his grand-nephew, saying he was there to get a little work experience.

For anyone who has lost faith in government leaders to do anything but pander to voters, attend fund-raisers and gin-up anger on wedge issues they never intend to solve, the Mayor of Ediger-Eller is a breath of fresh air.  His love for his village and his constituency comes across in everything he says and does. 

Ediger-Eller is a lovely town (or actually, two villages that have become united over time like Buda and Pest) which recently won awards for being one of the best village renewals and overall finest villages in Germany. 

Those awards, however, could easily have gone to other cities if not for the warm, welcoming Mayor himself.  He led us through the cobblestone streets to St. Martinskirche (St. Martin's Church), where we were treated to a classical concert performed on the impressive pipe organ. 

The keyboardist was another relative of the Mayor, either his brother or cousin, though right now I don't recall which of those.  After the concert, we had time to explore the small church, including the balcony where the large organ rests. 

Then, the Mayor guided us on a stroll to a banquet room filled with long tables.  On the tables by the wine glasses were bowls of grapes and cheese.

Next to the food were what appeared to be bubblegum trading cards, but instead of the Dodgers' Yasiel Puig or Russell Wilson of the Seahawks, the front picture was the Mayor.  On the back, instead of stats, was the information typically found on a business card. 

Another keyboardist, this one the Mayor's uncle, played regional music as we entered and found our seats, and then the Mayor himself began singing in a loud voice to his accompaniment.  They performed several songs, and then one of our shipmates, whom we later learned had been on a Canadian knockoff of "Sing Along With Mitch" in the '60s, sang a traditional drinking tune.

The Mayor introduced a black-and-white movie about wine harvesting, and throughout the screening interrupted to say things like, "That's my neighbor when I was a boy, though of course he's much older now." 



The movie presented the back-breaking job of manually tending vineyards and harvesting grapes on the steep hillsides which to this day make most motorized agricultural methods impossible.

As we continued to sample wines of the region, a young woman (no relation) who moved to Ediger-Eller and bought a vineyard a few years back spoke about the difficulties of contending with not only the challenging terrain but also nature's uncertainties and changing labor conditions.

While we experienced little rain on our trip, at the beginning of October, a torrential downfall had forced early harvest of the grapes.

The wineries had to scramble to harvest the grapes ahead of schedule.

Bringing in the crop requires humans with large baskets strapped on their backs to pick the grapes before they burst, and then pruning the vines to prepare them to produce their bounty next year.

The well-educated Germans have little interest in performing these tasks themselves, so they import cheap seasonal labor from former Soviet bloc nations, not unlike the migrant farmer program in California.

Asked if she practiced organic farming, our speaker said that was simply not practical, because she could not afford the crop waste.  One area where the farming techniques have improved since the 1950s-era movie is in spraying pesticides.  The farmers all band together to hire helicopters to spray the vineyards, saving hours upon hours of precariously traversing steep hillsides with pump sprayers strapped to their backs.

Throughout the tour, smiles seemed to be the order of the day, as the Mayor's enthusiasm for his community glowed too brightly to ignore.  He led us back to our bus, the conclusion to what many found to be the best excursion on a wonderful cruise.