This past October I had the pleasure along with my year-old daughter of visiting Solingen, Germany in order to take a tour of the Wusthof factory located there since Well, not in the exact same place, of course. It means that a whole lot of master knifesmiths have been banging their hammers forging knives over the past 2, years in Solingen and vicinity.
And although things have died down a bit, you still have the two biggest names in German knifemaking—Wusthof and Henckels—located in the very same town along with a throng of smaller firms. Although it would have been fun to compare and contrast, we only had time to tour one knife manufacturer—Wusthof.
Our German home base was Frankfurt, kilometers miles southeast of Solingen. So it behooved us to take advantage of the speed and convenience of the German rail system—one of the finest in the world—to get there and back fast. I came fully equipped with a German rail pass which gave me five days of going anywhere in Deutchland my heart desired plus, hypothetically, some cities in neighboring lands in the period of 30 days.
And my year-old daughter could travel free! Off we went. Believe it or not, the train trip itself ended up being just about as exciting as the factory tour, so please forgive me if I indulge in some more travelogue. The Germain train system often offers several levels of trains you can take for any given trip. The ride was quiet and smooth, the seats comfy with plenty of leg room, and it felt like we were halfway into the future.
On the way there, we zoomed through a snow storm remember, this was mid October. Quite dramatic. Makes you wonder what winters are like. Snow, gone. Nice, big windows. Not knowing the language—other than watching old WW2 movies as a kid, ha-ha—it was trickier than I thought taking a train trip in a foreign land—especially one with a quick connection we missed it. This does not exclude the fact the Germans we met were helpful and could speak a little, to a lot of, English. Alexander, our Wusthof host, met us at the train in a white Audi station wagon all those German cars, lucky ducks.
