By the time this column is out, we would have been back home for a week from our annual European sojourn, but as of this writing, the jet lag has not worn off. Maybe it was a hectic short holiday, covering four countries in two short weeks, or maybe, just maybe, age is really creeping in.
Like last year, our European land trip was made possible and so much more pleasant and worry-free by BMW who graciously made us use two vehicles for our two-week land trip, from Munich to St. Moritz and Lugano in Switzerland, then to Milan, back to Switzerland (Lucerne), then to the border of France (Strasbourg), on to Heidelberg and Frankfurt, Germany.
Air travel couldn’t have been more luxurious and comfortable if it were anything else but via Etihad Airways. Their new aircrafts are incredible. More on Etihad’s famed Chef-in-the-Sky cuisine and their friendly, solicitous staff in a separate column.
Though we didn’t get to Heidelberg, Germany’s oldest university town till the 10th day, I’m citing it ahead of the other destinations simply because they have elected to enshrine our own national hero, Dr. Jose Rizal, in his own park there, solely dedicated to his memory. It was the first order of the day for us, and as we loaded our two BMWs to locate the small park, we beamed with anticipation and national pride. My brothers Eddie (US-based) and Rey (Star columnist), together with their wives Raquel and Evelyn and Rey’s son RG joined my wife Baby and me in this trip, so the two BMW X3s were perfect and gave us ample, comfortable space. The efficient GPS pointed us to the site in no time.
First, we located Dr. Jose Rizal Street and an address in Wilhelmsfeld (about 15 kilometers from Heidelberg) where he stayed to complete his eye specialization in 1886 when he was 25 years old after his medical training in Paris. Pastor Karl Ullmer, a Lutheran minister who took a special liking to Rizal invited him to stay with his family as a house guest for three months and tutored him in the German language. It was here in the house of Pastor Ullmer that Rizal wrote the last chapters of his novel Noli Me Tangere, and this fact is immortalized in a black marble plaque installed outside Dr. Ullmer’s stone house.
I understand he had to walk 12 kilometers for three hours every day to go to the University of Heidelberg from Wilhelmsfeld, but enjoyed the long hikes and the town’s beautiful flowers. Germany at this time of the year, just at the beginning of autumn, is still in full bloom and every house boasts of colorful hedges and flower boxes on their window sills. We even found two or three apple trees thick with fruits aching to be picked, but the residents in the area didn’t bother with them. You could actually walk on the apples rotting on the grass.
Then we were off to the Rizal Park, a small square canopied by big ancient trees where a statue of Dr. Jose Rizal stands over a shallow mini fountain. It was a rather large statue that shows a young pensive Jose Rizal holding a quill in his right hand, and we were actually thrilled to have our photos taken with him. This statue was created by another Filipino sculptor, Anastacio Caedo, and it was only in 1978 that it was unveiled. Today, this site has become a must-see for Filipinos visiting Heidelberg, most especially for Rizalistas whose numbers are increasing across the globe.
All along the square, inscriptions can be found on Rizal’s short but meaningful stay in Heidelberg, the German friends he developed, and Pastor Ullmer was one of them. Rizal actually stayed in Heidelberg for six months only, but his German friends were struck by the brilliant young man so schooled in letters and science and so dedicated to uplifting the Filipino people. His other German friends who became pillars of support for the young student Rizal in Germany and who also became his stalwart friends and patrons were Dr. Otto Becker and Professor Wilhelms Kuehne, two brilliant ophthalmologists who trained Rizal in his chosen medical field. There is another one of Ferdinand Blumentritt, an Austrian scholar and schoolteacher who, Rizal learned, published scholarly writings on Philippine languages and whom Rizal initiated a regular correspondence with. Plaques surrounding the modest Rizal Park detail and affirm these, and busts of these friends, all of them esteemed and prominent people, are also proudly displayed.
Later on, we learned that the descendants of Pastor Ullmer, two grandsons, proudly cites Rizal as one of only two acknowledged prominent guests of the family, the other being Empress Elizabeth of Austria, but it was our own Dr. Jose Rizal’s memory which lingered the longest in their ancestral home.
We stayed a full hour, perhaps even more in this park, read all the inscriptions on the large black marble plaques celebrating Rizal’s friendship with his German mentors and patrons. On one of the inscriptions, it quoted part of his letter to Karl Ullmer on the eve of his martyrdom, one of the last letters he wrote before his death. We sat around the solitary concrete bench in the park and also silently celebrated the short life of our brilliant national hero.
Our patriotic sense now fully served, it was time to explore the other beautiful sites of Heidelberg and drive around this beautiful city in southern Germany in style, on board our luxurious BMW X3. But that is for another column.
Mabuhay!!! Be proud to be a Filipino.
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