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“Rediscovering your homeland” has been the travel industry's most popular slogan for over a year.
The pandemic as an opportunity: For decades, Germans have been looking for holiday happiness on the go in the open and in strangers, and now young people should finally recognize the beauty on their doorstep.
One hoped for a kind of teenage effect: after a trip around the world or a semester abroad, the adult child comes back to the old nest (mostly because the money has run out or the passport has expired) and finds out with astonishment that his parents are very casual people and the apples on the dirt road behind the family house actually taste better than the dragon fruit in Vietnam.
And now imagine the following situation: the parents walk up to their child who has returned, give him an apple and say: “Here, an apple.
Also called 'the dragon fruit of Brandenburg'. "
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In an effort to make the homeland as tasty as possible, the travel industry is currently doing just that. It makes well-intentioned but absurd and unnecessary comparisons.
Mostly to a place that is very far away and that you cannot travel to at the moment.
But this is not doing our homeland any favors, it is degrading it to a sad substitute.
Frankfurt, the New York of Germany.
The Uckermark, the wild Amazonia of Brandenburg.
The Lüneburg Heath, the Provence of the north.
Really?
There is more to a holiday in Provence than just color
Frankfurt is not the new New York just because it is the only city in Germany with a substantial number of high-rise buildings.
New York is not the city it is because of its skyscrapers.
It is a historical haven, a melting pot of cultures.
There is a manageable skyline in Frankfurt.
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Of course there are also many canals in the Spreewald, but a pickle trip with Captain Klaus does not replace the gondolier Gianluca in Venice.
And no, the Saarschleife is not Horseshoe Bend, the meander of the Colorado River in Arizona, just because the shape is a bit similar.
The Uckermark is also not the Amazon region, just because the vegetation here is somehow lush and you don't understand the locals straight away.
And the Lüneburg Heath is certainly not Provence, just because the flowers of the common heather shine as purple as lavender.
There are more things than color involved in a holiday in Provence.
It is the sound of the cicadas, the pearls of the rose, and it is the French women who feel as if they are eating two tons of baguette at the next table and still remain super thin.
Not Provence, but also very beautiful: the Lüneburg Heath blooms in August
Source: Getty Images / Westend61
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When I was out and about in the Lüneburg Heath in the summer, there was high-proof Heidegeist instead of champagne and the "Mäh" of the Heidschnucken instead of cicada arias.
Wonderful, but it has nothing to do with Provence.
The world in front of the door is beautiful even without comparison
Shortly after lockdown was imposed, these comparisons may have been funny.
How to imitate a starred restaurant in the dining room or to put a couple of suitcases on the treadmill in the basement that has not been used for years.
To feel like you are in an arrival hall.
Playing the world at your doorstep may be amusing for a while, but at some point it's just superfluous.
Mainly because the world in front of the door is beautiful even without comparison.
So why not call things by their names?
And enjoy them for what they are.
The incomparable Uckermark.
The unique Lüneburg Heath.
And at some point we'll fly back to New York.
The new desire for hiking - "Out here you are simply free"
Germans have not only loved hiking since Corona.
To be out of the city, in nature and far away from the hustle and bustle - that is the motivation for many.
Source: WELT, Stefan Wittmann