Burg Reifenstein - by Nigel A JAMES
Evelyn Dawid
Traveller's Return
Travelling is full of surprises! Some big and some small. And, the box which Evelyn Dawid discovered at the castle of Taso in South Tirol was very, very interesting. It was big and down in the cellar!
And, it was there for the servants. It was their bed for the night and it must have been awful.
At the end of each day, with all 30 servants inside, the box was closed and wasn't opened till morning. But, how did the servants sleep? What was it like in the box? What about the air that they breathed and the smells and the unpleasant sounds? And, the getting up the night? Unanswerable questions! But, one thing is clear, upstairs it was life as was normal!
The duke and his family enjoyed nothing but the best of the best of normal aristocratic everyday luxury life. Beds and no boxes for them!
But, why the box for the servants? Was it to stop them from escaping? Or, could it have been that the duke was afraid of being murdered in his sleep? Or, was he simply a very nice generous man. After all, what better than a cosy warm box on a cold winter's night in an unheated cellar?
Of course, we will never find out! But, one thing is clear. The more we see, the more we discover! And, I wonder what Evelyn Dawid will be bringing back from her next journey. Something of interest, I'm sure!
P.S. South Tirol has a history! It used to be part of Austria, but is now part of Italy. Castel Taso is the Italian name for Burg Reifenstein.
Vocabulary
aristocratic – adliger
awful – furchtbar
cosy – behaglich
generous – großzügig
unheated – nicht geheizt
