The small  German city of Bonn, astride the banks of the River Rhine, is the former capital of West Germany, and birth place of Beethhoven. It is located in Germany’s industrial heartland, and in one of the most densely populated regions of Europe, it is therefore an unlikely place to enjoy nature, however, the hills, fields and gardens around the city  gave us a different sense of Germany’s industrial heartland, and if you look in the right places you will find both wild places and wild food.Light shines through the ash trees in the garden, where we camped. Despite being october, it was unusually warm, a lingering indian summer. Plums that we gathered to make a plum crumble.Chestnuts: we collected a large quantity of these little nuggets, competing with the wild boar for the good ones. We cooked them in a soup and roasted them on the fire. Delicious.While exploring an old monestary in the hills we came across a heron which seemed to be struggling with something, flapping around and choking, suddenly a fish, still alive, dropped from its beak and fell on the ground in front of us. We took it home carrying it by tying a piece of willow around its body. Once at home we cut it up to cook it, and found that its belly was filled with orange caviar. The indian summer bought out many insects including swarms of ladybirds, bumblebees, and rather alarmingly giant hornets. A colourful, peculiar and poisonous looking caterpillar.Beetles live and die on the mountain path. There was many of them. A well camouflaged moth. Jacek and Maja roasting an apple on the fire in the garden. Not just any apple: an apple, taken from a fallen tree harvesting its last fruits. A vist from the white horse living not far from the garden.

Back in the centre of the city Jacek’s plays his favourite sculpture, ‚Icarus‘ erected in 1993.

Icarus sculpture in Bonn from Daniela Gast on Vimeo.