Leavenworth

It was a perfectly warm spring weekend and the itch to get out was irresistible. After a hurried brunch of sandwiches at a nearby Italian cafe, we headed towards the mountains. I don't know if it is just me or the lingering restlessness, but there is something very inspiring and equally heartbreaking to see the snow melt and leave the mountain tops bald and barren. Sure, it is a sign of change and a symbol of continuity - the two paradoxes on which the world spins - but while continuity is assuring, change is most often intimidating. Well, at the first sight at least. Today, we wanted to embrace this contradicting mood of mother nature. And what better place to do this than the charming Bavarian village of Leavenworth, tucked among the alpine woods of eastern Washington.

Where the snow clad mountains rest. Where it is Christmas year long in an itsy-bitsy corner. Where giant pretzels grow on trees. Where old Dickensian curiosity shops line the main street. Where the towering, timber-framed beauty of Bavarian architecture takes your breath away. Where quaint mural walls pave the way to a little pharmacy on the top. Where an old willow showers its spring smiles while waiting for yet another garb of greens.

  

But in my heart I wished it was late spring or summer and there were hanging baskets of petunias and bushels of geraniums everywhere. When it looked something like this...

Vintage signs

"O, for a draught of vintage!" had sighed Keats once, the poet who would melt my heart like a toasty marshmallow when I was eighteen. Eleven years later, nothing much has changed. I might not yearn for a Provencal swig like him, but anything and everything vintage does quench my thirst. When most of the world digs for Indian antiques and colonial treasures, I pine for anything that is even remotely European. Let's just say I was born in the wrong century and obviously in the wrong continent!

It's hardly a surprise then that the cozy little Bavarian village of Leavenworth is one of our most frequented jaunts. Just a couple hours drive from home, be it the towering Cascades in the backdrop or the never-ending rows of antique shops, the place is a sheer delight. It is a world in its own, where timelessness and the bustle of tourists create a colourful palette together.
However what strikes me the most are the cutesy, dangling shop signs, each unique in its own and with oodles of vintage character. Even good old Subway couldn't escape a hint of the old world in this charming village.