Rhön Local Customs

Scheduled for July 4- 6, 2003
Race Day is July 6, 2003
Not exactly the Formula 1 Race in the Rhoen, but interesting and a lot of fun - the Annual Bed Pushing Race in Friedrichsroda. This is folks festival that lets groups set up their own teams (pre-registered) to push a bed through a water pit. The team has to furnish their own "vehicle" & costumes.
In addition to viewing this spectacle, you can sit in the sun and enjoy a good Thuringian beer and one of those famous long Thuringian Bratwurst sausages and laugh at the guys "steering" a bed through a water pit.

Official Rules
1. A team shall consist of 6 persons (pushers) of the same sex a passenger (steerer) of any sex.
2. Each team has to decorate their bed according to the motto of the year. (This year it's "Welt der Wunder" - a scientic magazine TV show in Germany - like the Discovery Channel). Teams, that don't have their own bed have to produce their own poster pertaining to the theme, so they can participate in the parade. The parade will be held at 3:00 p.m. on July 5, 2003.
3. The amount of time between the start and finish lines will be measured as being the amount of time from the time the first team member crosses the starting line until the last team member crosses the finishing line. All team members have stay with the bed during the whole run. No team members can be exchanged during the race. There will only be one heat.
4. The bed is not allowed to have any sort of power drive unit, and must conform to the given dimensions. The bed must weigh at least 100 kg including the passenger.
5. A club is allowed to enter several teams.
6. Training runs can only be made at the specified times (not earlier than 7:30 p.m. on July 4th).
7. Team entries cost 50 € and have to be made by June 21, 2003 at the latest. Money has to be transferred to the Kreissparkasse Gotha BLZ 820 520 20, Account No. 400 000 458

Address:
Gaststätte Forstklause
Hauptstr. 40
D-99894 Friedrichroda

Many people think that Germans all wear or used to wear Lederhose and Drindl. This is only true in a VERY small part of the country, namely Upper Bavaria (Oberbayern). Here you can see that the traditional costumes from the Rhön area are completely different. This picture is one of what the people in Blankenstein used to where until the end of the 19th century. Typically the Hessian costumes have alot of black in them. The woman in this picture is wearing a bonnet. Traditionally only married women wore bonnets. In fact, a popular expression for getting married in Hesse is still, 'coming under the bonnet', even today. In Hesse, and many parts of Thurgia and Franconia the women wore black velvet vests that were hand-embroidered, a black skirt that was sometimes embroidered on the seams, and a black bonnet with sashes hanging at the back of them. In some old photos, you can also see that the women wore short black velvet jackets too. The amount of embroidery and metallic buttons was once a sign of how wealthy the farmering family was.

The men almost always had black knee pants, and a vest with a white shirt. The color of the vest depended on which village he came from. The men (married or not) wore either broad-brimmed hats or tricorn hats.