| Tucked
away a thousand metres above sea-level behind the woods and
mountains of the national park, close to the Bohemian border,
the past has found a last refuge: the Finsterau Open-Air Museum.
Farmhouses from all over the Bavarian Forest, some with all
of their outbuildings, have been brought together here, along
with a village smithy and a highway inn. The visitor can tread
a bygone reality, which is spread out before him under the
open sky.
This
is neither a paradise, nor an idyll! Everyday life for the
farmers and day-labourers of the Bavarian Forest was arduous.
Leisure, fun and beauty were rare and short-lived. These
people looked on a blossoming rosebush, a colourfully-woven
cloth or a painted wardrobe with quite different eyes. To
help us see things once more with their eyes, the Finsterau
Open-Air Museum has set everything in its original surroundings:
be it big or small, new or mended, rough-hewn or finely-worked.
And everything has been allowed to keep its own "likeness",
created by the passage of time: the door-handle rubbed smooth
by use, the threshold worn down by many feet, the greasy
plough handle, the patches on the woodcutter's jacket.
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