Not Even Social Distancing And Closed Borders Can Keep Germans From Their Daily Baguettes
France is known for its bread. Germany is not. So it would make sense that Germans who live near the German-French border would cross it regularly for their daily baguettes. Since COVID-19 reached Europe, the border has been closed. But where there's a will, there is bread.
Lonely Planet ran a story earlier this week about how the residents of the German town of Lauterbach have worked out a baguette delivery arrangement with their neighbors in the French town of Carling. "We've been buying our baguettes and bread here in France for decades," explained one customer, Hartmut Fey. "It has to do with tradition."
Customers call baker Myriam Jansem-Boualit, and at a prearranged time, she brings their bread and pastries to the border and passes it over the barrier. Fey has become a social media star by using a fishing pole to hook his baguettes directly from Jansem-Boualit's tote bag.
Meanwhile, elsewhere in Germany, by the Danish border, two octogenarians, Karsten Tüchsen Hansen, a German, and the Inga Rasmussen, a Dane, meet daily at the border crossing for a lunch of sandwiches and Schnapps. Initially they had to stay on opposite sides, but Denmark relaxed the rules so they could be together on the same side.