ICE CREAM, ITALIAN STYLE, IN GERMANY

All of this visiting my German ancestral villages has made my husband and I very hungry, especially since we skipped lunch on the ship in order to arrive at the car rental agency on time.  So, while visiting the German town of Wirges, we stopped for a snack at Dolce Vita.  It  is an Italian ice cream shop that has 5 locations in Germany -- Wirges, Montabaur, Hohr Grenzhausen and two in Altenkircher.

The menu had several pages.  It reminded me of the multi-page menu at Cheesecake Factory.  How many ways can you serve ice cream?  There was a two page spread of the menu that featured ice cream dishes in the shape of pasta.  Does this count as a meal?

After perusing the menu, I selected a mint sundae since I absolutely love mint, especially with chocolate.  My mint sundae not only was covered in a green mint sauce but also contained some mint chocolate cookies and mint chocolate candy straws.  There is no such thing as too much mint.  It was delicious!

VISITING THE TOWN OF WIRGES

After visiting Helferskirchen, we drove to the nearby town of Wirges, where the locals call themselves "Wirgesers".  The population of Wirges is about 5200 people so it is larger than Helferskirchen.

We drove to St. Boniface Catholic Church, which was built in 1885.  It is commonly known as Westwalder Dom. The church is located at Kirchstrasse 6 and belongs to the diocese of Limburg.

The church doors were unlocked so we happily went inside to take a peak.  We took photos of the beautiful stained glass windows and ornate figurines above the altars.  We also walked around the outside grounds where there is a grotto with a statue of the Blessed Mother, and some ancillary buildings including Bonifatius Haus (which looked like a church hall with meeting rooms) and a garden area.

There was no cemetery on the grounds nor one listed on our GPS for the town of Wirges.  According to FindAGrave.com,, over 200 people were buried in Katholische Friedhof Wirges.  According to Family Search.org, most of the older German graves have been replaced with newer deceased persons. This makes me wonder what they did with the older graves' remains.  Also, what happened to the former cemeteries that are no longer there?  I am thinking that the churches used to own a lot more property surrounding their current church building (which probably included a church cemetery) but through the years that land was sold off.  Perhaps this is one of those mysteries I may never solve.

NEXT STOP -- WIRGES, GERMANY

My 6th great grandfather Johann Adam Hommerich married Anna Manns (my 6th great grandmother) in the town of Wirges, Germany.  They both then lived the rest of their lives there.Their son Christian Hommerich (my 5th great grandfather) was born and died in Wirges.  Christian's spouse Anna Christina Hober was born in Staudt (a neighboring town) but lived in Wirges after she was married.

Anna and Christian's son Christian (my 4th great grandfather) was born in Moschheim (a neighboring town) but married a woman Anna Maria Bast from Wirges, where they both lived for the rest of their lives.  My 3rd great grandfather Johann Adam Homrich also lived his entire life in Wirges.  Johann's son Sebastian Homrich was born in Wirges but later immigrated to the U.S. and to Michigan in particular.

So, you can see that a lot of my direct ancestors were either born and/or lived in Wirges, so it was a "no brainer" to want to visit this town while I was visiting my other German ancestral towns.