There is a small parish in southwest Lower Saxony, Germany called “Schaumburg” in the middle of the Weserhighlands. 12 cities are located in 675 square km. area. The largest town with about 30.000 habitants is Rinteln, a former citadel and college town situated in the heart of the picturesque Weserhighlands.
From very early on Rinteln, has attracteda lot of of visitors because of its lovingly restored city with numerous half-timbered and Weserrenaissance buildings, was well known and an important trading base.
Unbelievably this small parish has more than 600 petanque teams that plays in several tournaments.
One of the Schaumburg boulodromes is located in a small village Hohenrode approx. 700 people, near Rinteln directly situated at the shores of river Weser.
The Pétanque Club “les boules libres”, founded in the early 1990’s, has over the years collected curiosities, ancients bowls, pins etc. around the world and decided to found a Boulemuseum, a first in Germany.
The president of the club, Mr. Uwe K. Stade (63) has donated parts of his own house so that the treasure can be presented with style.
Opening was in January 2006 and simultaneously an own homepage was created by Mr. U.K. Stade. Local press and radio stations covered this event.
Stade first played Pétanque in 1971 when professionally situated in the south of Paris, France. He is active in several Bouleclubs around but especially works with youth projects. He has played in France, Scotland, Balearics (Spain) and 1977/78 in New Orleans, Louisiana. Presently Stade plays in the Lower Saxony Liga of Pétanque with one team of the club “bouletownrats” Hamelin.
The Boulemuseum has a showcase of different bowls: Boule des Berges, Boule Lyonnaise, Jeu Provencal, and Bocce. You can see Boxes, etuis, key pendants, telephone cards, miniboules, etc. on display here.
The main focus is to document the different kinds of nailing in the wooden bowls used in in ancient time to avoid wearing the boules out. There are rounded nails, fish shed, square nails etc from different bowl games, and nearly every game from all over Europe. Lawn balls are ordered in Scotland.
Another section of the display shows different casts of bronze, iron and aluminum, as well as modern High-Tech bowls from France.
The oldest set of bowls and the main attraction of the museum are the bowls nailed with rounded nails from Paris area, called Boule des Berges, alias Boule Parisienne from about 1875. (See photo)
Another attraction is the leather boxes made from the leather of soldiers’ boots from first word-war.
Please visit the Boulemuseum when staying in this area, 20 km from old town Hamelin the town of the Pied Piper legend, 40 km from Hanover airport, 20 km from Minden, the town of the canal-bridge over the Weser.
Mr. Uwe Kurt Stade will heartily welcome you, please advice visits by phone to him:
0049 (Germany) (0)176 500 85 916.
Many years ago there was no way of getting your pictures online unless you knew someone with a homepage. Or you mailed them to petanque.org, and we'd put it on the web for you. But nowadays nobody does this thing anymore, there are thousands of ways to get your images online, and our pictures-section is about as dry as the sahara. So we have had to make some changes
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