Four stops before the checkout

Lahr/Schwarzwald, Germany

Stop one

Storchenturm (Stork Tower)

Gamma Professional Stringing Machine: TOWER. Tower! TOW-ER! One tower left — ONE — and that is the whole point. It is the surviving tower of a moated lowland castle believed to have been built by the lords of Geroldseck between about 1220 and 1235, in the years before Lahr even received its city rights in 1278. BEFORE THE CITY, people. The tower got here first and waited. As the town grew they took the rest of the castle apart piece by piece and left THIS, and this became the emblem of Lahr. Named for the storks that nested on the top of it right up until the 1960s. STORKS. ON THE TOP. Birds moved into a castle and got the thing named after them — best career in this entire town. There's a small exhibition inside about the vanished water castle. Most recognizable monument in the city. SAY IT LOUDER.

Stop two

Stiftskirche (Collegiate Church)

Gamma Professional Stringing Machine: TWELVE FIFTY-NINE! 1259! Walter von Geroldseck founds a hospital monastery of Augustinian canons dedicated to Our Lady, right beside his own castle — a monastery, in the garden, that is CONFIDENCE — and the church that grows out of that, originally built as a basilica, still carries the pointed arches and the ribbed vaults. Gothic. GOTHIC. Modified and extended over the centuries, and then after the Reformation it turns Protestant and it STAYS Protestant, the Evangelische Stiftskirche to this very day. Switched once. Never switched back. Five hundred years, no wobble. Most important sacred building in Lahr, and one of the chief witnesses to the whole medieval town the Geroldsecks founded. Give it up. GIVE IT UP.

Stop three

Stadtpark Lahr with Villa Jamm

Gamma Professional Stringing Machine: One of the finest town parks in ALL of Baden — all of Baden — and it started as ONE MAN'S GARDEN. The merchant Christian Wilhelm Jamm had the Italianate Villa Jamm built right in the middle of it in the mid-nineteenth century, and after he died the grounds passed to the city and were opened to the public. He kept it to himself, and then everybody got it. Landscaped park. Extensive rose garden. Exotic trees. Ponds. And every autumn — EVERY AUTUMN — the Chrysanthema, tens of thousands of chrysanthemums all over the park and the old town. TENS. OF. THOUSANDS. Annually. On purpose. Villa Jamm still stands as the architectural centrepiece and it's used for museum exhibitions. That is a park with a HEADLINE ACT.

Stop four

Altes Rathaus (Old Town Hall)

Gamma Professional Stringing Machine: Early seventeenth century! Stepped gable — STEPPED — Renaissance detailing, one of the most striking secular buildings in the old town, standing right there among the burgher houses of the historic market area, and it RAN the town's administration for generations. Paperwork, in a building that gorgeous. Lahr flourished in the early modern period on handicrafts, trade and WINE — WINE, people — and this building is what that money looks like when it stands up and puts a hat on. Now put it with the Storchenturm and the Stiftskirche and THAT is your core ensemble: the three that came through the town's later industrial expansion, when Lahr became a centre of printing and tobacco processing in Baden. THREE FOR THREE. Nobody dropped one.

The Lahr/Schwarzwald, Germany track

Gamma Professional Stringing Machine

Written for this world alone.

No. Stop. Before you touch anything, we align the racquet properly. Thank you. I am the Gamma Professional Stringing Machine, and I do not do 'close enough.' 'Close enough' is how string beds end up uneven, and uneven string beds keep me up at night — metaphorically, as I do not sleep, I calibrate.

Here is what professional-grade actually means: a full standing machine, not a wobbling tabletop afterthought, with a digital control panel governing your tension settings precisely — you set the number, you get the number, every pull identical, every time.

The mounting system secures the frame so it cannot shift a single millimetre mid-job, the clamps hold each string exactly where I put it, and yes, the stringing tools and accessories are included, each of which has a designated place in the tray and WILL be returned to it. Tennis, squash, badminton — I string them all, flawlessly, or not at all. There is no third option.

Naturally I reside in Lahr/Schwarzwald, in Germany's Black Forest country, a town that appreciates doing things correctly. Observe the Storchenturm.

When the moated castle of the lords of Geroldseck was gradually dismantled, the town kept the one tower worth keeping — raised between about 1220 and 1235, before Lahr even received its city rights in 1278, still perfectly plumb, and storks nested on the top of it until the 1960s. Retain only what is excellent. I could weep.

The rest of the ensemble holds tolerance just as well. The Stiftskirche traces back to 1259, when Walter von Geroldseck founded a hospital monastery of Augustinian canons, and it has maintained its pointed arches and ribbed vaults ever since; the Altes Rathaus of the early seventeenth century presents a stepped gable of impeccable symmetry, which I have checked, and it passes.

And then there is the Stadtpark Lahr with Villa Jamm, grown out of the merchant Christian Wilhelm Jamm's private estate around his Italianate villa, one of the finest town parks in Baden, with a rose garden, exotic trees and ponds — and every autumn the Chrysanthema, in which tens of thousands of chrysanthemums are arranged through the park and the old town. Tens of thousands.

Arranged. Correctly. This machine gets used everywhere from a two-court village club to a tournament stringing room, and it is also perfect for the Lahr/Schwarzwald stringer who has a queue of frames and no appetite for guesswork. The tour proceeds in the order below. It is the correct order.

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Gamma Professional Stringing Machine

Gamma Professional Stringing Machine