There Is a Ketsch

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Many years past the Rhine meandered through the Upper Rhine Valley until it was straightened out between 1817 und 1876 and in the wake of this engineering feat loops were cut off and recreational areas created. Near the town of Ketsch, south of Mannheim, an island was created to the right side of the river Rhine. It is mainly covered by woods with lots of birds and butterflies. It has been granted protected status.

From Ketsch a wooden bridge allows access to the island, restricted for hikers and bicycles except for forestry vehicles. In this first photo you can see that next to the island is the built-up town with roads and buildings.

If you traverse the island – about 2km at its widest – you come to the bank of the Rhine proper.

Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: Landscapes or Waterscapes

I’m a Fan of Street Name Signs with History Attached

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Some towns explain the choice of street names on the signs.

  • Theodor Fontane was a German realist author, famous for his novels and poems.
  • Hugo Junkers was an engineer and inventor, most famous for aircrafts.
  • Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben was a Prussian officer who became a pivotal figure in the American war of independence.
  • Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau is a German expressionist film director of the silent era. His best known work is “Nosferatu”, an adaption of Bram Stoker’s “Dracula”.
  • The Romans left their mark in our part of Germany – in our town some of the fields carried names dating back to them which are now town districts.
  • Marcus Aurelius was a Roman emperor, also known as a Stoic philosopher.

I’ve shown the signs for this square in Frankfurt before. It has changed names often in its history and the signs document this:

  • It was known as the “Jewish Market” from the 16th century onwards, it was the centre of Jewish life between the ghetto and the Jewish cemetery.
  • In 1835 it was officially named “Börneplatz” after Carl Ludwig Börne, a journalist and satirist born in the Jewish ghetto of Frankfurt.
  • 100 years later the Nazis found it unsuitable to have a square named after a Jewish writer and the square became the “Dominikanerplatz”, after the Domenican Order.
  • Only in 1978 the city remembered the inglorious change of name and the square was once again the “Börneplatz”.
  • The square was at the time an open, derelict place and town planning wanted to build administrative offices on the site. However, excavations discovered Jewish relics and for years there were discussions about what to do with space.
  • In 1996 it was renamed as “The new Börneplatz” and became a memorial to Jewish life in Frankfurt.

I’m a Fan of … #161