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Tag: #Fandango
Catch Me if You Can
Twenty years ago we were in Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer. Our boys really really really wanted to see a Corsa camarguenca, a provençal bull fight where the bulls are not killed (just teased and pestered, I suppose).
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The Origin of a Wild River
The Nahe is a tributary to the River Rhine. The origin of its name is Celtic, meaning wild river. Its geographical origin is in the Saarland, one of the federal states of Germany. It surfaces near Nohfelden at an altitude of 460, runs for approximately 112km before it joins the Rhine near Bingen at an altitude of 77 metres above sea level.
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In the Land of the Blind, the One-eyed Is King
Whenever I see a building of 1000 years or older. I imagine what impression such this must have had on a native of the time. Somebody who lived in a hovel, who had possibly never seen even an ordinary two-story house. And then he stood before such a monumental building which dominates its surroundings even today.
This is the basilica of St Nazarius, the church of Lorsch Abbey. I had similar thoughts when we visited Durham Cathedral. The buildings are simply overwhelming.
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Hard Work
This is one of the four statues on the Pont JF Kennedy in Strasbourg, one of the bridges to cross the Ill. The statues all depict workers who do hard manual labour – this is the pelleteur. His job was to clear the waterways from the silt so it would stay navigable for bigger boats. The profession died out in the 1920s.
The bridge was built in 1906 and was then called Schwarzwaldbrücke (pont de la Forêt-Noir / Black Forest Bridge). It has undergone a few name changes, some only because of the change of languages, from German to French and back). It became Pont John F Kennedy in 1965. The locals, however, favour the name Viermännerbruck (bridge of four men, in the local Alsation dialect).
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