The old part of Michelstadt im Odenwald has beautiful half-timbered houses and medieval remnants. The part called Storchenwinkel, or Stork’s End, houses the town’s museum, a winery and a few public offices. Half-timbered used to mean dark wood and white-washed walls, and in this part of the country sandstone elements. The teal coloured wooden elements are new additions. Quite stylish ones, I think.
Cee’s Midweek Madness Challenge: February Color Teal or Turquoise
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This is the tower of the Auerbach Castle near Bensheim, seen through the lattice works of bare winter trees.
It was originally built in the 8th century and fell into ruin once before but was rebuilt under the reign of Count Diether IV of the Katzenelnbogen in the 13th century. Katzenelnbogen literally means “cat’s ellbow”. Go figure.
I took my inspiration today from the ruined abbey as seen by Sue on her odd post.
This monument of Grand Duke Ludewig of Hesse and by Rhine stands in the central square of Darmstadt. The plinth, the column and the 5 metre tall Ludewig measure a total of just under 40 metres. The Darmstadt people love the tall structure and only call it “Langer Lui” (or “Tall Ludwig”).
Not odd as such but odd because I could’ve sworn the one word today would be “tall”. So I leave this post as an example of the oddity of my brain.
and some not so much.
One of the many very witty and occasionally sharp aphorisms of Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, a physicist and satirist who was one of the foremost European thinkers of the 18th century.
This wall stands in the middle of a little square, next to the Lichtenbergstraße in Darmstadt. I don’t know if it was purposely designed to invite others to add their thoughts or if sprayers just gravitate naturally to it. The slogans are mainly political (if crude) and their topicality suggest that the wall is at least occasionally scrubbed. I have no idea where the stag beetle comes in.
That was the first picture I saw of this … this … whatsit. What is it? A vomiting lizzard? Or did I read the fountain in the wrong direction and this was a drinking green pig with a large tail? What about the wings? A dragon whelp? I don’t know that I was thinking except that – “This is really odd!!”
As we went more often to Frankfurt we kept seeing more pictures of the creature.
And not just pictures, sculptures as well.
And after a while we started to understand. This was the Frankfurt Grüngürteltier or literally, the Green Belt Creature. The name is pun – green belt is literally Grüngürtel but a Gürteltier is the name of an armadillo in German. It is used as a signpost for the 68km long walking path encircling the city.
This is for another one of Cee’s guest challenges.
Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: Kammie’s Oddball Challenge
Aino’s colour suggestions this week were these:
and I immediately thought of the photos I had taken at the Mannheim Palace.
pictures imperfect blog 