Linked to Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge: doors and drawers.
Tag: Germany
Bay windows
Bay window in a half-timbered house in Stratford-upon-Avon.
Also half-timbered but different style in Michelstadt im Odenwald in Germany.
Still Michelstadt but about a century younger.
A bay window in Edinburgh, Scotland, in the grey-yellow stone typical of the architecture there.
And in Heidelberg, Germany, it’s rather sandstone red.
The newest of the lot. A bay window in white wood near Roker Beach in Sunderland.
Linked to Monday Window.
Two-castle-city
My hometown Weinheim is known by the epithet Zwei-Burgen-Stadt. The appearance of the two castles in the distance, one ancient and one fairly modern, with the adjoining and quarry was always a sign to me that I would be home soon.
Wachenburg to the left and Windeck to the right seen from the banks of the channelled arms of the Weschnitz, a small river flowing into the River Rhine about 30km to the east.
The Windeck is around 1000-years-old. It was built as a fortress to safeguard the assets of the Imperial Abbey of Lorsch.
The Wachenburg is only around a 100-years-old and was built and is still owned by a student corps.
The expansion of the quarry was finally stopped when a citizens’ group went to court and forced the closure of the enterprise. The twist in the tale is that around 1900 the whole hill (consisting of a relatively valuable form of porphyry) was sold to a community about 10km to the south in exchange of agricultural fields and hence, our town was more interested in preserving the hill with the Wachenburg on it than the quarry company who had plans to erase the whole hill. But sanity prevailed and since the operations have shut down nature is reclaiming the quarry with several species of animals rediscovered that had disappeared from the area (a large species of owl amongst them).
We are so proud of our two castles that we even sell a cookie cutter in the shape of the silhouette.
For One Word Sunday: home. Have a look what other bloggers consider their home.
I’m a fan of … power cables
Apparently. Sometimes overhead power cables can make a shot, they become the focus. Sometimes it is possible to avoid power cables cutting through a picture by changing position, even if it means a minor to major detour. But sometimes these options do not exist or, more often than not, the picture will just change too much and not the one I saw before noticing the power lines. I do take the shots but the photograph will languish in the archive. So here are some photos with power cables where I wish there weren’t any:
Linked to I’m a fan of … #42. Have a look what are bloggers are fans of here.
I’m a fan of … autumn foilage
While the plain to the west was all foggy yesterday and the light never penetrated the clouds properly, there were crisp blue skies and sunshine galore in the hills to the east and I took my camera and went for a walk.
Linked to I’m a fan of … #41. Have a look what other people are fans of here.
Copper – sandstone ornament
Linked to Color Your World. For more photos with the shade copper, click here.
The family that could not meet
Debbie features pictures of the Berlin Wall in today’s Six Word Saturday so I thought I’ll post something personal today. My side of the family had no relatives in East Germany but my mother-in-law’s family had to flee from the area around Kaliningrad after the war. She was the second youngest of 14 siblings (the older brothers had all died in the war) and the remaining brothers and sisters were distributed in various parts of Germany. She, at only 16, and two of her sisters ended up in the Rhineland Palatium, close to the French border in the west, some were settled further north and three lived in the East, in Brandenburg, close to Berlin.
In 2014 we received an invitation to one of the East German cousin’s 60th birthday and decided to go and meet this part of the family. Up to this point, I don’t think my husband had missed anything. Just a few distant relatives one barely thought or spoke about. He had met one or two for a few hours at a couple of funerals, that was all. So we crossed the border that had ceased being a physical border 25 years ago and we met his cousins and their spouses and children and grandchildren. He realised that he had things in common with these cousins he never knew. A lot of what-ifs were raised during this holiday.
In the photo my husband is shown around the small holding by his cousin who still weekend farms this piece of land.
For Six Word Saturday.
My neighbourhood
Nancy from A Photo a Week has asked us to take a look at our neighbourhoods. This is mine:
look up the street
look down the street
the neighbours to the right
complete with an old stone wall.
More views of bloggers’ neighbourhoods can be found here.
Clinker
This building is what is left over of a mill built in the late 19th century. It was built in contrasting brickface and looked and still looks striking – now with trees growing from the walls.
The bricks of the chimneys, although rectangular in shape, were laid round.
The window panes are long gone after several generations of youngsters have used them for target practice but the contrasting brickworks still peek through the trees.
Close by are other houses in clinker brick.
The chimneys are square though in the newer buildings
as are the cellar windows.
Linked to Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge: bricks and stones.
Not getting lost in a crowd
“Not all those who wander are lost.”
JRR Tolkien
More photos inspired by the LotR quote can be found linked to Travel with Intent.
Many wine growing regions in Germany (and I guess elsewhere as well) organise a “Weinwanderung” – a walk of several hours through the vinyards with many stops along the way offering wine tastings and food stalls. These events have been growing in popularity and there are usually thousands of people on the way.
Most of these “wine walks” are during summer before the grapes are ripe or after the harvest in autumn but some are also organised in winter.
Cold weather doesn’t seem to deter anyone.
And nobody is forced to do the whole length – there are buses who collect those who’ve had enough of walking or of wine. So nobody gets lost.
pictures imperfect blog 