



For Cee’s Odd Ball Challenge. For more oddballs click here.


For One Word Sunday: angle.
It was an odd angle to take the picture. The building has many angular features. And the whole building has a strange angle to it: it is the only accredited Lithuanian secondary school in Western Europe. Subjects are taught in German and Lithuanian. The building was formerly Castle Rennhof (in Hüttenfeld near Mannheim, Germany) until the school moved there in 1954.
More photos with angles can be found here.









For Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: Books and Paper. More photos of these can be found here.





For Cee’s Which Way Photo Challenge. More roads, streets, avenues, paths, lanes, alleys can be found here.


Living in Germany it would have been indeed easy to find a building that is not only 100 years old but several hundreds. Close to my hometown, they found the foundations of a Roman estate dating back to the second century AD. But I decided to show the Wachenburg, one of the two castles overlooking Weinheim an der Bergstraße, in Germany. It looks like a Romanesque castle (the roof received new tiles a few years ago) but it is little over 100 years old. The main buildings were constructed between 1907 and 1913 by a Corps of former students (more information on these student fraternities can be found here) to serve as a memorial for members who had died during the Franco-Prussian war of 1870/71 and a location for their yearly meetings. Family lore has it that my grandfather worked on the roof gutters as a young tinsmith.
For the A Photo a Week Challenge: over 100 years old. For more old photos click here.

Who??! — Better known as Carl Benz, the inventor of the first viable automobile. This portrait of his is in Ladenburg, close to Mannheim, Germany, where he made his invention and located to – privately as well as his factory – in 1904.
This is for One Word Sunday. More who? photos can be found here.





This is for Thursday Special: Pick a Word. More marginal, iconic, zoomorphic, cleaved, and propagation photos can be found here.

I took a considerable detour to photograph this 500-year-old tower only to be confronted with this:

It wasn’t the first time I had similar luck.



For Cee’s Odd Ball Challenge. More oddballs can be found here.


When we came across this fellow, sitting quietly next to the river Ilmenau in Lüneburg, an American who happened to be standing next to me, felt the need to inform me – quite patronizingly – that this was a famous American writer and he wasn’t quite sure whether I might have heard of him. I informed him – equally condescendingly – that I had read most everything that Mr Samuel Longhorne Clemens had written (which is not a lie, his collected works in English and German are amongst my most cherished books). I added “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness.” He recognised the quote and we proceeded to have an interesting conversation about Mark Twain.
For One Word Sunday: celebrity.
For more celebrity shots click here.

In the town where I live there is a garden. At 2.2 hectares in the middle of town, it is a small but wonderfully prolific botanical garden. The different sections and the paths are cleverly designed to give the impression of a much bigger place.

When I was little this was my way to school. I don’t remember that many cars parked there, if any, but the hedge on the right looked exactly like it does today. It was old then, so it is at least 80 years old, possibly close to 200 years old now. What lay beyond – this wonderful gem of a garden – was closed to the public.



Since 1983, after the private enclosure was turned into a foundation, the garden became open to the public. There is no entrance fee and the sights are wonderful at any time of the year.

For Cee’s Which Way Photo Challenge.
For more photos of paths, streets, roads, alleys click here.
For more information on the Hermannshof garden, click here.
