Tag: GrünGürtel-Tier

The Odd Armadillo

· 4 Comments ·

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

The creature of the green belt

· 6 Comments ·

Grüngürteltier

A few years ago I came across this sign in Frankfurt. I found it intriguing and yes, odd.  I had no idea what that animal, if it actually is one, was supposed to be.  I’ve since seen a few more signs with the same creature in different poses, unfortunately I don’t always carry my camera.

Yesterday – finally! – I found out the story behind it.  The creature was sitting happily on a pedestrian bridge crossing the river Nidda.

Grüngürteltier

And a sign beneath it proclaimed it to be the GrünGürtel-Tier.

GrünGürteltier

This is a play on words which needs to be explained: Gürteltier is a actually an armadillo but literally a belt anmial, Grüngürtel is the greenbelt surrounding a city for urban recreation, hence this is the GreenBelt Animal.  Rather whimsical, I think.

Grüngürteltier

Here is some more information if you are interested but only in German: https://www.frankfurt.de/sixcms/detail.php?id=4132 .

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

COB-Banner