You have to pass a lot of trees but the castle and the view is worth it.
Linked to the the Ragtag Daily Prompt: Woodsy.
Tag: Weinheim an der Bergstraße
Serenity
I think I have to explain my train of thought here.
Serenity – I immediately thought of the Serenity, the spaceship of Mal Reynolds in the cult series Firefly (yes, sometimes I’m a nerd). Mal Reynolds is played by Nathan Fillion who has come to non-nerd fame with the tv series Castle. My hometown is known as the two-castle town (“Zweiburgenstadt”) and in my photo you can see why. I hope the shot conveys the serenity I felt, on a late summer’s evening, just before sundown, with everything quiet and peaceful around me. And so I’ve come full circle.
Linked to the Ragtag Daily Prompt: Serenity.
What might have been
This weekend would have been our yearly town festival. The old part of the town would be clad in blue and white bunting and the town’s white and blue.
Cancelled to COVID, of course. The photos are an assembly from years past.
Linked to Friday Fun: Flag.
The Red Tower
I was out on my bike tonight at around sunset and caught the Red Tower with the wide Rhine valley behind it just at the right moment. It is one of three still remaining towers which were part of the town wall of Weinheim.
Linked to A Photo a Week: Tower.
I’m a fan of sequoias
These natives of the US west coast were planted about 150 years ago in Weinheim. The single specimen in the trial garden Hermannshof and in the forest arboretum Exotenwald there are about 50 of these giants left of about 150.
Linked to I’m a fan of … #60. More fanatical photos can be found here.
Old, but not ancient
It’s difficult to see the building that is only about 100 years old in this photo. The ruin of castle Windeck in the middle is approximately 1000 years old, the tower on the far left, part of the old town wall, is several 100 years old. But the castle, called Wachenburg, right on top of the Wachenberg is pretty exactly 100 years old. The building was started in 1907 and completed in 1928.
It was meant to look like a medieval castle.
And althought the overall effect is just that, close up it looks just a bit too well preserved.
It was commissioned by a convocation of fraternities of students and they still have meetings up there.
If there are not there, it is used as an event location with a restaurant, and in summer beer garden.
Linked to A Photo A Week: 100 years or older.
Heimat
There is something about the landscape of the place in which we grow up – it’s edged in the soul, together with the people and the time it makes up what in German is called “Heimat” and for which there is no proper one word translation (essays and books have been written on this “most mystic of German concepts”).
As I live on the slopes, it is combination of rolling hills in the back and a long plain in the west, edged again by more hills. I could say I live “on the edge” if that wouldn’t conjure up sharp ridges and drops which do the softness of the landscape no justice.
The upper Rhine valley is at this point bordered by the Odenwald in the east (my figurative backyard) and the Pfälzer Wald in the west.
The reverse view with forests and castles and houses is contrasted by the view to the west:
A closer look reveals the mixture of agriculture and heavily populated near the Rhine, including large industrial sites (in fact, the world’s largest chemical complex is just a camera swipe to the left, on the other side of the Rhine).
It’s this diversity that I cherish, and that I call home.
For A Photo a Week: Landscape.
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