This is part 13 of 16 of a journey through my home country: Germany.

I invite everyone to take a closer look at what I call home. I will show you sides of today-Germany you didn't know of - especially when you are not German.
A lot of "foreigners" (actually I don't really like this word) connect Germany with beer, cars, lederhosen and sauerkraut. I admit these are parts of Germany and important ones too (especially the beer and the cars), but they by far are not everything!

This article serie will show you the 16 countries of Germany, some quite similar to each other, some totally different. Sure, this serie will mainly feature photography, but perhaps I will link to other styles of art like modern German music or so.

Our journey leads us through (click the ones in italic to see that article):

_{Bavaria
Saxony
Brandenburg
Berlin
Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania
Schleswig-Holstein
Hamburg
Lower Saxony
Saxony-Anhalt
Thuringia
Hesse
Baden-Wuerttemberg
Rhineland-Palatinate
Saarland
North Rhine-Westphalia
Bremen}

... or if you want to take a look at our southern neighbour, Austria, please read Exploring Austria by =Glasperlenspielerin.

Please, come and see...



Hi and welcome back...
It's been more then 4 months since my last journal of this kind. I really apopogize for that, but as I stated before: I'm very busy and these journals really take some time. Furthermore, deviantART somehow lost some of it's attractiveness to me - don't ask why, I couldn't make an educated guess myself.

Today, I invite you to take a closer look at Rhineland-Palatinate or Rheinland-Pfalz, neighbour of France, Belgium and Luxembourg, so being a state in the very west of the Federal Republic of Germany.
Rheinland-Pfalz gets a rather average position in both, area and population: It ranks 9th in area with 19,846 square kilometres (7,663 sq mi) and seventh in population with about 4 million inhabitants. Yet, this kind of 'mediocrity' definately ends, when it comes to Rheinland's rich culture, gorgeous landscapes and excellent food and wine specialities.



The capital of Rheinland-Pfalz is Mainz. With not even a quarter million inhabitants, Mainz is one of the smaller German capitals. But it's among Germany's oldest cities: About 25,000 years ago, the Mainz-area near the Rivers Rhine and Main served as a resting place for hunters, and a stable settlement can be proven for around the year 500BC or little later. The Celt's settlement was taken over by Romans shortly before the birth of Jesus, supposedly 13BC. Since then, Mainz played an important role in German and European history.
For centuries, the Archbishops of Mainz were archchancellors of the Holy Roman Empire and the most important of the seven electors of the German Emperor. They also were socalled primas germaniae, the substitutes of the Pope north of the Alps. This power still manifests in the 1,000 years-old Mainz Cathedral or 'Hoher Dom zu Mainz', an impressive red building dominating the city.
On a cultural level, Mainz must be called one of the most important cities for western societies at all: Johannes Gutenberg was born here, lived here and invented movable type printing in 1439. His Gutenberg-Bible started the Gutenberg-Revolution, which made literature and education affordable for a wider, yet still very limited audience. The same technology helped spreading the Reformation about half a century later.
In World War II, 80% of Mainz's buildings were destroyed. So today, when walking through the remaining Altstadt, you can easily spot places that were hit by bombs: ugly modernistic buildings in the middle of wunderful medieval architecture.
Today, Mainz is mostly known as a tourist attraction and a center for excellent German wines. There is an academy for wines in Mainz, a wine-institute and the state even has it's wine minister. Apart from that and a few larger companies such as Schott AG, the economic importance of Mainz is rather small. Oh, but Mainz has Karneval! If you like this kind of amusement (as a protestant North German I don't!), you definately HAVE to visit Mainz.



The second biggest city of Rheinland-Pfalz is Ludwigshafen, birthplace of Helmut Kohl.
Ludwigshafen is a really young city. Originally build in the early 17th century as a protective castle for neighbouring Mannheim, Ludwigshafen began to prosper in the 18th century. It was not before 1843 that the city was officially founded. But soon after that, the rise of Ludwigshafen began. After a small dye-producer moved to Ludwigshafen, the company and the city started growing. The small dye-producer today is called BASF, still has it's headquarter in Ludwigshafen and is the world's largest chemical company.
Hosting this company, Ludwigshafen was one of the main targets of Allied attacks in WWII: 13,000 Allied bombers bombed the city in 121 separate raids, dropping 53,000 high explosive bombs and 2.5 million 4-pound magnesium incendiary bombs. The production of BASF went down to zero.
Yet, soon after the war, the company made huge profits again and the taxes helped rebuilding Ludwigshafen - in a 1950-1965 style. Who ever likes this, today. As you already may realize: tourist attractions in Ludwigshafen are rather rare. Yet, that does not mean that Ludwigshafen does not produce any high quality perspectives and motifs for photographers. They just don't have famous names and decades of history.



This city may not be what one would call "typical German tourist-town", but the following ones are:
Koblenz, Trier and Worms are cities that can be found on every foreign tourist's route through the south of Germany. The cities have between 80,000 and 110,000 inhabitants and they all are older than 2,000 years. Trier and Worms are fighting for the title "Oldest Town in Germany". Trier is the first settlement on German ground to own the title "city" (30BC) - and accoring to a legend, it was founded by expelled Assyrian prince Trebeta 1,300 years before Rome was founded. This would make it over 4,000 years old!
On the other side, Worms can prove permanent settlement for at least 5,000 years, but only got city-like structures under Roman rule at about 20BC.
For the same time, Roman fortifications can be proven to have existed in Koblenz. Newer digs show that even here, Celts had built fortified structures about 1,000 years earlier.
Sure, today you won't find any real buildings that are this old, but due to their rather unspectaular size, Trier and Worms were not hit as bad as other towns were in WWII, but unfortunately Koblenz lost over 85% of it's buildings.
All three cities are full with wonderful old catherals and churches, but as well have other buildings that are simply impressive. The "Deutsches Eck" (German Corner) or Castle Philippsburg in Koblenz are examples for this, as well as Trier's famous Porta Nigra or the Römerbrücke (Roman Bridge) and Niebelungenbrücke in Worms, where you can also find the Dome St. Peter.



Let's now come to the landscape of Rheinland-Pfalz.
As the name says, the Rhine is the most dominating thing when describing Palatinatian landscape. This river is one of the longest in Europe and a lifeline for much of west Germany, eastern France, the Netherlands and even a tiny little bit Austria and Switzerland. It has been a border ever since: it marked the end of the Roman Empire and it was straegically important in every single war between Germany and France (and we've had lots of those!). As a result, it's banks are full with castles, fortifications and old military installations. Today, crossing the Rhine-border without even having to show a passport or being controlled at all is nothing special anymore. The borders are open.
In Rhineland-Palatinate, the Rhine flows through German landscape only. The area is called Mittelrheintal, meaning "Middle Rhine Valley". In this region, the river cut deep scarfs into the nature, forming a characteristic hilly landscape that, supported by often volcanic soils, is an ideal place for growing wine. The most popular place to show all this in only one picture may be the Loreley, the narrowest part of the Rhine in Germany and a mystical place. Like Greek sirens, it is said that rhine-maidens lure navigators of this river to their dooms with their alluring singing. Today, what you find mostly at the Loreley are not maidens, but grannies wanting to take a nice picture!



The main mountain-ranges in Rhineland-Palatinate are the Hunsrück and the Eifel, which it shares with neighbouring Nort Rhine-Westphalia and Belgium. Both are of volcanic origin and more hills than mountains. Both regions can be charcterized as rainy. Most notable event in this region may be the Nature One, a big outdoor Techno/Trance/House party held annually.



Well, that's mostly it. Rheinland-Pfalz really isn't that big!
I could go on and show you dozens of interesting castles and monasteries, but I really think you should go see them yourself! Before I conclude this, let me just show you some more shots of this wonderful state of Germany, that caught my attention but did not fit into what I wrote until now. Unsorted, beautiful and worth looking at:



Some last words about culture and people in Rheinland-Pfalz.
Generally speaking, the inhabitants of Rheinland-Pfalz are nice persons but kind of keep a "low profile". They don't act the big shot and that's really sympathic! They are very proud of their wines and the excellent food they create and hell, they can be! White Riesling from Rhineland-Palatinate is my favourive wine, even if - being a North German - beer comes in the first place.
The people of Rhineland-Palatinate have different kinds of accents, some are Alemannic, some more Franconian and some even have a little French influence one some words and pronunciation, especially in the very west...
Kings of the region now called Rhineland-Palatinate ruled most of Germany for centuries and had a big influence on European history. Some Emperors were of Palatinatian ancestry, as was one special pope who - after the legend - actually was a woman: Pope Joan.

Now, this was only a very, very short trip through Rhineland-Palatinate and I know I missed a lot (if not almost everything). But this is supposed to be a short, informative journal and not a travel guide. I hope you like the pictures - if you do, please give the artists a visit and/or a fav, they really deserve it.

If you have any questions about this station of our trip or Germany as a whole: please ask, I'll try to answer as quick as possible.
And if you have any suggestions about how to make this trip any better, please don't hesitate to write me, either.





Looking forward for your comments - and the next station of this trip...

PS: This journal can also be read and faved as a news article!

This is part 12 of 16 of a journey through my home country: Germany.

I invite everyone to take a closer look at what I call home. I will show you sides of today-Germany you didn't know of - especially when you are not German.
A lot of "foreigners" (actually I don't really like this word) connect Germany with beer, cars, lederhosen and sauerkraut. I admit these are parts of Germany and important ones too (especially the beer and the cars), but they by far are not everything!

This article serie will show you the 16 countries of Germany, some quite similar to each other, some totally different. Sure, this serie will mainly feature photography, but perhaps I will link to other styles of art like modern German music or so.

Our journey leads us through (click the ones in italic to see that article):

_{Bavaria
Saxony
Brandenburg
Berlin
Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania
Schleswig-Holstein
Hamburg
Lower Saxony
Saxony-Anhalt
Thuringia
Hesse
Baden-Wuerttemberg
Rhineland-Palatinate
Saarland
North Rhine-Westphalia
Bremen}

... or if you want to take a look at our southern neighbour, Austria, please read Exploring Austria by =Glasperlenspielerin.

Please, come and see...



Hi and welcome back...
I know, it's been a while. I'm a busy man - and my own computer is occupied, so I've to write this on my girlfriend's laptop... which I'm not really used to.
Okay, let's stop the small talk and start: today we'll visit Baden-Wuerttemberg, or -Württemberg, as it's written with the correct German Umlaut.
Baden-Württemberg is one of our two southernmost states, it's located south of last article's Hesse and west of first article's Bavaria. It shares much of it's border with France and with Switzerland. Among the 16 German states, it's third in both, area and inhabitants - which would be around 10.8 million.



The capital of Baden-Württemberg is Stuttgart, with merely 600,000 inhabitants not really big, but of importance not only for Germany, but the whole world. In this 1060 yeras old town, Daimler and Benz invented the automobile only 125 years ago - today it is home of the Daimler AG (Mercedes-Benz) as well as one of world's best sports cars manufacturers: Porsche.
Stuttgart is a city where old and new meet. Old buildings like the Stiftskirche can be found everywhere in the inner city, but all these gems of the medieval are flanked by modern buildings like, for example, the new Porsche Museum.
The city itself is surrounded by wineyards, as Stuttgart belongs to one of the biggest German wine-growing areas.



Baden-Württemberg mainly consists of small and mid-size cities, most of which are historically grown. No surprise the second biggest city is Mannheim with only 310.000 inhabitants. Mannheim is about 1250 years old, but was heavily damaged in WWII. So, when you visit Mannheim and see the grid layout of the streets (quite unusual for Germany!), you may think this is due to the war - no, the grid was designed in 1600, that's over 400 years ago! Still today, Mannheim is sometimes called Quadratstadt (square town) for this. Even the street's names are only numbers and letters, like A5 for example. Normally, German streets are named after important persons (Schillerstraße), other towns (Hamburger Allee), events (Straße des 17. Juni) or even animals (Adlerhorst). NOT numbers and letters...



An interesting city would be Karlsruhe.
Not even 300 years old, Karlsruhe is really young. Is is a planned, residential city which is built around the Schloss (palace) in it's center.
Today, Karlsruhe is considered the "city of law" in Germany. This is due to the courts located in the city, two of which are the most important ones in Germany: The Bundesverfassungsgericht (Federal Constitutional Court of Germany) is powerful enough that it's decisions have the force of a law and the Bundesgerichtshof (Federal Court of Justice of Germany) is the highest court of appeals in matters of civil law and criminal law, the court of ultimate resort.
That means: If you see your constitutional rights being restricted by a law, go to Karlsruhe. Same if you have problems with you neighbour and fight your way throuh all levels of jurisdiction.



Before I introduce you to the landscape, let's take a quick ride through the university towns of Baden-Württemberg. Those three towns are Heidelberg, almost 2000 years old (and with 1 million years old signs of human life in this area), 1300 years old Tübingen and 900 years old Freiburg. So, three of five classical and old German universitiy towns (the other ones being Göttingen and Marburg) are located in Baden-Württemberg.
Heidelberg is well known for it's university's recognized scientists and thinkers like Arendt, Habermas or Hegel, as well as the movie "Anatomy". Today, it still is one of Germany's most recognized universities.
Tübingen university is over 530 years old and especially known for it's research in medicine, natural sciences and the humanities. Notable persons having worked here are Braun, Kinkel, Dahrendorf, Schmid, Hölderlin, Alzheimer, Bonhoeffer, our president Horst Köhler and the present pope Benedict XVI.
Only a little younger is the university of Freiburg. She's counted to Germany's most excellent universities today and hosted minds like those of Adenauer, Weber, Hayek, Marcuse, Heidegger and Ersasmus of Rotterdam.



The landscape of Baden-Württemberg is mostly shaped by mountains and hills. Only the area around the Rhine is relatively flat - and one of the hottest areas in Germany's summers.
Unfortunately, pictures of the rhine are mainly shot a little north, but I will show you these in some of the next articles. So, only a very few pictures today:



The Rhine flows through the Bodensee, or Lake Constance, as it is called in English. The English name refers to the German city of Konstanz, that is located at it's shores. Yet, this name is not fair. The Bodensee is huge and several cities are located close to it. The lake also is the border between Germany, Austria and Switzerland, so Bodensee is a fine compromise as a name. It's three main islands, Mainau, Lindau and Reichenau are German, even when the borders running through the lake are based on no legally binding agreement - and therefore don't really exist.



The main attraction of Baden-Württemberg's landscape may be the Schwarzwald or Black Forest. You can really hear the evil wolf waiting for Little Red Riding Hood in this name.
The Schwarzwald is a wooded mountain range of 12,000km² with it's highest elevation at 1,493m, the Feldberg. The mountain Schauinsland (translates as: look at the landscape) is also very well known. The city of Freiburg I mentioned above borders the Schwarzwald at the west, as well as Baden-Baden. There are several idyllic routes through the Schwarzwald, leading to hotels and resorts or small villages, and the Autobahn A5 runs through the forest as well.
Oh, and one of this planet's biggest earthworms live here...



Let's come to an end, you've been waiting long enough for this article.
But before that, as always, some words about the people living here: As you may hear from the name, Baden-Württemberg is a state which was created after the war. It consists of the three older states of Hohenzoller, Baden and Württemberg. Basically, the dialects in Baden-Württemberg reflect these old borders, as some speak Swabian and some speak Allemanic. Both dialects are hard to understand for north Germans and even harder to tell apart. No wonder a famous ad-campaign for the state is "Wir können alles. Außer Hochdeutsch.", which would be "We can do anything except [speak] standard German.".
Baden-Württemberg are quite proud of their "swabian innovative spirit" and indeed, important inventions, small ones and big ones, have been made in this state. Also, this region is full of world market leaders, most of them still being owned by their founding families. One could say: Baden-Württemberg is one major center of industrial production, creativity and entrepreneurial spirit. At the same time, it is said that the people of Baden-Württemberg are a little closefisted - but perhaps this is a need for good business.

Now, this was only a very, very short trip through Baden-Württemberg and I know I missed a lot (if not almost everything). But this is supposed to be a short, informative journal and not a travel guide. I hope you like the pictures - if you do, please give the artists a visit and/or a fav, they really deserve it.

If you have any questions about this station of our trip or Germany as a whole: please ask, I'll try to answer as quick as possible.
And if you have any suggestions about how to make this trip any better, please don't hesitate to write me, either.





Looking forward for your comments - and the next station of this trip...

PS: This journal can soon be read and faved as a news article!

This is part 11 of 16 of a journey through my home country: Germany.

I invite everyone to take a closer look at what I call home. I will show you sides of today-Germany you didn't know of - especially when you are not German.
A lot of "foreigners" (actually I don't really like this word) connect Germany with beer, cars, lederhosen and sauerkraut. I admit these are parts of Germany and important ones too (especially the beer and the cars), but they by far are not everything!

This article serie will show you the 16 countries of Germany, some quite similar to each other, some totally different. Sure, this serie will mainly feature photography, but perhaps I will link to other styles of art like modern German music or so.

Our journey leads us through (click the ones in italic to see that article):

_{Bavaria
Saxony
Brandenburg
Berlin
Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania
Schleswig-Holstein
Hamburg
Lower Saxony
Saxony-Anhalt
Thuringia
Hesse
Baden-Wuerttemberg
Rhineland-Palatinate
Saarland
North Rhine-Westphalia
Bremen}

... or if you want to take a look at our southern neighbour, Austria, please read Exploring Austria by =Glasperlenspielerin.

Please, come and see...



Hello and welcome back.
After last week's tour through Thuringia, we'll take a step westwards and visit the German state I'm currently living in: Hesse, or Hessen, as we call it. Hesse ranks 7th in size among the German states and 5th in population, which would be about 6 million. On the economic side, Hesse is one of the most potent German states, mainly due to the important city of Frankfurt, which I'll show you in a moment.



Frankfurt is not Hesse's capital, but it sure is it's most important city and also the biggest town in Hesse. That's why I'll begin with Frankfurt, the capital Wiesbaden will come next.
The history of Frankfurt goes back to the 1st century, when it was an unimportant Roman settlement. Then, 1260 years ago, it was mentioned first under the name "Frankonovurd", which means "ford of the Franks".
Today, Frankfurt is, despite it's rather minor size of just 670,000 inhabitants, a major center of the German economy. It's an important transportation hub, be it for cargo or passengers, via plane, ship or train. This also makes it the second most important fair town in Germany and one of the most important ones in the world. It hosts the Frankfurt Motor Show, the Frankfurt Book Fair and many others, most of which are the biggest of their kind.
Most important may be Frankfurt's financial district: Frankfurt is continental Europe's financial center, it hosts more than 300 banks, the German Stock Exchange and the European Central Bank. This also makes it very interesting for architectural photography - the town's center is sometimes called Mainhattan, connecting the Manhattan-like skyline (well, not really in my opinion!) with the river Main, that flows through the city.



After Frankfurt, cities in Hesse get smaller pretty fast!
Wiesbaden, the capital of Hesse, is not even half the size. About 275,000 people plus a notable amount of American military personnel live in this 2,000 years old town. Obviously already populated in the neolithic, Wiesbaden became a Roman fort 6 A.D. - the Romans appreciated it's thermal springs in the cold Germanic surrounding, so Wiesbaden today is one of Europe's oldes spa towns.
Wiesbaden did not suffer major bombings in WWII, so most of it's old town is still intact today. Rumor is, that the US Army Air Force spared this town due to it's beauty: they wanted it as their after war HQ in Germany. Wiesbaden still holds the US Army's 1st Armored Division today.



Now, there are several mid-size towns ranging from 50,000 to 150,000 inhabitants. It's hard to decide which one to show, so I'll take Marburg. The reason why I do so is easy: I live here! Yeah, wanted to use the opportunity to show you the city I live in.
With 80,000 people, Marburg is rather tiny. It lies snugged to some soft hills. Yet, it is not an as boring town as it might sound. 25% of the inhabitants are students. Marburg is a typical German university town. So, there are enough bars, pubs and some clubs to enjoy your study.
The area around the city has continously been populated for around 50.000 years, yet the town itself was created with it's castle around 1,100 years ago. The university was created in 1527 and is the oldest protestant university in the world. The university has ever since attracted scientists, philosophers, researchers and so on. For example, the Brothers Grimm lived here for a while and used the city as a source for inspiration. Some Noble Prize winners studied or lived here and unfortunately one of world's most lethal viruses is called after this town.



Let's come to the landscape - Hesse has pretty much of that.
Hesse is the German state with the highest rate of forest compared to the size. Due to this, outside the bigger cities it is sparely populated.
The landscape is hilly. Almost everywhere. There are several mountain ranges in Hesse or surrounding it, such as the Taunus near Frankfurt, the Odenwald, the Kellerwald, the Rhön, the Vogelsberg and some other. Some areas even were volcanic - centuries ago.



Only between Frankfurt and Giessen there is an area that is rather flat. This is called the Wetterau. It is a warm area and summer really is some days longer here. That's why it's very fertile and was already used by the Romans to produce fruits, crop and grow cattle. Unfortunaltely there are only some few shot of it here on dA:



Hesse has some larger river flowing through or bordering it. The most important ones may be the Rhine and the Main, but the Fulda, the Lahn and the Eder are well known here too and form a characteristic Hessian landscape.



Well, that's it. As always some last words about people and culture.
The Hessians are crazy after their strange drink called Ebbelwoi, which is basically a must of apple, like a cider or so. It's hard to get used to, but if you are used to it, it's not that bad, really. The Hessians have Ebbelwoi-Fests and in Frankfurt there is a quarter called Sachsenhausen which seems to consist of Ebbelwoi.
The Hessians have a very interesting dialect that splits into various sub-dialects. Making south-Hessian almost inscrutable for north-Hessians and vice versa. And now ask me, not being able to speak any dialect... what a luck that "normal" German is common in bigger towns and is understood by everyone in Hesse.
Hesse's culture contributed a lot to overall German culture, for example through the tales of the Brothers Grimm, through Goethe who was a Frankfurter or through Richard Wagner who lived in Hesse some time and wrote here his Meistersinger. Sure there are many others...
Oh, and by the way: Hesse is the sister-state of Wisconsin!

Now, this was only a very, very short trip through Hesse and I know I missed a lot (if not almost everything). But this is supposed to be a short, informative journal and not a travel guide. I hope you like the pictures - if you do, please give the artists a visit and/or a fav, they really deserve it.

If you have any questions about this station of our trip or Germany as a whole: please ask, I'll try to answer as quick as possible.
And if you have any suggestions about how to make this trip any better, please don't hesitate to write me, either.





Looking forward for your comments - and the next station of this trip...

PS: This journal can soon be read and faved as a news article!
PPS: What do you think of my new journal skin?!

This is part 10 of 16 of a journey through my home country: Germany.

I invite everyone to take a closer look at what I call home. I will show you sides of today-Germany you didn't know of - especially when you are not German.
A lot of "foreigners" (actually I don't really like this word) connect Germany with beer, cars, lederhosen and sauerkraut. I admit these are parts of Germany and important ones too (especially the beer and the cars), but they by far are not everything!

This article serie will show you the 16 countries of Germany, some quite similar to each other, some totally different. Sure, this serie will mainly feature photography, but perhaps I will link to other styles of art like modern German music or so.

Our journey leads us through (click the ones in italic to see that article):

_{Bavaria
Saxony
Brandenburg
Berlin
Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania
Schleswig-Holstein
Hamburg
Lower Saxony
Saxony-Anhalt
Thuringia
Hesse
Baden-Wuerttemberg
Rhineland-Palatinate
Saarland
North Rhine-Westphalia
Bremen}

... or if you want to take a look at our southern neighbour, Austria, please read Exploring Austria by =Glasperlenspielerin.

Please, come and see...



Welcome back to my journey through Germany.
First: Sorry for being terribly late. My PC is damn slow the last days and I din't yet figure out, why that is... well:
This week, we'll visit Thuringia or Thüringen, as we call it. Thuringia is one of the socalled "new states", meaning it was part of the GDR before 1990. Yet, as you can see, these "new states" have been a part of Germany for almost 20 years now, meaning about a third of the overall existance of the Federal Republic. I consider them an integral part of our country.

Thuringia is rather small, it's the sixth smallest by area and the fifth smallest by population (about 2.3 million inhabitants) of Germany's sixteen states. Through history, it is closely connected with Hesse, which it borders and which I'll deal with next week. It also shares a similar type of landscape and some of the culture, despite big differences in dialect.
Thuringia had a great impact on German culture, especially on literature, but more on that later. For now, let me show you some small impressions before we start with the cities:



The capital of Thuringia is Erfurt. As Thuringia's biggest city, it has about 203,000 inhabitants and is the capital closest to the center of Germany. It's more than 1260 years old, what is quite old, even among the ancient medieval German cities. It became Prussian in 1802 and remained so for almost 150 years. After World War II, when it suffered only light damage, it was captured by the Americans, which gave it to Soviet Russia some weeks later. It became a capital first in the year 1990.
Among many remakable and old buildings, Erfurt's two big churches stand out, as much as the Krämerbrücke (first 2 pics), which looks like a street but actually is a bridge.



The second biggest city of Thuringia is Jena. Though it's over 800 years old, it's primarily known for it's modernity. Jena is a world center for precision instruments and especially optics. Everybody knows Carl Zeiss Jena or Schott, both companies that left Jena after WWII but bought back their East German counterparts after the German Reunification and now again produce optical high quality products in this town. Jena also has a very renown university and is one of the few East German boomtowns.



The last town I want to showcase here is Weimar. It is important in Germany's cultural as well as political history. First, this is the town where some of the best German writers, such as Schiller or Goethe and many others, gathered and produced an important ammount of their works. German pupils and students still have to learn much of what they wrote, what they don't always see as a pleasure.
Furthermore, the constitution of the Weimar Republic - the first united, democratic German state - was drafted here: an important step from the seperated, monarchistic, party feudal states to the Federal Republic we are today. Yet, the means of the Nazis to gain power in our country were the weakness of this constitution.



The touristic center of Thuringia, beside the bigger cities, is the Thuringian Forest, a mountain range perfectly made for hiking, cycling and all kinds of wintersports.
A prominet feature of the Thuringian Forest is the Wartburg, close to the city of Eisenach. The Wartburg was a refuge to Martin Luther, this is the place where the Bible was first translated from latin into another language: German. While Luther did so, according to the legend, Satan appeared, yet a fearless monk he was, Luther threw the bottle of ink after him.



As you can see, mountain ranges of a medium size make the face of Thuringia. It's a mostly soft and hilly landscape with some also medium sized rivers flowing through: the Saale and the Werra. In the east, Thuringia is flattening again, yet besides the Thuringian Forest, there are parts of the already mentioned Harz and the Rhön Mountains on Thuringian soil.
Parts of the southern branch of the Harz is called the Kyffhäuser, here you can find a monument for Emperor Barbarossa.
I had a hard time finding pictures of all that, but besides Barbarossa, the quantity (NOT quality!) of the outcome was... poor, so here: Barbarossa plus other nice pics of Thuringia!



Well, that's about it. A rather short article this week - but I can't write ~1,500 words in every article. So I'll rather keep it short in small states - like Thuringia is.
Yet, let me finally add the following:
Unlike many other German states, that were fused from different kingdoms and duchys (many of which rivalling for centuries), Thuringia had always been a relatively homogenous state and as such has a long tradition. Thuringian cities are mostly small, but old. Even the smallest towns may have seen some of the most devastating wars or plagues that ever came across this continent. Some of them have seen more time pass by from their initial creation to the birth of Columbus than they have from then to nowadays.
So, Thuringians are relatively proud of their history, their tradition and their sausage. Yes, their sausage: Thuringian Grilled Sausage is one of the best things to put on a barbacue - even if the people of Nuremberg would disagree.

Now, this was only a very, very short trip through Thuringia and I know I missed a lot (if not almost everything). But this is supposed to be a short, informative journal and not a travel guide. I hope you like the pictures - if you do, please give the artists a visit and/or a fav, they really deserve it.

If you have any questions about this station of our trip or Germany as a whole: please ask, I'll try to answer as quick as possible.
And if you have any suggestions about how to make this trip any better, please don't hesitate to write me, either.





Looking forward for your comments - and the next station of this trip...

PS: This journal can also be read and faved as a news article!