Exploring a country: Germany | 3/16

This is part 3 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}

Please, come and see...



At first: sorry for being a little late with this article, didn't manage to finish it on Monday. I am a busy man!
So, our journey through Germany leads us northwards. Coming from the very south of our republic, we went through one of the "new" German States last week and visit the next one now: Brandenburg,

You already read about high mountains like the Alps or hills and fascinating rock formations like the Erzgebirge in this serie - now I have to proof that a flat landscape is not as boring, as it may appear to you. And Brandenburg is very, very flat, at least most of it. Brandenburg belongs to the "Norddeutsche Tiefebene" (literally translated with North German Lowlands), a flat and plain landscape that covers almost half of Germany and builds the biggest part of the Middle European Lowland (which is the German translation, in English it's called North European Plain), which also covers the Netherlands, northern Belgium and most of our eastern neighbour Poland.
So, when you visit Brandenburg, you won't have any problems to see the horizon:



But, as always, let's begin with the cities:
To say the truth: Finding a real city in Brandenburg may be a little problematic. Brandenburg is the 5th biggest state in Germany according to the area - but only the 10th out of 16 according to the population (which is 2.5 million). Sure, there is one big city in Brandenburg: Berlin. But as this a federal state on it's own, this doesn't really count. For this reason, the biggest city in Brandenburg is Potsdam with about 150,000 inhabitants.
Many people may think, Potsdam is a part of Berlin, as they may think, Versailles is a part of Paris: it is not! It's simply very close to the bigger city - and it hosts the old gentry's residence, as Versaille does. In Potsdam, this residence is Schloss Sanssouci, the Prussian King's summer palace.
Who would not want to live there?!



Sanssouci attracs most tourists, but Potsdam is also very well known for Babelsberg. You may know this name from the world-famous movie studios that were and still are located here in Potsdam. It is the oldest major film-studio in the world! Yet, it does not dominate the city: Potsdam has it's very own face:



There are other cities in Brandenburg, but they too are rather small ones, as Potsdam is. Last week I already spoke about Cottbus, part of the Lausitz that I introduced to you in my article about Saxony. It hosts the only East German major league football (soccer for those abroad) club. The other bigger cities in Brandenburg are Brandenburg/Havel (yes, the city shares the name with the State), Eberswalde and Frankfurt/Oder (not the big Frankfurt, but the tiny one!).



Well, that's it about the cities in Brandenburg.
Let's come to the landscape now, which is really wonderful, even if it's all that flat!

One of the quite well known areas of Brandenburg sure is the Spreewald. It's a rich forest & moor, a UNESCO biosphere reserve. Curiously, this region is especially famous for it's gherkins! They are really good - but the landscape (or should I say waterscape) is way better!



Oh yes my children, this is how an untouched landscape can look like.
Yet, Brandenburg has it's scars. The USSR forced the GDR to mine uranium and brown coal in the area. Many of these scars can still be found, but some were filled with water, so that Brandenburg nowadays is the state with the most lakes in Germany. Ideal for holidays!



Then, there is the Havel, a rather tiny river, but very well known through an old German nursery rhyme (Herr von Ribbeck auf Ribbeck im Havelland, ein Birnbaum in seinem Garten stand...) by Fontane.



Well, the rest of Brandenburg is pure landscape. The different regions have different names, but they all are characterized by wide fields, alleys, lakes and forests - and a tiny village every now and then. So, I don't want to talk too much, but give you some stuff you will really enjoy:



Now, this was only a very, very short trip through Brandenburg 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...

But before we come to an end THIS week, let me say some personal words:
I want to thank every single one of you. Last weekend, after more than 3 years here on dA, I reached 10,000 pageviews. I know this is not much and I know others are way faster. But I also know that I made some really good friends here. Every one of them and all those of you who just gave me a quick fav or a comment every now and then made this possible - and I am deeply thankful for that!
If anyone had told me that some of my pictures will get looked at by some hundred people 3 years ago, I'd have laughed out loud. Now this is reality.
Thank you for that. Thank you for you comments that helped me becoming a better artist, thanks you for your favs that kept me believing in my art. Thanks you for the friendships that developed out of this hobby.
Thank YOU...
Malte

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






_{... since 2008/09/16}