Memories and hints of a travelling IT professional.
When you’re visiting the Edersee lake in northern Hesse you can most often see a castle up on hill: Schloß Waldeck at Waldeck, Germany. Of course you’ve got brilliant views on the artificial lake from there. The castle was first mentioned in the year 1120 CE and served as a fortress, as barracks and as a jail over time. Since 1920 it is a state asset and can be visited.
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At a street connecting Wilhelmshöher Allee and Königstor – the Hermannstraße (an area of Kassel, Germany where I wouldn’t really expect a bar) – you can find the HermannS. It is a mix of a modern cocktail bar and a folksy inn. They’ve got a rather large outdoor area and you can get good food and drinks.
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Bornhagen is just a tiny village in Thuringia, Germany. People getting here stop for a drink or a meal at the Klausenhof restaurant, to take a look at the sausage museum dedicated to the tradition of home-made sausages – but most often they get here for the beautiful castle ruin Hanstein. Nowadays the village has another interesting thing; a memorial that cannot be seen while walking through Bornhagen.
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The castle Hanstein at Bornhagen, Germany is one of the most beautiful castle ruins of the region. It is not far away from the point where the three federal countries of Hesse, Lower Saxony and Thuringia meet. It is said that the castle exists since the year 820 but the first written proof is from around the year 1000 CE. It was home to the house of Hanstein and later inaccessible while Germany was divided.
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Close to the village of Hundelshausen belonging to Witzenhausen, Germany a company gathers gypsum. Already in 1940 they gave up an area and the open pit, surrounded by high rocks, filled with ground water and rain. Today it is a lake with 5000 cubic meters of water that you can use for swimming. There are also platforms on the water, a separated non-swimmer area and a wooden base.
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If you like good views for dinner you can’t miss a visit to the NENI at the Breitscheidplatz close to the railway station ‘Zoologischer Garten‘ of Berlin, Germany. It is serving high-class oriental food in a wonderful atmosphere: through big glass windows you can look over the zoological garden which looks like a forest. Already the mezze request hard decisions: humus or falafel? Or some speciality from Libanon or Marocco?
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It is one of the biggest botanical gardens in Germany on an area of 43 hectares containing 22000 different plants: the Botanischer Garten of Berlin, Germany. It belongs to the Freie Universität Berlin and serves scientific purposes, but it is also a tourist attraction (attracting half a million visitors each year). Some bars and restaurants offer ice cream and drinks. And it is in fact so large that you can walk around there for hours and easily get lost.
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Finding a hotel in the South of Berlin, Germany can be quite a problem. I wanted to attend a confirmation ceremony at a church in Lankwitz, but there isn’t any place to sleep. An area full of residential homes far away from the touristy capital. Therefore I booked the nearest hotel at Steglitz, the Hotel Steglitz International.
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The summer residence of Sophia Charlotte of Hanover is a wonderful palace in the West of Berlin, Germany and with its garden it invites for long walks. It was opened in 1699 and was named Lietzenburg after the village next to it. It was extended continuously, especially after she became queen of Prussia. When Sophia Charlotte in 1705 (aged 36 then) her husband named the castle and the village after her: Charlottenburg. Still today the city quarter name Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf refers to her.
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It is a retirement home for old illuminated letters and advertisement signs: the Buchstabenmuseum (letter museum) at Berlin, Germany. Since already 14 years a club of volunteers collects and exhibits letters and advertisement signs with a history. They had to change their location already five times and are now located under a Stadtbahnbogen near S-Bahn stop Bellevue.
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