Memories and hints of a travelling IT professional.
When you walk from the Löwenburg castle at Kassel, Germany down the road back to civilization you might wonder about two barracks standing near Anthonistraße and Panoramaweg. These are the last remaining buildings of an outpost of the concentration camp Buchenwald near Weimar, Germany. The one with the words ‘Jedem das Seine‘ at the gate. About 288 people were brought from Weimar to Kassel between 1943 and 1945 – many of them political prisoners.
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The lake Asch at Kassel, Germany is an artifical lake created on a mountain belonging to the Habichtswald high above the city. It is used to store water for the ‘Wasserkünste’ of the Bergpark Wilhelmshöhe. In local dialect ‘Asch‘ means ‘pot‘ and that is exactly what this lake is: a pot full of water surrounded by a forest on a mountain. It is a nice place, there are benches to sit down and it is supposed to be very relaxing during summer – it doesn’t get that hot up there.
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It sounds much more erotic than it really is: the bar Hot Legs at Kassel, Germany. This venue was once decorated with the legs of display dummies – and therefore it received its name. Today it is just a nice and a little bit shabby bar at the Friedrich-Ebert-Straße, neighboring other party locations. Here they show major sports events and on Wednesdays you can often listen to live music.
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It is an institution at the city quarter Vorderer Westen of Kassel, Germany. The Ulenspiegel is a nice little beer and wine bar at the intersection of Goethestraße and Querallee. Inside it has a quite dark and relaxing atmosphere, you can get good drinks and listen to rock music. In summer there are also seats outside and it is much easier to find a place than in winter.
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If you’re bored by the standard junk food of the big burger chains you might give the Marivos Burger-Lounge at Kassel, Germany a try. It is located inside an old gas station from the 1950s at the Kohlenstraße near Bahnhof Wilhelmshöhe. Two brothers and a friend opened the burger restaurant because they knew from bigger cities that buns, patties and fries can be much better when they are home-made.
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The Bismarckturm at Kassel, Germany is a look-out tower built between 1903 and 1904 on the Brasselsberg mountain in honor of the first German Reichskanzler Otto Fürst von Bismarck. You can easily spot it from everywhere in the city when looking at the mountains of the Habichtswald. In Germany 47 towers of the same design exist, but this is with 25.5 meters the highest one.
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When you take a long walk in the Brasselsberg area at Kassel, Germany and move into the direction of the Hirzstein mountain you can find something special: the ‘Teufelsmauer‘ or devils wall. It is a natural formation made of basalt that looks like a wall that is 30 meters long, 10 meters high and 90 centimeters thick. But the devil has nothing to do with it: it was magma that flowed into a crack in more weak rocks.
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The Brasselsberg is a 434 meters high mountain at Kassel, Germany which belongs to the Habichtswald in northern Hesse. It is an area with wonderful forests which is especially suitable for hiking. The paths are prepared well and signs guide you the right way which place you ever want to reach. Here you can find the Bismarckturm, the Teufelsmauer, old quarries for basaltic tuff and the Porta Lapidaria.
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The documenta art exhibition has left numerous traces at Kassel, Germany. But none of these is as sustainable as the 7000 oaks that Joseph Beuys planted for the documenta 7 in 1982. It was officially finished in 1987 and the work is called ‘7000 Eichen – Stadtverwaldung statt Stadtverwaltung‘, a pun that only works in German. It means that you should create forests in the city (‘Stadtverwaldung‘) instead of administering a city (‘Stadtverwaltung‘).
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When you’ve been at Kassel, Germany you might have been pretty close to this documenta artwork without noticing it. It is nearly invisible because it goes down one kilometer into the earth – and there is not much to see. ‘Vertikaler Erdkilometer‘ has been created by artist Walter De Maria for the documenta 6 in 1977. It can be found on the Friedrichsplatz between the Fridericianum and the monument for Frederick II, Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel.
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