Memories and hints of a travelling IT professional.
Bad weather at Bamberg? Don’t worry! The city has a good natural history museum with one of the most beautiful ancient presentation rooms (the Vogelsaal) I’ve ever seen. This special room once belonging to the university was finished in 1810 and is still in its original state. It was formerly used to teach biology and hosts are large collection of birds.
Continue reading “Naturkundemuseum”
The Neue Residenz is an impressive ancient building close to the cathedral of Bamberg. It was the residence of the bishops from 1604 on and replaced the Alte Hofhaltung on the opposite side of the street in this function. The building consists of two sections, one in Renaissance and one in Baroque style. From 1803 on the Neue Residenz became a home of the Bavarian kings when Bavaria expropriated church property on a large scale.
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Next to the cathedral of Bamberg you can find the Alte Hofhaltung, the residence of the bishops. It was built in the 15th century CE but the area was used by rulers much longer than that: the direct predecessor was an imperial palace (a so called Kaiserpfalz) built by Henry II, Holy Roman Emperor. Today it is a beautiful, quiet place and you can relax in its inner courtyard.
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The city of Regensburg has written proof when it was founded: in the year 179 CE the Roman fortification Castra Regina was built. This is stated on a stone which was part of the Porta Praetoria which is partially still standing today. It says ‘Emperor Caesar Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus (…) had a fortification with gates and towers built for the 3rd Italian Legion (…)‘ and can be found in the Historisches Museum at the Dachauplatz.
Continue reading “More than Roman history”
When foreigners think about Germany they most often first think of Bavarian things: the Oktoberfest, the Schuhplattler dance, the Lederhose, the Weißwurst, or even the FC Bayern München. That is because the Bavarians are within Germany one of the few groups with a strong identity and preserved historic traditions. And a lot of self-esteem with which they annoy the rest of the country.
Continue reading “Mia san Mia”
When you’re visiting a small town with 65,000 inhabitants you’re not expecting to find impressive museums within. Fulda in the heart of Germany is an exception, as it hosts the Vonderau-Museum at the university square in the city center. It was founded in 1875 and is a surprisingly good combination of a natural history museum, an art collection, a lapidary and a planetarium.
Continue reading “All in one”
One of the good reasons to visit Hildesheim, Germany, is the RPM; the Roemer- und Pelizaeus-Museum. It is known because of its vast collection on Egypt and that’s something you typically wouldn’t expect: an Egyptology museum in a middle-sized city in rural Lower Saxony. Wilhelm Pelizaeus, a merchant from Hildesheim, was living for 40 years in Cairo and in 1907 he gave his private collection to his hometown. Four years later they were exhibited in a museum created only for this purpose, the Pelizaeus-Museum.
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The cathedral of Hildesheim is a Roman-Catholic church officially named the Dom Mariä Himmelfahrt. Together with the church St. Michaelis it is since 1985 a UNESCO world heritage site and a good example of religious art during the Holy Roman Empire. The composition of buildings itself is already worth a visit, but the site also includes a museum exhibiting the enormous treasures collected over time. Additionally the icon of the city, the so-called 1,000 years old rosebush is also growing in the courtyard of the cathedral – therefore nearly every visitor of the city takes a look inside this treasure box.
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Did you know that Lüneburg became rich because of the salt underneath the city? It is said that while hunting a wild boar appeared who was covered in salt. By that the people found out about the salt that was washed out by ground water. They pumped this so called brine to the surface, distributed it with wooden pipes throughout the city, cooked it in large pans and thereby recovered the white gold.
Continue reading “Deutsches Salzmuseum”
Until 1933 the area around the Dutzendteich lake in the East of Nürnberg, Germany, was used for recreation. People could swim in the lake and restaurants as well as coffee bars were a much welcomed destination for an excursion on weekends. In the Luitpoldhain park nearby the Luitpoldhalle in art nouveau style was home to exhibitions and the park was used for political rallies. And then in 1933 the fascist organization Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (NSDAP) decided to make Nürnberg the host city for their political rallies, the Reichsparteitage, for the next 100 years.
Continue reading “Reichsparteitagsgelände”