Memories and hints of a travelling IT professional.
In medieval times it was important to know very fast what’s happening around your city. Therefore Göttingen hat a set of watchtowers (‘Warten‘) and the Diemardener Warte is one of the few that are preserved. You can reach it when leaving Göttingen to the south in the direction of Gleichen. It was built in the year 1409 and you can enjoy views on Göttingen, Klein Lengden and Diemarden from there.
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When the people of Göttingen leave their homes for an extended walk, they most often go to the Kehr, the surrounding forest, the Kerstlingeröder Feld, or the Kiessee. But many people also prefer to spend their time in the south of the city, very often close to the Flütewehr. There a dam redirects river Leine to the east, leaving only a small stream called Flüte who passes the Kiessee. They dam can be used to cross the river and close-by dogs can swim in the water. As the newest addition a biotope with zebus has been created.
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The Elisabethkirche of Marburg an der Lahn, Germany is a special one: it is the oldest purely gothic-style church in Germany. Isn’t that a reason to get to this small university town in the middle between Frankfurt am Main and Kassel? The church was built from the year 1235 on and was consecrated in 1283. This construction project was done by the Teutonic Order (a.k.a. The Order of Brothers of the German House of Saint Mary in Jerusalem). They’ve built the church on top of the grave of Saint Elizabeth of Thuringia (1207-1231). She was a Hungarian princess married to Louis IV, Landgrave of Thuringia.
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One of the two multiplex cinemas in the center of Kassel, Germany, is the Filmpalast. It was formerly known as CineStar but received a complete redesign and rebranding in 2019/2020 – shortly before the outbreak of the Coronavirus pandemic in Germany. They were able to re-open for one week and than had to close-down again for months. But they opened a virus testing lab inside and lead all clients through the cinema to show off the new beauty. Fair enough, the Filmpalast is by far the best multiplex of the region and my most favorite cinema.
Continue reading “Neue Kaskade”
You can be born in a city and live there for thirty years and you still can’t have seen everything: I was quite surprised when I learned about a fountain called ‘Tränke‘ (watering place) at my hometown Göttingen, Germany. It is a fountain that dates back to the year 1776 (!) and is today a protected memorial. The water comes from the Ratsbrunnen well and runs via a large stone into a trough.
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The Filmladen (lit. ‘movie shop‘) is an arthouse cinema at the city quarter Vorderer Westen of Kassel, Germany. It was opened in 1981 and created by a student movie initiative. The resulting non-profit organization Verein Filmladen Kassel e. V. is still today operating this rather non-commercial cinema; and that’s amazing as the cinema shows all the films that you would never see in a multiplex cinema but are really worth being screened.
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The railway station of Kassel is a place that many people pass by, but it is also the Kulturbahnhof; a location to spend time at with bars, the Caricatura and also a cinema. When you pass through the main hall of the railway station you’ll see the entrance to the BALi, which is the abbreviation for Bahnhofslichtspiele. I came here for a show of three editors-in-chief of the famous German satirical newspaper Titanic: Oliver Maria Schmitt, Thomas Gsella and Martin Sonneborn.
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Is the central library Oodi at Helsinki a place you should really visit? Of course! Because it is like a blueprint how libraries should be everywhere in the world. The new building was opened in 2018 and the fantastic architecture acts as a bridge between the analog and the digital world. Oodi combines the classic library offering printed books with a digital library, with 3D printers, a cinema, with a recording studio, with video games… It creates so many good reasons to visit the library.
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One of the most important places to visit is the former fortress island Suomenlinna located in front of Helsinki. What was once the Fortress of the Finns is now a city quarter of the capital city with 800 permanent residents and one million visitors every year. Here you can explore very well-preserved ancient fortifications spread over five islands. You can easily access Suomenlinna by ferry boat from the Helsinki harbor.
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The island Seurasaari in the north-west of Helsinki gives you the option to travel in time. An open-air museum exhibits 87 buildings from the Finnish countryside that have been built between the 17th and the 20th century and later transported to the island. This includes farm buildings, a church and even a mill. The staff is dressed-up in historic clothes and able to tell you more about the function of the buildings and rural life in the past.
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