Sights Archives ⋆ Page 66 of 152 ⋆ The Passenger

September 8, 2019September 29, 2019

Flowstone cave

When local citizen Ahmet Diti was gathering rock for building his house in 1969 he found an opening in the mountains and after climbing in he saw endless stalagtites. The cave he discovered by this is the Shpella e Gadimës at Gadime e Poshtme, Kosovo. It has then been preserved, the floor covered in concrete and opened to visitors. On a 1400 meters long path you can now see how water has washed out this cave, see small lakes, stalagtites and stalagmites and dosh growing in artificial light.

September 8, 2019April 19, 2022

Osman mosques

Prishtinë, the capital city of Kosovo doesn’t have big mosque – even though 95 % of Kosovans are muslims. Therefore the believers use many small mosques throughout the city and in the old city center two beautiful Osman mosques can be found next to each other: the Xhamia e Madhe, the Xhamia e Jashar Pashës and the Xhamia e Çarshisë. When you’re visiting the Kosovo museum or the ethnologic museum take your time to stop there.

September 8, 2019September 29, 2019

National library

Biblioteka Kombëtare Pjetër Bogdani, Prishtinë

The Biblioteka Kombëtare e Kosovës ‘Pjetër Bogdani’ (BKK) at Pristhinë, Kosovo is maybe the most impressive building of the city. It is the largest library of the Kosovo and was founded at Prizren in 1944. It moved to the new building located at the university area near the city center of Pristhinë in 1982. The building was designed by Andrija Mutnjaković, is decorated with numerous steel elements and has 99 cupolas.

September 8, 2019September 29, 2019

Katedralja e së Lumes Nënë Tereza

Islam is the most important religion in Kosovo, 95 % of the Kosovans are muslims. Nevertheless the biggest and most visible house of prayer in Prishtinë is Roman-Catholic: the Mother Teresa Cathedral (Katedralja e së Lumes Nënë Tereza) at the Bulevardi Bill Klinton. While there is still no central big mosque and the muslims need to visit smaller distributed – often ancient – ones the Catholic church wanted to set a sign and the local government accepted and supported this.

September 7, 2019January 7, 2023

Bill Clinton

When you get to the city of Prishtinë, Kosovo you will discover the strong appreciation of the locals towards the 42nd president of the United States of America: Bill Clinton. A big road in the city center is named Bulevardi Bill Klinton (the ‘K’ is no joke) and a statue of him. While we remember him as the guy who betrayed his wife with a trainee (‘I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky‘) he is seen in much better light in Kosovo. Another national hero is his former foreign minister Madeleine Albright for whom another statue was built. Why is that?

September 1, 2019September 29, 2019

Depot

The Sächsisches Eisenbahnmuseum (Saxonian railway museum) at Chemnitz, Germany is a hidden gem for railway enthusiasts. It is located at the former Bahnbetriebswerk at Chemnitz-Hilbersdorf – a railway depot where until 1988 the maintenance for steam engine locomotives was carried out. It consists of two roundhouses filled with steam, diesel and electric locomotives, a narrow-gauge field railway and a lot more to discover. You can roam the vast area of the museum freely – which is part of the fun.

August 31, 2019September 29, 2019

Wasserschloß Klaffenbach

Ten kilometers afar of the city center of Chemnitz, Germany you can find a wonderful castle surrounded by water – the Wasserschloß Klaffenbach. It was built between 1555 and 1560 in renaissance style and you can pass the moat on a stone bridge. In addition to the round lake the castle is standing in some V-shaped buildings are attached that today house a restaurant and a hotel. This place is nowadays often used for concerts of various music styles.

August 31, 2019September 29, 2019

Parkeisenbahn

In the Eastern Bloc there was an interesting tradition: narrow-gauge railways were built for the amusement of children. They were operated by the youth organizations of the local communist parties following the procedures and standards of normal railways. In the GDR they were all located within parks and typically had round courses. They were called ‘Pioniereisenbahn‘ – as the mass organisation for children in the GDR was the ‘Pionierorganisation Ernst Thälmann‘ (a copy of the Soviet ‘Komsomol‘). In 1990 the railways were renamed to ‘Parkeisenbahn‘ to remove the political touch.

August 31, 2019September 29, 2019

Flora and fauna

A good area to relax can be found in the north of Chemnitz, Germany. There you can have a walk in the vast Küchwald park (and ride a narrow-gauge steam-engine train) and you’ll also find a nice botanical garden. It was already created in 1898 and contains numerous middle-European plants, a tropical greenhouse with crop plants, a collection of succulents and much more animals than you would expect at such a place.

August 31, 2019September 29, 2019

Roter Turm

You wouldn’t guess it while visiting Chemnitz, Germany, but the Roter Turm (red tower) is considered the town’s landmark. It is a tower standing close to the city center which was built as a bergfried in the 12th century. Later it was included into the city fortifications and used as a prison. August Bebel (one of the founders of the Social Democratic Party in Germany) was one of the well-known ‘guests’ there, but that’s not the reason for the name: the material used to build it (tuff) has a red colour by nature. The fame of this building roots in the fact that it is older than Chemnitz and older than the city of Dresden.