Memories and hints of a travelling IT professional.
When you’re standing next to the Steinertsee at Kaufungen, Germany you won’t directly notice that it is an artificial lake and you can’t image what happened here in the past. Between 1955 and 1967 brown coal was taken from the earth of the Steinertfeld. Between 1960 and 1968 this place was additionally used as a waste dump – but from 1971 on things changed and a large recreation area (the Steinertseepark) was created.
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The Gut Windhausen at Niestetal, Germany is a hidden gem that already has seen better days. A village at this location was mentioned first in 1241, the ownership changed over time. The best times began when Maria Anna Amalia of Courland, the wife of Charles I, landgrave of Hesse-Kassel bought the area and general Martin Ernst von Schlieffen moved in. A manor house in baroque style was built here by his request from 1769 on.
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Once upon a time the region between Nieste and Staufenberg, Germany was the borderland between the Electorate of Hesse and the Duchy of Brunswick-Lüneburg (that is also the reason why today you can find here the border between Lower Saxony and Hesse). In 1372 Hermann II, landgrave of Hesse errected a castle here – the Sensenstein as a response to the older castle Sichelnstein on Brunswick territory.
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The Münchner Tierpark Hellabrunn is the zoological garden of München, Germany. It was opened in 1911 and you can visit 18500 animals of more than 700 species. It is located at Giesing-Harlaching close to the wetlands of the river Isar, the Flauchersteg and the Flaucher. It is financed by the city of München as well as many private donors and participates in 38 wildlife conservation programs.
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The Flaucher is a section of the river Isar close to the city center of München, Germany and the Tierpark Hellabrunn. There the river spreads into different arms creating various river islands. It is an area that is used for recreation, for swimming and to have barbecues. In summer it gets pretty crowded but if you’re lucky you can find your own semi-private section here between trees.
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It’s no secret that along the river Isar at München, Germany you can find the best places to relax. Close to the Baldeplatz there are nice green areas to sit close to the water, to walk through the shallow parts of the river or to enjoy the faster flow around the Weideninsel (willow island) within the river.
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Every year there is a music festival at the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Park (or KWP) at Göttingen, Germany. I never knew where this place is until I found it by accident close to the Bismarckturm in the southeast of the city. It was a restaurant built in 1895 as a destination for hikers. In 1900 the place was renamed to Bürgerpark (citizens park) and it was named like that until it was torn down in 1970.
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A small memorial on the square in front of the railway station of Göttingen, Germany reminds you of Charlotte Müller – the oldest street merchant in the world (as the writing underneath states and as it is written in the Guinness book of world records). But most visitors of the city won’t find the statue underneath the tree and behind those numerous bicycles standing around everywhere.
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The protestant church St. Albani at Göttingen, Germany is unfortunately one of these churches you typically won’t recognize – even as a local. It is standing next to a giant parking area belonging to the Stadthalle event hall, in an area of the city center you won’t visit that often. Most people see it just from the reverse side as it was once standing directly next to the fortifications of the city.
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In 1939 Nazi Germany and the Soviet union signed the Hitler-Stalin Pact also called Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact because it was in fact signed by the two foreign ministers at Москва́. As part of this treaty of non-aggression the Baltic states were declared to be part of the Soviet union in the future. 50 years later the people of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania declared their desire for independence by creating a 650 kilometers long humain chain – the longest human chain in history.
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