Memories and hints of a travelling IT professional.
The icon of the city of Nürnberg, Germany, is also the place most visitors go to first: the castle. In fact it is a combination of two castles, the Kaiserburg and the Burggrafenburg. It dates back to the year 1000 CE and is located on a rock in the north of the city center. The castle was important during the times of the Holy Roman Empire (962-1806 CE), starting with the Holy Roman Emperors Henry III, IV and V.
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Salt, also referred to as the white gold, is used for many purposes: for nutrition and cosmetics, to clear roads in winter time, to preserve food and many more. Sodium chloride (NaCl) is typically gathered from sea water (sea salt) or by mining halite (rock salt) underground. In few cases brine is gathered from the ground, a highly concentrated solution of salt in water – it is then heated to let the water evaporate. One of these places is the Saline Luisenhall at Göttingen, Germany; Europe’s last saline that uses giant iron pans to recover salt from brine.
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Throughout Germany you can find many statues and memorials in form of towers created for three persons: Otto von Bismarck, Wilhelm I, and his grandson Wilhelm II. They’ve mostly been funded by donations of the citizens. That is also the case with the tower overlooking Marburg an der Lahn: It was built in 1887 to commemorate the creation of the German Empire and the victory in the Franco-Prussian War in 1870/1871. It was named Kaiser-Wilhelm-Turm after Wilhelm I, king in Prussia.
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The city of Marburg an der Lahn, Germany, has only 74,000 inhabitants. But it is an university town with a long history and therefore has something unusual for a city of that size: a wonderful art museum. The building was created in 1925 to commemorate the foundation of the university 400 years ago and therefore named Jubiläumsbau. Within the institutes for art and culture were concentrated that were until then distributed throughout the city.
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Above the beautiful historic city center of Marburg an der Lahn, Germany, you can find a castle with strong fortifications, the Landgrafenschloss or Marburger Schloss. It was created as a medieval castle in the 11th century and was changed over time by the Ludovingians and the landgraves of Thuringia. Later it became the first residence of the landgraviate of Hesse in the late 13th century and therefore it has a place in the history of this federal country of Germany.
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You can learn a lot about the history of Göttingen by walking through its streets and visiting important places. But for some stories you have to explore the underground and have a look at the cellars in the city center. Fortunately, the tourist information organizes guided tours that show you hidden Jewish ritual baths, ancient floor heating systems, a sewer of a former monastery and a beautiful vaulted cellar. Some have been known all the time, others have been temporarily forgotten and rediscovered.
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The Sputnik (Russian for ‘satellite‘) is just a small bar located in the Imadstraße close to the city center of Paderborn. It is a well-known bar but not a big concert location. I came to Paderborn to attend a concert of Fortuna Ehrenfeld and Nevis at a club called Wohlsein, but that one couldn’t be used due to renovation works by the landlord.
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For sure also Paderborn has a Museum für Stadtgeschichte that collects items from the history of the city. It was first located in the historic Adam-und-Eva-Haus, a half-timbered house north of the cathedral. In 2015 it moved to a modern building on the grounds of the former Abdinghof cloister. The museum is rather small but very modern.
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What many people don’t know is that the modern history of Paderborn is deeply connected to computing. In 1968 Heinz Nixdorf founded the Nixdorf Computer AG which was an important computer manufacturer. It was later acquired by Siemens and the name Wincor Nixdorf become later known mostly for Automatic Teller Machines (ATMs) and cash desk systems. We all have probably already withdrawn money at machines produced at Paderborn.
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Schloß Neuhaus is a castle in Weser Renaissance style located at the city quarter also named Schloß Neuhaus belonging to Paderborn. It was used as a residence of the bishops of Paderborn since the year 1257. Later it was used for military purposes and today it is used as a school. People come here to have a look at the nice castle surrounded by a water-filled moat and to walk through the wonderful landscape garden surrounding the castle.
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