Terra sicula

Terra sicula, Baunatal

Was your last vacation in Italy already too long ago? If you’re searching for the best pizza of Baunatal, Germany, you need to know where to look for it: in an industrial zone of the city quarter Großenritte. There you’ll find the pizzeria Terra sicula (Sicilian soil) which offers the typical Italian dishes in outstanding quality. The walls are decorated with images from Corleone – so I wouldn’t dare to say something else. 😉

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Burg Heiligenberg

Burg Heiligenberg, Gensungen, Felsberg

Once you climbed up the Heiligenberg mountain you can understand why already during the Iron Age humans used this place to build a fortification. It is a nearly 400 meters high basaltic mountain and the first castle was built here between 1180 and 1186 CE. Today you can visit the remaining walls, a well-preserved gate, you can use one of the many places to sit down for a picnic or climb up onto the short tower to enjoy good views on the city Felsberg.

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Felsburg

Felsburg, Felsberg

It is absolutely impossible to overlook the castle Felsburg at Felsberg, Germany. It sits on a basaltic cone next to the city and is nearly 30 meters high. First mentioned in the year 1060 CE it was built to protect the strategically important passage through river Eder which was part of an important inner-German trade channel. The castle is in good shape and you can climb up on different paths to take a look at it.

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Table mount

Burghasunger Berg, Zierenberg

Northern Hesse has its own table mount! Not as vast as the Table Mountain in Cape Town, South Africa but very worth a visit. When coming from Kassel, Germany, you need to pass around the Bergpark Wilhelmshöhe and then you will see it very fast: the Burghasunger Berg belonging to Zierenberg. The mountain is flat and on top, you will find a small lake, the ruins of a former cloister, good views and some places to rest.

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Hessen Kassel

KSV Hessen Kassel - TSV Schott Mainz, Auestadion, Kassel

The KSV Hessen Kassel is a football club with a big history and a stadium (the Auestadion) rather fitting to the past than to the present. It was an obvious idea to watch a match but I simply didn’t do it after moving to Kassel – shortly after I decided to buy a ticket, SARS-CoV-2 appeared and all matches were cancelled or no spectators were allowed. Now the large stadium becomes an advantage: people can watch matches during the pandemic safely while adhering to the distance rules. Against TSV Schott Mainz around 2,000 people (in a stadium for more than 18,000 persons) saw the first home game of the new season.

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Mirroring the clouds

European Central Bank, Frankfurt am Main

When passing through the East of Frankfurt you might certainly see a giant skyscraper. It doesn’t look like a part of a skyline – it is standing out and surrounded by rather small buildings and residential zones. The giant glass windows look like a giant mirroring and it is really an amazing piece of architecture. That doesn’t only seem to be my opinion; for some years, every time when I was passing through the Ostend with friends one of them said: ‘Do you see this building? That is the new European Central Bank!‘. Proudly. Like it doesn’t happen so often with a skyscraper in Frankfurt.

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Café Crumble

Bockenheimer Warte, Frankfurt am Main

There are endless good options to have a nice breakfast in Frankfurt, Germany. But if you’re looking for a plain, non-touristy coffee bar aside from the busy city centre you might like the Café Crumble. It is located not far away from the Bockenheimer Warte and offers seats inside and outside in a small backyard. The Crumble is a cosy place which offers a small but good range of breakfast: from vegetarian to sea fruit, from sweet to Greek.

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Glitzerschwein

Fortuna Ehrenfeld, acht&siebzig, Hannover

The Coronavirus changed everything in 2020. From one day to the other many things making life enjoyable became impossible and that included for sure also concerts. It is still absolutely unimaginable to stand in large crowds, sing and dance. All events are moved into 2021 and bands, concert venues and tour organizers are facing pretty tough times. After half a year without live music, I‘m also suffering and realizing what a luxury culture is.

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Kurbad Jungborn

Kollektivcafé Kurbad Jungborn, Kassel

When it is getting hot outside the people in Kassel, Germany, gather on both sides of the river Fulda running through the city. The Fulda is used for swimming and all kinds of watersports and bathing in the river has a very long tradition. In earlier times there were Flußbadeanstalten – supervised places dedicated to swimming in the river. One of them is today the Auebad, the largest indoor and outdoor pool of the city. Another one you will automatically see when moving close to the Orangerie and the Spitzhacke: the Kurbad Jungborn which is today a museum and a coffee bar.

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Elefantenklo

Bismarckstein, Göttingen

A strange building made of stone hidden behind high trees in the forest. A temple? A ruin? If you walk around the building on the Klausberg in Göttingen, Germany, you will spot a tiny inscription: ‘Gedenkstein für Otto von Bismarck‘, a memorial for the former imperial chancellor. It is officially called ‘Bismarckstein‘ but the locals have a different name for it: ‘Elefantenklo‘ (elephant loo). Bismarck was very famous by his time even though his role in history has a lot of dark sides – but the people were willing to donate for memorials to commemorate him.

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