Memories and hints of a travelling IT professional.
In the south of Duisburg, close to the industrial zone of Angershausen you can find the magic mountain: it is a good example of conversion at the Ruhrgebiet. The 35 meters high hill was once a waste disposal site of a zinc manufacturing company. When the Ruhrgebiet became European Capital of Culture in 2010 it was decided to create an artwork in this location and the design of Heike Mutter and Ulrich Genth won the contest.
Continue reading “Tiger & turtle”
North of the city center of Duisburg you can discover the Innenhafen, an inland port connected to river Rhein which is today surrounded by modern residential homes and office buildings. Part of the harbor is also the Küppersmühle, a former mill that dates back to the year 1860 and which was active until the year 1972. Since 1999 it houses the MKM Museum Küppersmühle für Moderne Kunst, a beautiful museum of modern art that utilizes the former structures of the mill building very well.
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A massive art museum made of the concrete and glass, located in the Immanuel-Kant-Park close to the main railway station of Duisburg – that could be the shortest description of the Lehmbruck-Museum. It is named after and dedicated to the sculptor Wilhelm Lehmbruck born in 1881 at Meiderich near Duisburg. His works were mostly focused on the human body and that is what you get to see most at the Lehmbruck-Museum: faces and bodies.
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In the Southeast of Germany you can find the Chiemsee, the largest lake of Bavaria and after the Lake Constance and the Müritz the third-largest one of Germany – therefore it is also called Bayerisches Meer (Bavarian Sea). It is named after the settlement of Chieming close to the lake and was originally created by a glacier 10,000 years ago. Within the lake you can find four islands (Herreninsel, Fraueninsel, Krautinsel, Schalch) of very different sizes.
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I’ve been using high-speed trains in Germany very often and always felt secure. Travelling by train is one of the most secure means of transport and there are many technical measures that ensure this, including the European Train Control System (ETCS), dedicated allowances to use a railway track as well as automated braking the train if the train driver is not responding or the train too fast. When travelling by car you have a 164 times higher risk to get injured than in a train. But even a system like this can never be 100 % secure and we all had to learn that on June 3rd, 1998, when the most severe accident of European high-speed trains happened close to a small city in Lower Saxony.
Continue reading “Eschede”
The horror of Bergen-Belsen evolved over time. First, this place located between Celle and Soltau was a military training ground, then it became a camp for prisoners of war from France, Italy and the Soviet Union. From 1943 on the SS turned parts of the camp site into concentration camp; some of the Jewish inmates were planned to be exchanged against Germans detained outside of Germany, others were transported further on to extinction camps. At the end of the World War II concentration camps close to the battle zones were evacuated and tens of thousands were brought to Bergen-Belsen. Overall 38,000 humans died on this soil while the concentration camp was operating. Unfortunately around 14,000 died after the liberation because of illnesses and bad supply.
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The region around Lake Constance is one which offers a lot for tourists and especially for the cold and rainy days that happen throughout the year multiple spas have been created along the shore of the lake. The one closest to Konstanz is the Bodensee-Therme, an indoor and outdoor pool as well as a sauna three kilometers afar from the city center. In summer times you can also jump into the lake for relaxation. The Bodensee-Therme is beautifully illuminated at night and the best feature is the nice view on the lake from the outside pool.
Continue reading “Illuminated”
If you mention the city of Konstanz to me the first thing that pops up in my head is the image of Imperia, the female statue standing at the harbor entrance of Konstanz. The funny thing is: it is a modern statue created by Peter Lenk and inaugurated in 1993. The 18 tones heavy statue is rotating continuously and already has become an icon if the city – and that is special because of what it is showing: a prostitute holding a naked pope and a naked king in her hands.
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Once you reach the Pfahlbaumuseum at Unteruhldingen you will be astonished: within the Lake Constance and at its shore there are more than twenty different houses standing on wooden poles. You can walk on elevated paths and platforms around them, get inside and experience how life in this region was more than 6,000 years ago. Of course these buildings are all reconstructions, but they’re based on archaelogical work. The water preserved the timber, the construction dates can be read from the wood and the findings from the ground of the lake are on display at the museum.
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No time to visit the Louvre, the British Museum, the Prado and the Musei Vaticani? Fortunately the university of Göttingen has the oldest collection of replicas of statues of the classical era – and still today it is one of the largest collections in the world. The 2,000 plaster casts stored by the archaeological institute show works exhibited in 150 museums around the globe. 1,000 of them are permanently on display, including the Venus de Milo, the Winged Victory of Samothrace and Laocoön and His Sons. The collection of mostly Roman and Greek statues was started by professor Christian Gottlob Heyne in the year 1767 for his own lectures.
Continue reading “Gipsabgußsammlung”