Germany
Niederwiesa

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  • Day 20

    Medieval Market

    December 15, 2024 in Germany ⋅ ☁️ 39 °F

    For a place we never planned to go, and not seeing any museums, castles, et cetera, I have a lot of pictures of this place...

    That said, this was a very nice medieval market. The workers were dressed in costume, which was hit or miss in the others we went to. They had they usual kitchy things: the hair bands and fake swords for kids, and believe me, I've bought my share of that stuff with four homeschooled kids. They also had a few craft booths, the printer was interesting, and of course food and drink.

    There's a few last pictures of the other market as well, along with the really very delicious Lebkuchen with whipped cream waffle we had on our way out to the car.

    If we ever get back to this part of Germany, I wouldn't mind coming to Chemnitz to see some of the museums. I've only heard negative things about the place, but I liked it, from what we saw.
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  • Day 20

    Jakobkirch

    December 15, 2024 in Germany ⋅ ☁️ 37 °F

    Another city, another church. This one was originally built between 1350 and 1412. Not much of anything from the pre-war period remains, as it was pretty much gutted by bombing in March 1945. They even have a model and photos to show the damage.

    Still, I always like to visit churches, find what's interesting, nice to look at in them. They had a section of the old wall visible, as well as an area of reconstructed painting. It reminded me of the colors in the Frauenkirche in Dresden. The highlight of this visit was the display of nativity scenes, which is in a separate post.

    Lutherans will appreciate the words over the door, "A Fortress is our God".
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  • Day 20

    Chemnitz

    December 15, 2024 in Germany ⋅ ☁️ 36 °F

    Well, we never planned to come here, but events brought us to this place. Chemnitz is/was a very heavily industrial city. It was forty-one percent destroyed during the war, and some of it wasn't rebuilt until after Reunification. It was the most stereotypically "East German" place we've been, mainly due to the apartment blocks, though we also saw some of those in Erfurt and outside of Dresden.

    There are a few interesting looking museums, but we were tired and got a late start. Not to mention, we had a mission. We had to buy that suitcase.

    Even after we got it, and put it in the trunk, we had already given up on culture. We decided to find the giant head of Karl Marx-- the city was named Karl Marx Stadt from 1953 until just after Reunification when seventy-six percent of the citizens voted to change it back. We also hit the Christmas market, which was in the Marktplatz and then spread out from there until it ran into the Medieval market, though they called it something else.

    We made a visit to the Jakobskirche, which had a nice display of nativity scenes.

    Besides the interesting museums we also missed getting a picture of the Red Tower, one of the few remaining old defensive towers even though we walked passed it several times in our search for the Woolworths. Which we also kept walking past...
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  • Day 15

    Grünhainchen

    December 10, 2024 in Germany ⋅ ☁️ 34 °F

    You'll notice there's a day missing. I was sick. Like wiped out, unable to get out of bed sick. So sick we missed our concert at the Frauenkirche, so no Bach live in Germany for me. No idea what it was, but it was a complete and epic crash, that I was almost fully recovered from the next day.

    Good thing too, because we picked up a car in Dresden and headed south for the hills. Literally, because we were going to the Erzgebirge, the Ore Mountains. We set off a bit after eight, into a mixture of fog and snow. As we got out of Dresden, the roads got narrower, the center lane disappeared, and we started to see some snow flakes mixed in with the rain.

    Originally, we were only going to take a day trip down to the town of Seiffen, then go one town over to Olbernau, the place my grandmother was born in 1903. The trip expanded. The more I read about the region, and passed on the Steve, the more we wanted to see. For one thing, the Erzgebirge is considered by many to be the source of many modern German Christmas traditions, and is really popular with Germans who want to experience "authentic" and "traditional" Christmas markets. So the visit down here was a no-brainer for us.

    First stop, Grünhainchen, a village known as the home of Wendt und Kühn, the company who produced and popularized the Elfpunkt Engel: little wooden angels with eleven dots on their wings. The company was founded in 1915, by a local woman named Grete Wendt after returning from her studies at the Royal Saxon School of Applied Arts in Dresden, and her friend Margarethe Kühn. It became famous for a playful, childlike take on the local Erzgebirge traditional woodcarving traditions. W and K survived World War II by making models for officer training, was back in limited business after the war, and managed to avoid nationalization by the DDR until 1972, when the Wendt family was for all intents and purpose forced out. The family regained control of the company after Reunification, and today it's run by a third generation of the Wendt family.

    We couldn't tour the factory, but did watch all the videos showing how the figures are made. We did get to watch them being painted in the shop though. Once we fought our way through the hordes of Germans from the multiple bus tours that had disgorged them just ahead of our arrival, that is.
    The figures are adorable, and they do all sorts of things: the eleven-dot angels, more elaborate angels, Easter things, and various seasonal child figures. They're also still all made by hand, painted individually so therefore expensive. The same basic angel figure, say one playing a trumpet, can vary in price by ten or more Euros based on the paint job.

    Interesting place, but it would have been better to visit in the off season, which apparently is September through early November.
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  • Day 84

    Chemnitz, SN, Germany

    September 22, 2023 in Germany ⋅ ☁️ 16 °C

    # Deutsch
    Es gibt ja das bekannte Sprichwort "eine Schwalbe macht noch keinen Sommer". Etwas abgewandelt lässt sich dies auf Chemnitz anwenden: ein Kopfsteinpflasterplatz macht noch keine Altstadt.
    Einst reich geworden durch den Silberabbau im Erzgebirge, und eine frühe Industrialisierung, wurde die Stadt im Krieg zu 80% zerstört. Unter dem SED-Regime wurde sie dann in "Karl-Marx-Stadt" umbenannt und zu einer sozialistischen Vorzeigestadt umgebaut. Die Folgen davon sind heute deutlich sichtbar. Die in Trümmern liegende Altstadt wurde teilweise mit Plattenbauten, teilweise im Stil des sowjetischen Klassizismus (ja das gibt es wirklich) neu aufgebaut. Der Grundriss der Stadt blieb dabei weitestgehend erhalten. Womit ich zurückkomme auf die Kopfsteinpflaster. Dass die Strassen grösstenteils eine Illusion von Altstadt vermitteln ändert nichts daran, dass es sich anfühlt, als hätte man einen Amerikaner gebeten eine europäische Altstadt nach seinen Vorstellungen nachzubauen. Die Elemente einer Altstadt wie Pflastersteine, Erker, Arkaden und kleine Gässchen sind da, doch das Altstadt-Flair fehlt. Sehenswert sind vorallem die beiden noch erhaltenen Rathäuser, einige wenige alte Gebäude, sowie der monumentale Karl-Marx-Kopf.

    # English
    There is a German saying that "one swallow does not make a summer". With a little modification, this can be applied to Chemnitz: a cobblestone square does not make an old town.
    Once made rich by silver mining in the Ore Mountains and early industrialisation, the city was 80% destroyed in the war. Under the SED regime, it was renamed "Karl-Marx-Stadt" and transformed into a socialist showcase city. The consequences of this are clearly visible today. The old town, which lay in ruins, was partly rebuilt with prefabricated buildings, partly in the style of Soviet classicism (yes, that really exists). The ground plan of the city was largely preserved. Which brings me back to the cobblestones. The fact that the streets largely give the illusion of an old town does not change the fact that it feels as if an American had been asked to recreate a European old town according to his ideas. The elements of an old town such as cobblestones, oriels, arcades and small alleys are there, but the old town flair is missing. The two town halls still standing, a few old buildings and the monumental Karl Marx head are worth seeing, though.
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  • Day 1

    Chemnitz

    May 5, 2023 in Germany ⋅ ☁️ 22 °C

    Thao went to pick me up from the bus station. It's been about 8 months since the las time I saw her. We went to a place to have food and then walked to Sina's house. I was really happy to see them both. They took me to a park, we walked around and ate something at the place where Sina works and then went back to her house. There was a party, so we got dressed up and one of their friends picked us up. The party was fine I was really tired by the time we went back to home. Next day I spent time with Thao in the morning, had breakfast and in the evening went againg to the park and rented a boat. After that, Sina needed to drop her laundry at your dad's house, so I met him. He doesn't speak English so I couldn't really talk to him but he seems like a really funny guy.
    Sina was cooking dinner for us, they bought some stuff at the market and then he headed to her house.
    She prepared lasagna. It was really good!!! Then we whatched a movie and ate icecream.
    Next morning Sina and her friend prepared breakfast.
    We said goodbye cause Sina had to leave to study and Thao and I stayed for some hours more.
    Thao's brother arrived and after a while we walked to the place where they had their stuff.
    Thao's mom's friends arrived at 11pm, Thao was just so upset cause they were suppous to get ther at 6.
    We put everything in their truck and took off.
    We got to Berlin around 2am.
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  • Day 3

    Große Vögel

    August 12, 2019 in Germany ⋅ ⛅ 20 °C

    Ein Stück sind wir weiter gen Osten gefahren in Richtung Dresden. In Striegistal gibts ne Landvergnügenstation auf nem Straußenhof, da machen wir hinterm Hofladen Halt. Natürlich haben wir auch etwas gekauft: Straußengulasch und Wiener, Bratwürste waren leider aus.Read more

  • Day 1

    Chemnitz Tag 1

    March 1 in Germany ⋅ ☁️ 4 °C

    Bei unserem 1. Tag in der europäischen Kulturhauptstadt Chemnitz wollten wir eigentlich ins Industriemuseum gehen, das war uns dann aber zu weit weg. Deshalb sind wir durch die Innenstadt flaniert. Dort gibt es eigentlich alles zum shoppen, dass haben wir jedoch nicht gemacht. Die Straßen waren relativ leer, die größte Mall jedoch (die eigentlich ziemlich klein war), war sehr voll. Dann habe ich noch mit meinem guten Freund Karl in Selfie gemacht.
    Wir haben auch ein paar Pinguine gesehen, da Chemnitz angeblich so aussieht wie die Antarktis. Dann haben wir noch einen millionen Jahre alten versteinerten Wald gesehen. Zum Abschluss des Tages haben wir noch aus unserem Hotelzimmer die Wunderbare Skyline von Chemnitz gesehen
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  • Day 1

    Kolumbien, wir kommen!

    December 29, 2019 in Germany ⋅ ⛅ 1 °C

    Mittweida.
    Winter.
    -1°C.
    Die Frisur sitzt... nicht.
    Da kann man ja nur verreisen!

    Also auf zur letzten Fahrt Richtung Chemnitzer Hauptbahnhof.
    Dort angekommen wurden wir von Christophs Familie überrascht, die uns den Abschied dann doch nochmal schwerer gemacht hat, als gedacht 😥Read more

  • Day 15

    Tag 15: Rostock - Erzgebirge

    August 29, 2024 in Germany ⋅ ☀️ 28 °C

    Ein wenig konnte ich in der Nacht schlafen, allerdings auf drei Stühlen, mit dem Beinen durch die Lehne gesteckt, etwas unbequem. Leider gab es auch ziemlichen Wellengang, weswegen mir anfangs ziemlich schlecht war. Um 6 Uhr haben wir in Rostock angelegt und ich konnte 6:30 Uhr rausfahren. Mein erster Stop war das FitX in Rostock, nur mal schnell schauen, wie es da aussieht und eine Stunde trainieren. Allerdings habe ich schnell gemerkt: Ich bin ziemlich fertig und vor der Hitze will ich heim. Also bin ich dann schnurstracks heim bei angegeben 4h 37 min, habe ich 27 min rausgefahren und kam dann nach 4h 10 min kurz vor 13 Uhr zu Hause an. Es war eine unfassbar tolle Zeit.
    Insgesamt habe ich 4.100 Kilometer mit meinem Auto zurückgelegt.
    Danke, dass ihr mich auf meiner Reise begleitet habt❣️
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