Pictures & Stories

The Egg of Thought

2008-09-08T20:42:00.005+02:00

Whoa, what's this?

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An Egg of Thought, of course, can't you read? ;-)

Okay, it really is only an egg-shaped composite made out of panoramas taken inside and outside the Academy of Mont Cenis in Herne, Germany. This academy for vocational education is a magnificent building with a quite extraordinary architecture. Basically it has two long wings: The first contains hotel rooms for the people attending courses for more than one day. The second offers large and small rooms for lectures, workshops, seminars, and in addition to that a reception, a canteen and - for the evenings - a bar.

These two wings are covered by a large "glass box" with a clever computerized air flow system that allows for a "Mediterranean" climate inside the box (the architects claim that the climate of Nice is replicated here) - with only a low amount of energy used. In addition to that the large roof is furnished with a very large number of solar collectors covering 10.000 square meters, reducing the energy intake of the building even further.

Another thing to know is that this academy was built on the location of an old coal mine also called "Mont Cenis". Since we're in the heart of the Ruhr Area this modern academy at the same spot as the old mine sort of symbolizes the economic change this huge area has made - from the coal and steel center of Europe to a center of the modern service society. At least this is what the politicians like to tell ...

Enough words - now for some pictures; among them some of the panoramic pictures used for the "Egg" you've seen above. This is what the building's glass box looks from its rear end, near some remains of old mine buildings:

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And this is the first panoramic glimpse of the glass box, taken from the side, showing the building and its side entrance:

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And here we go with the first view of the interior of the building, taken from a balcony at the middle of the "office wing", looking towards the "hotel wing" - you can see part of the canteen on the left side:

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This second interior shot is an 360 degree panorama, taken near the main entrance of the building:

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For a change here a another 360 degree view, but now circling from the bottom to the top of the building and back again - taken from another point of view in the rear part of the glass box:

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Well, I admit that this is not really 360 degrees; the picture is cropped at the left and right sides, because those consisted mainly of grey gravel, adding nothing much to the composition. So we've a field of view of around 270-300 degrees only.

Finally a view somewhat similar to the first interior panorama posted above - of the academy's interior at night:

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And that's it! Hope you enjoyed this tour of the academy - a true "Egg of Thought"! :-)

Blue hour in Bardolino

2008-08-31T13:24:00.007+02:00

Bardolino is a nice, small town at the Lake of Garda, renowned especially for its popular wines.

It's a quiet, but in the summer quite popular place. Tourists like to stroll in the Old Town of Bardolino in the evening, leisurely walking and looking at the shops in the central, longish Piazza Matteotti that connects to the harbor.

Here some panoramic impressions of Bardolino, mainly of the Piazza Matteotti and the harbor - be careful, some of them are presented in a somewhat unusual fashion, as you will see. Be sure to click on the links below the pictures to see the large size versions of them; sometimes even two sizes are offered. All pictures were taken shortly before or during the "Blue hour", the time between sundown and night.

First a glimpse of the populated Piazza Matteotti with its shops and restaurants:

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Now a panoramic view of the harbor, depicting it in four different stages of light before and during said "Blue Hour":

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A very large version you'll find here.

Another way to combine those different stages of light is not to stack them, but to combine them in a single image, as done here with the first and last one seen above:

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Moving to the back of the harbor here just another possibility to combine day and night scenes of the same panoramic view:

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An even slightly larger version you'll find here.

And with this last view taken at the close of the Blue Hour - a long time exposure panorama of the harbor from a different point of view - we'll finish our special "Bardolino experience" for now:

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Torri del Benaco

2008-08-19T21:06:00.004+02:00

Lake Garda has a lot of nice old towns at its borders, but Torri del Benaco is sure one of the prettiest. It is a rather quiet and picturesque place with a long history, dating back to the Romans. This is reflected by the still impressive remains of the castle, built in 1383, but incorporating old parts of a Roman citadel and a castle from the 10th century that resided at the same spot. This is a 360 degree panoramic view from the highest tower of the castle:

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Close to the right to the woman with the red dress you see a wooden construction adjacent to one of the walls of the castle. This is the roof of a "Limonaia", an orchard for growing citrus fruit, that was built in the late 17th century and is still used for that purpose - here a view from below:

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If the weather turns (too) cold, the wooden "roof" construction will be covered with additional material to protect the fruits.

The one remaining edifice of the castle nowadays hosts a small museum devoted to the main trades in Torri del Benaco's history, mainly fishing. Here a look at two exhibits - a fisher boat and its net:

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And some colorful old rudders:

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Directly in front of the castle we find the magnificent harbor of Torri del Benaco, with a grand view of Lake Garda. In the background on the right side you see the Piazza Calderini with the Hotel Gardesana:

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Here the Hotel Gardesana, a building with a rather long history, in a close up view. At the time the Venetians ruled this part of Lake Garda Torri del Benaco was its capital (sort of ...), and the most important public meetings were held in here, in what is today the dining room of the hotel:

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On its long promenade running up towards the north Torri del Benaco has a lot of restaurants that offer terraces with beautiful views towards the lake:

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The Old Town offers us nice views of old buildings and small streets, mostly reserved to pedestrians:

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In fact Torri del Benaco is - because of its romantic atmosphere - a popular location for weddings; they are held for example at the castle's tower we saw in the first picture.
And there is a quite appropiate legend that says that on the highest tower of the castle once no other than the exiled Romeo stood, looking over the Lake Garda and yearning for his Julia ...

That's it! Hope you enjoyed the tour.

Gardone Riviera - and the Vittoriale degli Italiani

2008-08-18T21:21:00.005+02:00

Today we'll visit a town on the east side of the Lake of Garda in Italy - it's called Gardone Riviera, and because of its special environment - the town is enclosed by some small mountain ranges, providing protection from winds and cold - it's famous for its mild climate. That's why one of the first larger hotels of Lake Garda was built here - the Grand Hotel, built in 1884 by the Austrian (then mayor of Gardone) Ludwig Wimmer:

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Gardone has a small, but nice promenade - here with the Grand Hotel in the background again:

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But today Gardones main attraction is not that it is a nice and peaceful health resort - it's famous because one of the most incredible Italian poets chose Gardone as his old-age residence - now serving as a museum called Il Vittoriale. We'll visit it soon - but first have to climb up to the upper part of Gardone, called Gardone Sopra. On our way we find this nice ensemble of houses:

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And we'll also risk a look at this rather pretty side street:

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But now we're there - let's enter "Il Vittoriale degli Italiani" - that loosely translates to "Victory memorial of the Italians". It's a very, very strange memorial indeed, mainly one of the poet Gabriele d'Annunzio who lived here from 1921 until his death in 1938.

Why is it strange? Because d'Annunzio, an extremely popular poet & writer, was also a war nut, volunteering to participate in the first world war - he was already 52 years old back then! He did some Kamikaze missions in the first world war, e.g. flew a plane to Vienna to distribute leaflets to the enemy, cruised with a battle ship, and at the end of the war in September 1919 even seized the city of Fiume (nowadays Rieka in Croatia), declared an independent state and governed it in pre-fascistic style until December 1920 - before he retired to his new residence at the Lake of Garda.

At the lake he constructed a quite large complex out of a villa he bought there - after he finished all the work he could look at his own private square, called the "Dalmatian Square". You see his main house, the Prioria, at the left and a loggia at the right:

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The loggia BTW is a very nice one; here a look standing inside it, looking towards the "Prioria" (center). On the right you see that the loggia is open in direction to the lake:

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In his Prioria he had a large number of quite dark (he had trouble with his eyesight in old age and shunned light too bright) and immensely richly decorated rooms that show a very special taste - cultures, religions and modern technology clash wildly, e.g. one room was dedicated to death, one to music, one served to receive friends, one to receive enemies, and several were of course used for writing. In the golden and red dining room he had a large sculpture of a tortoise (incorporating its real shell) that died because it ate too much - it served as a reminder to his guests to moderate themselves ...

Photography unfortunately was strictly forbidden in the Prioria, so you have to have to be content with this view of the Prioria taken from the private gardens:

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In the private gardens we now discover some strange things typical for d'Annunzio, like these canon shells on classical pillars:

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Or this rather incredible combination of eagle sculptures and neo-Romanesque arches:

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But it gets really strange when we visit the large area around the villa; here a look from the top of a hill: on the right we see the rooftops of the villa, but what's that slightly left of the center? A ship among the trees?!

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It really is! D'Annunzio requested and got a real large battle ship - called "Puglia" - from the Italian marine, and got it - he planted it in his gardens, looking towards the lake:

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It's fully equipped, as you may see here, taken from the front of it:

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He also requested and got a anti submarine motorboat he had used for one of his other first world war adventures - he used to do fun cruises on the Lake Garda with it, and it's also on display at the Vittoriale:

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And after his death strange things continued to happen - in the 1950s a large Mausoleum was designed and built, providing a very majestic resting place for the poet, overlooking his "Vittoriale" ...

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... and of course also with a nice view of the Lake of Garda, as you may see here - the other sarcophagi are reserved for other compatriots BTW:

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So, that's it from this strange man! I won't dwell on the further political implications of the life and works of d'Annunzio, e.g. his complicated connections to the Italian dictator Mussolini - you can find enough about that on the web.

A few more pics of the Vittoriale - e.g. from the plane he flew with - at my Vittoriale gallery here.

Sirmione - Pearl of Lake Garda, Italy

2008-08-17T21:34:00.002+02:00

A tourist and health resort for more than 2000 years? That sounds interesting - and indeed it is: Sirmione is a very special town at the Lake Garda in Italy, and was a sought after holiday and health location starting even in the first century BC. Main visitors back then were the Romans - coming from Verona, the main Roman city in north-eastern Italy at this time.

Sirmione is located on a long peninsula located on the southern shore of the lake; the main area is shaped like a triangle, and has only one narrow street leading to it - and this street is guarded by a real menacing castle, the Castello Scaligero, built in the 13th century:

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Looking from an inner court we see that this castle is high and intimidating indeed - not built for pleasure, but for fighting:

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And looking to the western side of the castle towards the lake we see a nowadays quite rare example of a fortified harbor, incorporated into the castle:

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Finally this view from the castle towards the Old Town of Sirmione is a reminder that the castle not only protected the town - it also served as a means of oppression; a very inglorious incident took place in the late 13th century, as Mastino I. della Scala ordered the ruthless persecution of a religious movement criticizing the holy church - resulting in a true massacre, because half of the inhabitants of Sirmione belonged to this movement. Knowing this the castle suddenly looks only half as romantic - and the castle reaching out to the town people seems to be really menacing:

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We now wander along the shore of the peninsula until we reach its northern tip - and here, as 2000 years ago, some luxury hotels are located, with their own, very private terraces with a smashing view of the lake:

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It's simply too hot to visit the Roman ruins in Sirmione today, so we walk back to the Old Town to get some shade - and a view of this nice house on a corner:

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We now go to the largest Piazza in Sirmione, the Piazza Carducci, surrounded by bars and restaurants - right now even a concert is going on:

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The Piazza is directly connected to a pier offering another method to reach and leave Sirmione - by ship, on the the eastern side of the peninsula. And with this 370 degree pano (yes!) taken on that pier we finally leave this picturesque and very old town:

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P.S.: This was the ship I left Sirmione with this day - nice, isn't it?

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Hope you enjoyed the tour!

Is there fishing in Garda, Italy?

2008-08-15T19:21:00.001+02:00

It's an early morning in July, before 6 am. My mission: Find proof if fishing is actually being done in the town of Garda at the Lake Garda in Italy. I'm a bit tired on my way to the harbor of Garda - I must indeed be very tired, because coming into the town I see one of the oldest buildings of the town - the Captain's Palace with its venetian windows - very bended and warped; look at the left:

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Hmm, once the Captain's Palace stood at the waterfront in Garda. Nowadays tourism seems more important, and the harbor obviously has been relocated to give room for some cafés. Nobody I can ask - but I see the water in the background and will head there:

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Ah, what a nice early morning view of the lake! And turning to the right I finally see the harbor. Well, well, lot's of nice boats in it! And on the far right I even see the Captain's Palace again. Seems that I have adjusted to the early morning time - it looks straight now, as it should be!

But let's have a closer look at those boats - quite a lot of them here:

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Are any of them really used for fishing? Or are they only here for touristic purposes - as a nice decoration? They look so clean! Let's wander around a bit, and ... yes, in the back of the harbor there are boats that definitely look like being used for fishing. And since the sun is rising now, we even can see more clearly:

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This fishing gear looks really funny sometimes:

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And another indication that fishing really is being done here - all the nets and ropes lying around:

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Hey, there's actually someone packing his net - gotcha:

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And on the lake there is a boat with a lot of gulls flying nearby - must be somebody fishing:

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Ah, here the proof: one of the fishers comes in.

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More proof: the early morning catch of another one!

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Okay, that’s it - I'm convinced that fishing is actually being done here. Now a last view of the harbor, now brightly lit ...

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... and then back to bed. The fishers are not on vacation obviously, but I am! :-)

Another day in Venice

2008-08-06T18:50:00.000+02:00

Welcome to another short tour around Venice in Italy! Be prepared for a lot of panorama pictures – some “normal” shots will also be thrown in when necessary.

Let’s begin our day in Venice – it’s the 24th of July 2008, and the weather is fine - at the Sestiere (Quarter) di Cannaregio, near the central Railway Station St. Lucia. We’ll follow the tourist path to the Rialto bridge a short bit, but at the Canale di Cannaregio we veer off that way to catch a glimpse of the Ponte Guglie:

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A few “calles” (streets) and turns later we find ourselves at the Campo del Gheto Novo, formerly one of the first Jewish Ghettos in Europe, instituted in 1516 – in fact the name “Ghetto” or “Gheto” is derived from the Venetian expression for iron foundries located formerly at this place, “gheta”. From 1516 on the Venetian Jews were compelled to live in this region of Venice, but at least didn’t have to fear any pogroms or other forms of persecution like in other European cities. So the Jewish population grew, and because of the restricted space the only way to furnish more room for the people was to build additional stories – that’s why the Jewish Ghetto is the only part of Venice where you can find buildings up to seven or eight stories high – look at the left side of this pano:

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In the center of the pano you can see a white building in the background, right to the red one and partly hidden by a tree – this is the first Synagogue built in the Ghetto, the Scuola Tedesca, built for the German Jews. Very inconspicuous from the outside – the Synagogues were built on top of smaller buildings and so consist of the upper stories of those only - the Scuolas are richly decorated at the inside. The Scuola Italiana can bee seen in the right part of the image – the other white building with the five large windows. On the utmost right of the pano you can see one of the bridges connecting the Gheto Novo with the rest of Venice; in fact this particular bridge leads to the misleadingly named “Gheto Vecchio”, a small complex of streets that enlarged the Ghetto in 1541. Here you can find an eight story building, see here on the right (on the left you can see part of the Scuola Spagnola, another synagogue):

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We’ll leave the Ghetto now and walk further to the east of Cannaregio. You’ll very soon discover calles and canals almost devoid of any tourists, because you’re very far off the main touristic routes now – for instance this peaceful canal at the Ponte de la Malvasia:

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Please note the wooden constructions on two of the house on the left side of the pano – these are typical examples of Venetian architecture, called “Altan” or “Altana”, depicting a sort of additional balcony that the Venetians liked (and were allowed) to build on top of their houses.

We now leave Cannaregio, and take the Vaporetto Linea 14 – a sort of water bus – for the following five pics, showing our way along the Canale di Cannaregio …

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… into the Canal Grande, going beneath the Ponte degli Scalzi and passing the railway station St. Lucia …

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… veering into the Canale Scomenzera, entering the Sestiere di Dorsoduro and the commercial, less beautiful side of Venice …

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… and finally going along the large Canal della Giudecca …

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… to alight in the Sestiere di San Marco at the Piazza San Marco to have an obligatory look at the Gondolas moored there, waiting for tourists:

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There are certainly enough of them there, now that we’ve gotten into the “main lane” again:

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To escape the masses and to get an overview of things we risk the elevator ride up the Campanile di San Marco, and from there have a beautiful look at the Venetian Lagoon:

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You can see here from left to right: The South-Eastern part of Venice, East-Castello; the Island of San Giorgo Maggiore directly opposite the Piazza San Marco; the Giudecca - and behind all that - the Lido of Venice.

Following this pano to the right we get a nice view of the Western part of downtown Venice, with the entry of the Canal Grande on the left and part of the Piazza San Marco in the middle:

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We now leave and walk a short way to the Campo di Santo Stefano, the second largest square in the Sistiere di San Marco, with lots of nicebars and cafés - a beautiful place to rest. In the middle you can seea statue of Nicoló Tommaseo, a popular Italian author in the 19th century. If you look closely you can see a pile of books rising at his back. That’s why Venetians call this statue – a bit unkindly –‘Cagalibri'; this loosely translates to “book-shitter” …

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We now cross one of the few bridges over the Canal Grande – this time the wooden Ponte dell’ Accademia (see on the right side of the pano) to the Sestiere di Dorsoduro and have a look at this bridge and at some of the fine Palazzi at the Canal:

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We’ve now entered the quarter of art & higher education of Venice, with lots of museums and different university institutions. Here everything is less crowded, shops are a bit different, atmosphere is more relaxed – like in this café at the Calle Nuva Sant Agnese:

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We follow our way more or less along the Canal Grande until we almost reach the tip of Dorsoduro at the Campo della Salute – note the Vaporetto station at the left, the Campanile di San Marco visible in the background in the middle right, and of course the Chiesa Santa Maria della Salute on the right:

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We enter the Chiesa for a short look into its unusual and bright interior; it has an interesting history: In 1630 the Doge of Venice promised to build a church if only the devastating wave of plague would end that robbed Venice a full third of its inhabitants. This was approved by the Senate, who also decreed that every year at the 21st of November the city’s officials should parade from San Marco to this church to commemorate the end of the plague. This is still done each year and involves the building of a special pontoon bridge that temporarily crosses the Canal Grande - for this event only. Now, as promised, the look at the church's interior, very unusually built as a rotunda:

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We now take another short Vaporetto trip and alight at the Rialto for this view – part of the Rialto market (not far from the famous Rialto bridge) on the right, the Canal Grande with Pallazi and a Vaporetto on the left:

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A closer look at the Vaporetto reveals many interested tourists looking at the Palazzi:

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This is a “drive by” pano BTW, multiple pictures taken with a tele lens from the same POV as the Vaporetto passed by. The original has a very high & detailed resolution! :-)

Now our visit nears its end – but not without a look at the spectacular new, yet unnamed bridge crossing the Canal Grande close to the Piazzale Roma (where the standard “street” buses arrive). Occasionally it’s already referred to as Ponte de Calatrava after its award-winning Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava:

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That close it looks almost organic, like a vertebral column (sort of). Seen from a little distance, here from the Ponte de Santa Chiara, it at least still looks good. And this last pano – a 360 degree one – also shows you the way people have to take if they want to change from bus to railway without the new bridge: They come from the Piazzale Roma behind the building on the right, have to cross the Ponte de Chiara you’re sort of standing on right now, then have to follow the Canal Grande until they reach and cross the Ponte degli Scalzi you can see – if you look very closely – in the far background at the middle right, down the Canal.

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But who would want to go straight from the bus station to the railway station anyway – just to leave Venice immediately? I wouldn’t! So much to see here – don’t you agree?

Hope you enjoyed the little tour!

More pics of Venice in my gallery – visit it at www.pbase.com/phsan/venezia !

Balance

2008-06-01T22:01:00.001+02:00

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Basic material for this image was a 360 degree spherical pano of a quiet street in Hollum, Ameland, The Netherlands. The street has a peaceful, quite balanced atmosphere.

To expand on this felt atmosphere I applied a double stereographic projection to the spherical image, taking pains to place the trees at the outside and the sky at the inside for a more closed composition (as opposed to a single little planet projection). The intentional curvature of the street on top and bottom tries to suggest the mathematical infinity sign. Finding the result balanced but boring I decided to add an equally balanced central focal point; for that I applied a "mirror sphere" projection to the original spherical pano (not the warped one) and formed a big sphere by fusing two instances of the upper half of the projected image - the one with trees, houses and the sky. I finally added two smaller versions of the original mirror sphere - pointing up and downwards alternatively in a yin and yang way.

For me it's a picture about balance - that's why I added the caption; it's of course an artificial balance, man-made and in constant conflict with man himself and nature ...

Equally possible is that this just reflects my really quite disturbed state of mind. Hmmm. Even then it's probably cheaper than therapy. ;-)

Is this a panorama? A lighthouse

2008-05-27T21:54:00.000+02:00

The light house at Hollum, Isle of Ameland, the Netherlands.

Is this a panorama? Eight pictures taken with a fisheye lens, combined with a standard post processing software. Since you can see all sides of the light house at once, and "panorama" translates from greek/latin as "see all", I'd say: yes, it is a pano! :-)

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On a ferry

2008-05-26T21:49:00.001+02:00

Excellent weather - windy, but sunny, going last Friday from Holwerd in the Netherlands towards the Isle of Ameland. 45 Minutes time to kill! Definitely enough time for those two:

A 360 degree view of the ferry going towards Ameland:

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And a HDR image of the ferry, made out of three exposures:

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Compare the dynamic range to the first one!

A medieval tour

2008-04-02T17:39:00.003+02:00

Today I'd like to invite you to a tour through medieval Germany - or, to be more precise, a tour showing you remaining old architecture, most times half-timbered houses, in several small cities in the State of Hesse, Germany.

A little background: One jokes that the forefathers of the Hessians, the Germanic tribe of the Chatti, somehow as the only tribe missed the big migration period ("Völkerwandung") in the very early medieval time. Maybe that's why the Hessians are very conscious and proud of their heritage - since they can't be proud of their discoveries and travels! True or not true - at least the Hessians show a lot of effort in caring for their old houses! ;-)

Let's start in the South of Hesse, in the Rhinegau, one of the wine-producing regions along the Rhine. Here we have a glimpse at Eltville, a small and nice town, with a plethora of restaurants offering good food and of course lots of wine, and a nice promenade. Here we see part of this promenade, and on the right side the old castle, originally built in the 14th century. You can see some ruins of it and the restored white tower. The tower was a so called "Wohnturm" BTW, a tower to live in, not one for defending the castle:

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Now we venture into Eltville's cobblestone streets with a first glimpse of some half-timbered houses and one of the many restaurants, this one called "Yellow House". Unfortunately - you may have noted - this weekend before Easter weather is bad and cold, and no tables wait for the guests outside:

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With a last look at the Old Town of Eltville - several colorful umbrellas included for free! - we leave this city:

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Now we'll drive a few kilometers up the Rhine to Johannisberg, risking a look at a vineyard with the Rhine in the background. On the right you see a Romanesque basilica belonging to an old monastery, and this basilica was built in the 12th century to honor John the Baptist - that is how Johannisberg or "John's mountain" came to its name:

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Venturing up to the North of Hesse we'll now visit Bad Wildungen, a small city and a health resort. It also sports a wonderful Old Town, here some glimpses of it. First the outer region of the Old Town in the evening light:

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In a side street we discover this blue ensemble:

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And finally a look at the market square including the Town Hall and a nice pano twin ;-):

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To the East of Bad Wildungen we find Melsungen, a fascinating town with an Old Town almost completely filled with half-timbered houses. Here a look at the market square with the Town Hall on the right side – the building in red:

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The sheer number of half-timbered houses you also can see in the side streets of Melsungen inspired me to this somewhat irritating, but at least really self made picture post-card of Melsungen, showing: one of those streets in the background, a sculpture on the left, some half-timbered houses on the market square on top and the Town Hall from 1556 at the right:

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Last station on our medieval trip is Korbach in the North of Hesse. Here we first see
again a part of the Old Town - on the left with the spire the Town Hall, on the utmost right the public library in the largest half-timbered building of the city:

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At a side street we discover something rare, a half-timbered house combined with baroque decoration - here it's door:

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Now something quite corny, a Hotel named "Goldflair" located across the Town Hall, with gold foils in the windows underscoring its name:

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And with this glimpse of the old market square with a nowadays unused pillory in its center we finish our tour. BTW: The pillory we see here indeed was never used. It was rebuilt in the 1960s for touristic purposes only - but it's modeled after the original that really once stood here - and that one was used for sure! ;-)

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I hope you enjoyed this travel back in old times - despite the bad weather! And now back to todays world & work!

A short trip through Weimar

2008-03-11T19:01:00.004+01:00

Welcome to a short trip through the old city of Weimar, Germany!

To understand the role and importance of Weimar for the history of Germany one has to know that it was home of some rather progressive ideas. There were a lot of tiny states on the territory of todays Germany, but in 1816 the State of Sachsen-Weimar-Eisenach was the first to give itself an constitution.

This was during the "Golden Age" of Weimar. In the second half of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th century Sachsen-Weimar-Eisenach was governed by the Duchess Anna Amalia and her son, Duke Charles August. Those two were open minded and friends of the arts, and a lot of philosophers, writers, composers found not only their home, but also their freedom in Weimar to explore their ideas. Some of the most important works of German culture have been created in Weimar in this time.

Now let's begin our tour of Weimar. We step out of the Central Station of Weimar, and we're greeted with cloudy weather and look along the Charles August Avenue towards downtown Weimar:

Click here for large version.

Since the weather gets even worse we'll wait a few hours, and after night has set in we will now have a short walk through downtown Weimar with some of the most famous buildings.

Let's start at the Frauenplan, a square where not only one of the oldest fountains of Weimar (right) can be found, but also a large house (left) where the German writer Goethe lived for almost 50 years, until his death in 1832. After his death his rooms remained untouched for another 50 years, and they were converted to a museum then:

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Goethe had one great friend - even if the friendship needed some years to really start, they definitely didn't like themselves at first sight - and this friend was Friedrich Schiller, writer and playwright. Schiller resided for the last three years of his life in a smaller house in central Weimar, not far away from Goethe's house, in a street nowadays named Schiller Street; here he wrote some of his later plays, e.g. "Wilhelm Tell". He died there in 1805, and now it serves - of course - as a museum. You find his house on the left of this pano, and are invited to have a look into Schiller Street, a pedestrian zone:

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Around the corner we'll find the old market. We see the Neptune Fountain in the middle foreground, to the right of it Cranach House,a Renaissance building and home to the painters Cranach the Elder and > the Younger. In the background center we can see a wider white building - that's the Hotel "Elephant", built completely new in 1938 as a rather modern house (and because of that it was Adolf Hitler's favorite place during his frequent visits to Weimar), but the history of this Hotel dates back to the end of 17th century: it was a house for travelers and at the same time a meeting place for people like Goethe, Herder, Schiller, Bach - to name only a few ... :-). On the far right finally the Town Hall, comparatively new - it was built 1841 in Neo-Gothic style:

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After a good night's sleep we'll return to the market for some closer views of the Cranach house (transverse Mercator projection used for this pano) ...

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... and of the Town Hall, taken from a side street:

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We'll stroll from the market to the Theater Square, a large one with the National Theater on the right and the Bauhaus museum (formerly the storage house for backdrops and other theatrical scenery) on the left. In this theater the national assembly convened in 1919 to declare the first German republic, the so called "Weimar Republic" that endured until Hitler's rise to power in 1933:

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In the front of the theater we see the statue of Goethe (left) and Schiller (right), built in 1857:

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A short walk, and we arrive at Herder Square with the Herder church (Herder was another famous German writer, but also a priest and philosopher). The place in front of the church is full of cars, and for this viewpoint close to the church I had to revert to a special projection method - that's why the statue of Herder you can see on the right is a bit thinner than in reality ;-). BTW: In this church, built around 1500, Johann Sebastian Bach was organist 1708-1717, decades before Herder's time:

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Alongside Herder Square one can find some nice houses, like these two:

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Nearing the end of our tour we'll now walk towards the "Stadtschloss" or City Palace, residence of Duke Charles August, demolished in a big fire and rebuilt under the direction of the multi talented Goethe later on. Here a view from the central court of the Stadtschloss towards Weimar - in the background you see the Music Academy of Weimar, named after composer Franz Liszt, also a resident of Weimar in the 19th century:

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And now we close with this view of the City Palace from the outside with it's 16th century tower, one of the few remains of the original structure (right). On the left in this pano we look towards the gardens on the river Ilm, and in the center we see the famous library of Anna Amalia with its splendid Rococo decoration (absolutely no photography allowed inside, metal detectors used ...) - not the pink building on the middle left, but the central one right to it behind the trees on the hill:

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Hope you enjoyed the tour!

A symmetrical tour: The Olympic Stadium in Berlin

2008-02-28T05:34:00.013+01:00

Browsing through my photographs I gleaned from my recent visit to the Olympic Stadium in Berlin I noticed that I rather often had chosen symmetrical views of this big edifice and its surrounding architecture. No wonder: they do suggest themselves, since the Olympic Stadium and most of the related buildings and squares are built symmetrically along an axis that is orientated from East to West (with an angle towards the South).

Of course this awe-inspiring and well ordered architecture was intentional. Hitler realized the chance he had using the 1936 Olympic Games - awarded to Berlin 1931, two years before Hitler's rise to power in Germany - as a propagandistic platform for Nazism, presenting his regime powerful and modern, but at the same time peaceful and open to the world. We all know what it was in reality: racist, antisemitic, preparing for war, and with deep roots in nationalistic-fascist, backwards oriented, "völkischer" ideology.

Forbidden looking inside stairway at the Olympic Stadium. Click here for large version

The Olympic Stadium and all the surrounding facilities and buildings, built 1934-1936 for the Olympics, reflect this clash between modernity and backwards oriented ideology. For one the stadium oriented itself on antique ideals - it's partly modeled after the Colosseum in Rome - but it recognized the need for modernity, and another important influence was the architecture of the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, host of the Olympics 1932.

The same clash between modernity and nationalistic ideology can be seen looking a bit closer at the details of the architecture: facades made from natural stone and classical and neoclassical forms abound, but those natural facades only conceal the state of the art concrete and iron building technology that was being used.

Colonnades at the Olympic Stadium with natural stone facades. Click here for large version

Also the classical and at the same time modern stadium is only part of the whole architecture; it is supplemented in the west by a large field, the Maifeld ("Mayfield"), used for propaganda events. The Maifeld has gigantic stands, and in the center of those a militaristic memorial was located, the "Langemarck-Hall", originally dedicated to young soldiers killed in a battle of the first world war, glorified as heroes by the National-Socialists. In the East the "Olympic Square" can be found, a large place for deployments of all sorts during the Third Reich. More on that later. In the North finally we find a smaller Olympic Swim stadium, complemented by a smaller square (Coubertin-Platz) on the South side to keep the symmetry. Google Earth shows how the whole ensemble looks today (follow the link for a view of the map).

Of course the question poses itself what to do with the stadium and its surroundings after the end of the national-socialist regime: demolish all of it? Or only the buildings and structures that today still emanate the spirit of the National Socialist like the Langemarck-Hall? Or re-use as a historical information center and at the same time - in true Olympic spirit - as a place where people of all nations can meet and celebrate?

Detail of the stadium's modern roof. Click here for large version

The Germans decided for the latter. So nowadays on one side you find a modernized and renovated Stadium, shining like new since the 2006 World Soccer Championship, with a fascinating modern roof (originally it had none, for the Championships 1974 it got a first, smaller one); on the other side all buildings and squares have been retained, but supplemented by information tablets you'll find all over the place and a museum giving extensive historical background of the whole area. And where do you find the museum? At the Langemarck Hall, now serving information needs and nothing else.

We'll now look closer at the stadium. To get to the scene we first need to travel there - and we get there with the subway, leaving it at the station "Olympia-Stadion":

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A short walk brings us from the station to the Olympic Square ("Olympischer Platz"), and here our walk on the big East-West axis (tilted a bit to the South) of the Olympic area begins. The square - as already said - was used for deployments, one of them an infamous one: on November 12th 1944 people came here to be sworn in as a sort of "Hitler's last army"; it was one of ten places in Berlin that served this senseless purpose. Nowadays it's used mainly as a parking lot:

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Now were looking at the entrance of the stadium, where the Olympic Rings are held by two towers - the tower of Prussia and the tower of Bavaria. The naming of the towers - there are two additional pairs at the West side of the stadium - follows nationalistic ideology after which all Germans came from one of six clans or people: the Bavarians, the Prussians, the Saxons, the Frisians, the Swabians and the Franconians. The towers are named accordingly.

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If we move further towards the stadium we can note one thing: it looks big, but it is not towering above us as big as other great stadiums. The reason for this we can discover if we move into the stadium, and climbing only a few steps we now see it: it's built as an "Earth stadium", meaning the field and the lower tiers are built into the earth, and only the upper tier rises above the ground:

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Moving further we can look down into and toward the East side of the stadium. In the center background we can see the Marathon gate, where the Marathon runners came in for their last rounds. Further back we see part of the Mayfield with its central tower, the "Glockenturm" or Bell tower, not belonging to the clan towers - it rises on top of Langemarck hall:

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Now we have moved to the Marathon gate and turn around 180 degrees for a look at the container for the Olympic flame, framed by the modern roof:

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Let's step a bit back now to have a wider look at the Marathon Gate framed with tablets showing the winners of the 1936 Olympics:

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Here now a closer look at the tablets on the left side, listing Jesse Owens as winner of the prestigious 100 and 200 meter races - he also won the long jump and the 100 m relay race. Hitler certainly was not amused, as this didn't fit his racial theories at all:

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Let's turn around 180 degrees again for this view of the Mayfield, 375 meters wide with gigantic stands; field and stand could be used by up to 250.000 people for propagandistic events. During the Olympics it was used for Polo and for gymnastic shows. Nowadays it's used for all sorts of events, to name only one: Phil Collin's 1994 concert of his "Both sides" tour:

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For another look at the bell tower we'll now leave the East-West axis, and see it through another pair of the clan towers, this time the Frisian and the Saxon towers:

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Going to the South of the stadium we'll finally risk a look a the Olympic Swim stadium:

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Hope you enjoyed the tour - in spite of all the, not all the time too pleasant information!

A short Berlin trip

2008-02-19T20:35:00.000+01:00

A recent visit this week to Berlin yielded some nice panos - so accompany me on a short Berlin trip!

First a look at the very efficient public transportation system in Berlin - since we need to move around a bit on our trip! :-) Here the Suburbun Railway ("S-Bahn") station "Alexanderplatz":

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The railway brings us to the Olympic Stadium with its fantastic new ceiling, that hosted the infamous 1936 Olympics, and in younger history the finals of the world soccer championship in 2006:

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Not far away from the stadium we'll find a castle - "Schloss Charlottenburg". The two similar looking buildings on the left side of the pano, both belonging to the original architectural ensemble of the castle, are the Egyptian Museum (far left) and the Museum Berggruen (middle left), the latter hosting a splendid collection of paintings and sculptures of Picasso, Matisse and Klee:

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Back in the center of Berlin we'll risk a look into the "Heckmann-Höfe", one of the typical examples of Berlin architecture with inner courts; this one located between Auguststraße and Oranienburger Straße:

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Later in the day it's time for some shopping - so lets visit the Quartier 206, a luxury shopping mall at Friedrichstraße in central Berlin:

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Round the corner of the Quartier 206 we'll find the Gendarmenmarkt - one of the nicest squares in Berlin: on the left you see the "German Cathedral" (now hosting an exhibition about German history), in the middle the "Konzerthaus", a concert hall, and on the right the "French Cathedral", serving nowadays a Huguenot museum:

Click here for large version

Now let's stroll towards the Reichstag for an unusual view of it - together with additional buildings belonging to the administration of the German government, the so called "Bundesband", at a bend of the river Spree.

Here all that seen from a viewpoint near the small Marschall bridge - from left to right in this true 360 degree pano: part of the Marie-Elisabeth-Lüders-Haus; several buildings at the other side of the Spree river; the Reichstag; the Paul-Löbe-Haus; and again on this side the Spree river the Marie-Elisabeth-Lüders-Haus we originally started with: ;-)

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Hope you enjoyed this small tour of Berlin!

Romanesco

2008-01-22T19:55:00.004+01:00

Couldn't resist photographing it before eating it:

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Romanesco is a cauliflower with an interesting similarity to fractals - it's pattern is repeating itself self-similar in different scales. Fascinating, isn't it?

This macro shot was of course mirrored once and stitched together to enhance the mathematical structure of the plant even further. A duplex treatment gave the nice colors.

Tastes less pronounced than broccoli, but has an interesting mild note standard cauliflower hasn't, BTW.

St. Georg fighting the dragon

2007-12-28T01:28:00.002+01:00

Click here for large size version

The bronze statue "St. Georg fighting the dragon" was made around 1851-55 and nowadays can be seen in the Nikolai Quarter of Berlin; originally it was located at the Berliner Stadtschloss, which was bombed to ruins in World War II.

The statue depicts in a naturalistic way the brave St. Georg fighting a dragon, retelling thus a rather popular Christian legend. The dragon usually is identified as "The Devil". and St. Georg fights him to release a King's daughter - not to marry her, but to make it possible for her to be christened properly. No wonder that St. Georg, the pure and brave, was one of the most popular Christian saints!

The statue was made by the German sculptor August Kiss (see the inscription at the leftmost part of the pic), whose first famous work also depicted a fight scene, a panther fighting with an Amazon on her horse.

Kiss worked in neo-classical style and very detailed, and since the statue of St. Georg was made near the end of his career and life, it shows his remarkable skills in sculpting an action laden scene like this. A life size plaster version of this statue won August Kiss a bronze medal at the world exhibition in Paris 1855.

The notes for this exhibition in Paris made clear that a the statue needed room - at least 11 meters to all sides were deemed necessary to give the onlooker a good view of it Sadly nowadays the statue resides in a rather cramped space, making it almost impossible to take a good photography of it without introducing too much of the very near and rather high houses in the background - very easy to see here in an animated tour around the statue:

Okay, a challenge is a challenge, and after pondering all possibilities I finally settled for a multi viewpoint / "reverse pano" approach in an attempt to show clearly the fine detail and action depicted so masterfully with this very three dimensional sculpture. ;-)

One last thing: If you wonder why St. Georg fights the dragon with his bare right hand - originally he didn't, he held a sword in this hand, but it got lost over the decades.

So enjoy St. Georg and his gripping fight with the dragon! And get out the popcorn - because this is a looong pic to travel! :-) BTW: If you missed the link directly beneath the small image on top of this post - no need to scroll back, just click here!

A special day in Rome

2007-11-27T19:03:00.000+01:00

Join me for a special day in Rome! You won't be travelling on a Panorama Bus Cruise, but will be invited to have a glimpse of Rome looking at 17 (!) panorama pictures instead. Have fun!

One note: To really enjoy the tour don't forget to click on the links beneath each panorama picture for the larger versions!

Okay, let's start with the Roman Forum, the "Forum Romanum", a fascinating site of old day Rome at the Capitoline Hill, used as meeting place for commerce and justice as far back as 500 B.C. Here a view of the Forum in the evening light, but since we're starting our day in Rome just imagine it's the morning sun you're seeing here! :-)

Click here for large version.

Now let's get down into the Forum for some further exploration of those buildings and artifacts - all of them at least 1400 years old! Here a 360 degree pano taken at "ground level":

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Not far from the Forum the Colosseum can be found, the ancient arena for the entertainement of the masses:

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Now let's move slightly forward in time and visit the Piazza della Rotonda, sporting one of the 13 obelisks that can be found in Rome and of course serving as an entrance to the Pantheon (more about that in the next paragraph):

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Next stop is the Pantheon, now a Christian church, but originally a building devoted to all deities there are, not only the Christian one. The Pantheon was finished in 125 A.D., and for 1.600 years was the building with the largest dome - 43 meters in diameter - on earth. It hasn't got any windows, only a 9 meter wide "eye" at the top:

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Enough culture for now? Need a rest? Okay, the Piazza della Rotonda is surrounded by nice Italian bars and ristorantes, so let's have a break:

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Fit again? Let's move! To St. Peter's Square this time, and without any guards and borders in view you have quickly left Italy and now are standing on the grounds of Vatican City - with another one of those obelisks in sight:

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A peek inside St. Peter's Basilica? No problem, it's November and the tourist count is a tiny bit lower than usual, so you can roam the Basilica freely, admiring especially all that colorful marble and gold:

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Now it's a question of your fitness - because mounting the more than 500 steps to the top of St. Peter's Basilica is some work. But the reward is a beautiful view towards St. Peter's Square - you can even see Italy (Rome) from here! ;-)

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Let's wander a bit to the left to see more of Vatican city, here it's gardens - well, pretty much all of it in fact, save St. Peter's Square and the little railway station - those didn't make it on this picture:

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A short look into the Vatican's museum brings us this nice view of the ceiling of the so called "Map Room":

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Now for something completely different - let's go to the biggest open air market in Rome on the Campo de' Fiori. It's not that big a market actually, and tourists flood this market especially in the summer time, making lots of noise in the evening and nights and scaring away Roman residents. But now it's November, and things are quiet and peaceful. Here actually not a look at the market, but at one of its sides - with two of the ubiquitous Roman motorcycles decorating some of the typical house fronts lining the market:

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A short way from the Campo de' Fiori we'll find one of the dozens of other fine churches, this time San Carlo ai Catinari, with a voluptuous baroque decoration:

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And as an example for another fine square in Rome here a view of the Piazza del Popolo, the entry to Rome from the north of Europe. It has another one of the Obelisks, this one cut off here, but in spite of that one of the oldest - it was brought to Rome in 10 B.C. and orginally had its place at the Circus Maximus. And interesting to note that the "almost twin" churches you can see on the right of the panorama were built (not only) for decoration purposes - they just looked good paired this way:

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It's getting late, and so it's time for a very special event: Dolce & Gabbana meets the Trevi Fountain! And not Anita Ekberg this time, obviously: ;-)

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Too much commercials? Okay, let's visit something more officious, the Capitoline Hill with it's main square designed by no one less than Michelangelo (who of course also was responsible for other buildings, places, statues, paintings you'll find all over Rome - see e.g. St. Peter's above):

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Not tired yet? Than let's go for some classical culture in the Opera house to finish up our nice day in Rome:

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Hope you enjoyed the tour! :-)

Want even more pictures & panoramas? Visit the Rome section of my PBase account here!

"The Mega Multi Maxi Park"

2007-10-07T20:03:00.000+02:00

… is what the Duisburg-Nord Country Park in Germany calls itself - and mega, multi and maxi it is! But this is not the usual amusement park you'll find everywhere - this is a truly unique site that combines family fun with industrial history, cultural events and lots of nature at a place where you wouldn't expect it - at an old steel plant.

Between 1901 and 1985 this steel plant in the north of Duisburg - part of the old industrial Ruhr region - operated up to five large blast furnaces. Six years after its closure a competition was held to convert the old steel mill to a public park; the concept of landscape architect Peter Latz won, and the result is quite fascinating: he turned the industrial site into a center of memory and culture, by allowing some old structures and buildings to remain, and by converting some others to new uses: a large gasholder became Europe's largest indoor diving pool; two halls now house theatrical productions, exhibitions and other events; the ore bunkers were partly converted to a multifaceted climbing site. But the stars of the park are the large blast furnaces. You can actually visit and climb on furnace #5 - up to its top, seventy meters high. And what a view you have from it!

View from blast furnace #5 of Duisburg-Nord Country Park - click here for a large size version

But not only these true monuments of old industrial culture and the new use of some of them are awe-inspiring - how nature and plants are allowed to take over other parts of the site is equally impressive. This is demonstrated especially, but not only by the ore bunkers: while some of them now serve - as mentioned - as a climbing site, most of them were left alone, and nowadays small primeval forests grow in them. This not only looks nice, but in fact is an active part in reducing toxic substances that have soiled the surroundings of the steel mill in the years of its active operation. There even is a word for this cleansing process, it's called "phytoremediation".

Here now pictures showing some of the sights offered by the Duisburg-Nord Country Park - a park visited by around 500.000 people each year. Incidentally none of them has to pay a single cent for it, the entrance is free.

First a look at the diving hall in the former gasholder - this diving site holds 21.000.000 liters of water, and the first flooding of the gasholder took five days. On its ground the divers find pipe systems to explore, also old wrecks - ships, a car, even a small plane:

Click here for a larger version

Now a look at the blast furnaces #1 and #2 - on the left the ore bunkers with the plants growing out of them:

Click here for a large version

A panoramic and because of that curved look at the large crane used to transport the ore from the bunkers to the furnaces - easy to see how nature already dominates the industrial site here. The crane is nicknamed "The Green Crocodile", because it's illuminated by green lights at some nights:

Click here for a really large version of this panorama

And here a look up the real star of the park, the blast furnace #5 - you can climb it up to its top. This picture is taken among the middle of the furnace, revealing some of the intricate pipe structures of this gigantic edifice:

Click here for a larger version

More images from the park you'll find in my gallery. And lots of information about it here, at its official site.

Project "Good Weather"

2007-09-29T20:02:00.001+02:00

Click here for a larger version - and here for a very large version of this picture!

"This is about difference and sameness. About variety and uniformity. About hunger and satiety. About repetition and change. About culture and tastes. About health and illness. And finally it's about the weather. Because a German proverb says: If you eat everything up properly we'll have good weather!"

That's written on the pic already - and because this blog is about pictures and the stories behind them, here some background.

The picture is designed to be a large poster - the impact is a bit different than here then, and because all the gory detail is there ;-), it can be viewed close up or - stepping back - in its entirety. You're invited to click on the two links below the picture to get a feeling how these different views could be.

It consist of 46 single pictures, taken in August 2008 during my midday work break. The challenge was not to ignore the stares of the onlookers - especially while photographing the "cleaned" plates after eating - but to recreate a look of uniformity. It's incredible how distorted the lenses even of rather capable cameras render straight lines (the pics were taken with a Fuji F810), and how minuscule differences in perspective contort an image. So without a camera mounted on a tripod and consistent studio lighting at hand all one can do is extensive post processing on each and every image to at least create some similarity among them.

But since this image is about sameness and difference, about uniformity and variety, I allowed for slight changes in white balance, lighting, and even went so far to cut off elements at the borders. In a future version of this pic those cut off elements might be eliminated.

All technicalities aside - the bottom line: For me it's a bit like minimal music. Variations, differences, repetitions, rhythms within a tight framework. In other words: Modern civilized life!

Linz and the Ars Electronica

2007-09-10T18:35:00.000+02:00

The Hauptplatz in Linz - click here for a large version

Linz: A medium-sized town in the north center of Austria, located on both sides of the Danube. A town with a long history, reaching back to Roman and Celtic settlements. There are aspects of the history of Linz that are quite interesting and nice - e.g. that the city was for a short time in the 15th century capital of the Holy Roman Empire, that the famous mathematician and astronomer Johannes Kepler worked and published in the early 17th century in it (the local university bears his name) and that the composer Anton Bruckner lived and worked here in the 19th century. Very nice to know, sure - but most cities have some famous inhabitants, haven't they?

But Linz is also tied to another, rather infamous person: Adolf Hitler spend a part of his youth there, performed miserably in a local school, but in spite of that somehow grew fond of it (of Linz, not of the school ...). He had big plans for Linz, and - stemming maybe from the feeling of being a unrecognized artist - had the idea to turn it into a cultural center of the Third Reich. And as he proclaimed the annexiation of Austria into Greater Germany in 1938, he did so in Linz, at the townhall at the main square in Linz, the "Hauptplatz". Want to see where? Click on the link beneath the panoramic picture above showing the "Hauptplatz" at night, and look at the somewhat pink building with the small clock tower on the left side on the panorama, right to the large "Plague Column" (built 1717 to remember the victims of the Plague) - this is the townhall.

Curiously enough Hitler's idea to turn Linz into a cultural center somehow worked - fortunately not as he originally planned, but in a much more modern way: Linz nowadays has several fine museums, some of them dedicated to the modern arts, and since 1979 it holds the annual "Ars Electronica", a festival for art, technology and society - a very interesting event, especially nowadays in the times of quickly evolving media technologies.

The panoramic picture above showed you a glimpse of the old Linz - so now some looks at Linz as a modern centre of art & thought!

Interactive video sculpture with bubbles - seen at the Landesgalerie Linz.

"Mirror cells" - an interactive environment by Sylvia Eckermann and Peter Szely, exhibit at the Ars Electronica 2007. Everybody who wanted could get into that large mirror cell and type some SMS on those projected round screens you see at the ceiling. Altogether quite a sight! So do take your time to sort out all that reflections.

A quick look at this year's conference at the Ars Electronica - main topic was the debate on the value of privacy in the age of blogs like this one. ;-)

And now as an adequate ending - adequate to the topic of the conference that is - a private look at the author of this lines - reflecting himself in the ceiling of the Lentos art museum in Linz.

At the "Stuff-and-Cattle-Market"

2007-08-22T18:48:00.000+02:00

What is this? A market for "Stuff and Cattle"? It's exactly that, a great yearly market where a lot of things are peddled and traded: cattle like horses and cows, and all sort of small and large stuff - from assorted knives up to expensive front doors, to name only a few examples. All this looks back on some hundred years of history: this year the "Stuff-and-Cattle-Market" in Bad Arolsen, Germany, was held for the 276th time!

Like a lot of yearly markets in Germany it's not only for trading - it's also the time for some fun. And to be honest: most of the around half a million people that visit the market each year go directly to the big funfair part of it - that one with the giant ferris wheel, the cotton candy and shooting booths, and with all those technically advanced amusement rides.

It's open day and night, for three and a half days. Here some glimpses of its attractions - simply click on the pics to see larger versions, especially of the landscape oriented ones:

The specialty of this roller coaster are its spinning cars - the cars not only race up and downward, but also do rotate during the ride. To show a bit more of the action at one glance I took the liberty to combine three single shots for this pic, BTW.

Nice to have a ride on a classical carousel in between. Not that it doesn't twirl with a remarkable velocity when at full speed! I had to hold my camera pretty tight, I can tell you ...

On to the shooting booth, where hard man shoot for cuddly stuffed animals.

A glimpse of the funfair in the evening - the ferris wheel dominating the scene.

Want to have a go at the can-throwing booth? Power and precision is needed here!

Even more power here, for the finale: you're looking at the "Power Tower 2", a free fall ride that reaches a whopping 66 meters in the air - the highest of its kind. The "free fall" you can experience here accelerates up to 54 kilometers per hour downwards. Of course it's completely computer controlled - so no need to fear anything; as long as this controlling computer doesn't run on Windows, of course ;-).

BTW: You're looking at a composite again, this time made out of four (big surprise!) single pics.

More funfair pics at my gallery!

A panoramic tour of Lake Garda, Italy

2007-08-11T08:38:00.000+02:00

Today I want to invite you to a short panoramic tour around Lake Garda in Northern Italy. Six panoramas will offer lots to see! Don't forget to click on the links beneath each picture to get to the full size views.

To get in the right holiday mood lets start with a view of a hotel pool situated a short distance from Peschiera in the south of the Lake Garda - the mountains you can see in the background are those surrounding the lake:

Hotel pool, near Peschiera, Lake Garda - click here for large version

Now let's get down to Peschiera, a small city on the southern side of Lake Garda, situated at the river Mincio, the only river leaving the Lake Garda - all others flow into it. Pescheira has a nice picturesque Old Town - her a view of it in the evening:

Peschiera in the evening - click here for large version

After this relaxing evening we now get on the Gardesena Orientale, the route on the east side of the Lake Garda. Our first stop is Lazise, a small town with a beautiful promenade - grand for nursing a glass of red wine, maybe from nearby Bardolino - and watching the sunset on the lake at the same time. Also worth a look is the old harbour of Lazise:

Lazise harbour - click here for large version

Traveling further north our next stop is Bardolino. Here we visit a sort of "beach" (there are no sand beaches at Lake Garda, only pebble ones) for a swim in the lake. In fact we're a short distance north of Bardolino:

Bathing near Bardolino - click here for large version

Refreshed? Okay, for a very nice evening meal now let's go a few kilometers further north, to Costermano. There you can find a Ristorante named "Miralago" - and that offers a wonderful view of Lake Garda and the city of Garda (named exactly as the lake):

View of Garda from Costermano - click here for large version

Now for a last stop we go around the northern tip of Lake Garda and follow the Gardesena Occidentale, the wonderful route on the west side of the lake. Here the mountains are higher, and the villages at the lake's shore are fewer and due to the steep mountains don't have much space. Until said Gardesena Occidentale was opened in 1931/32 villages like Limone could be reached from the south and eastern shores of Lake Garda by ships only:

Limone - click here for large version

Gelato - Italian Icecream

2007-08-07T22:39:00.000+02:00

Icecream in Garda, Italy - July 13th, 2007

Gelato - icecream - sure is one of the most fascinating aspects of Italian culture. At least one of the most tasty ones ;-). It comes in a large variety of flavours, and has to be freshly produced and homemade - artigianale - to be considered a worthy dessert for Italians. Here only three of the maybe lesser known compositions available at the better parlors: Ricotta-Fig, Mascarpone-Caramel and Concertina (don't know the ingredients for sure of the latter one, but it's definitely marvelous!).

Like in the pictures shown above and below it's normal style to present the icecream in boxes that are not only full to the brim, but much beyond that. And those mounds of fresh icecream suggest a richness and opulence that's almost impossible to resist. At least once a day you just have to succumb to the temptation and buy some.

But beware: Servings of two different flavours generally are enough for one person, because their size usually is very generous.

In typical tourist areas the icecream shops of course abound, but it's interesting to know while many sources date the beginnings of modern icecream back to the Renaissance in Italy (check here for more information on this) that for a very long time it remained a delicacy reserved for the rich and famous. Only with the invention of freezing machines in the late 19th and early 20th century icecream became easy to produce and affordable for the masses - for us, that is.

Selling icecream in Lazise, Italy - July 15th, 2007

Another interesting cultural note: Icecream forms a strong bond between Italy and Germany. Italian icecream parlors became popular in Germany beginning with the 1920's, and at that time the Italian immigrants were the first to introduce the delights of international cuisine to the Germans on a broad scale.

Nowadays it's of course normal in Germany - as in every globalized country - to have restaurants offering food from all "four corners" of the world - you'll find e.g. Mexican, Korean, Indian, Thai food easily, and of course much more. But the Italian Icecream parlors named "Venezia", "Dolomiti", "San Marco" - to name only a few typical ones - were the very first to broaden the culinary knowledge and insights of Germans almost a century ago.

Iceream vendor in Lazise, Italy - July 15th, 2007

The future of plumbing

2007-08-03T19:32:00.000+02:00

Seen in Valeggio, Italy, July 17th 2007

Isn't that a true work of art? The nameless plumber* is to be congratulated for his clear structured, straightforward and at the same time very dynamic composition. And as every real work of art it's not only compelling, it's also visionary: maybe it will soon be a "must have" for rich house owners in the future to have elegant plumbing structures on the outside - and more and more of those, even in the parts further up north in Europe, won't have any fears of freezing, thanks to the ongoing global warming effects!

Right now such beauty is confined to those lucky ones who live in a Mediterranean climate - winters without too much freezing are sure needed to avoid greater problems with your morning shower the year round. Valeggio in Italy - where this picture was taken - normally is too far north for this climate, but Lake Garda, only a few miles away, operates as a big temperature buffer in the winter, keeping temperatures higher then usual at this latitude.

By the way: Another unusual place for "outdoor" plumbing is Cornwall in Great Britain. This southernmost part of the Bristish Isles has subtropical vegetation - palm trees and wonderful colorful plants abound - and a very mild climate thanks to the Gulf Stream flowing alongside its coasts.

* For all I know these don't have to be water pipes, but could also be gas pipes or pipes for some electrical cords. I'm no plumbing expert, I admit. But for the sake of the story just let's assume we're looking at water pipes - and it's not unlikely that we really do. :-)

The Madonna

2007-08-02T21:42:00.000+02:00

Near the church San Benedetto in Limone sul Garda, Italy, July 12th 2007

Now, is that corny or simply typical for Catholic Italy? That the afternoon light illuminates the face of the Madonna as sent from a heavenly spotlight ... The woman hurrying away in the background no doubt has just watered the flowers and cleaned up some miniscule dirt to let the Madonna really shine!

Italy is very Catholic for sure. True, the Roman Catholic Italians are outnumbered for example by Brazilians and even US-Americans of the same faith - but in Italy around 90% of the population belongs to this denomination. No real surprise here - the pope doesn't reside that far away, does he?

Because of this the sheer number of churches you'll find in Italy is astounding. There are more than 25.000 parishes for the around 57 million believers - in comparison the 147 million Roman Catholics in Brazil only have around 9.000 parishes.*

Now unfortunately not all of the tens of thousand of Churches in Italy have a ceiling decorated by Michelangelo. But do remember that the Roman Catholics as a rule don't really shun vivid colors and works of art & splendor. So you can at least be reasonably sure of some nice displays of artistry in every church in Italy. Always worth a look!

* Source: Among others The CIA World Factbook and www.nationmaster.com. The data about the percentage of Italians belonging to the Roman Catholic faith varies from source to source - between 88 and 97 percent.

Inside of a church in Lazise, Italy - July 10th, 2007

The Neptunbad in Cologne

2007-08-01T04:43:00.000+02:00

Click here for large version.

Seen yesterday in Cologne. Doesn't it look nice? The Neptunbad was a municipal indoor swimming pool, built in 1912 in the Art Nouveau style. It served the health and sports interests of the public up to 1994, when it had to be closed - the necessary costs for renovation and modernisation were too high for its owner, the city of Cologne.

In 2002 a private investor bought the heritage-protected building, and made a modern gym out of it. The original swimming pool with its high 13 meter ceiling is now converted to a place for workouts. But the also heritage-protected sauna can be used again in its original look and feel.

But if you feel cheated, because you really, really wanted to have a swim in a German Art Nouveau "Jugendstil" swimming pool - don't despair, you still have the chance to do so: visit either the Stadtbad Neukölln in Berlin (built in 1914), or the Müllersche Volksbad in Munich (built in 1901). Those two are still in operation and in very good condition. And both share something: Each has - of course! - two big swimming pools; the slightly smaller one was "women only" in former years.

So if you plan to visit Berlin or Munich: don't forget to pack you bathing suit!

An addendum: Do I hear someone complaining that the picture above looks a bit warped? No, it's not. It's just a curved panoramic projection - I had to take the photo really close to the front of the building and so had to resort to multiple exposures to be stitched later. Want to see really warped? This is what the stitching program thought it could get away with first:

A quite senseless monument

2007-07-30T19:09:00.000+02:00

Ponte Visconteo, near Valleggio, Italy; click here for large version

Sometimes history is just plain silly.

In 1393 Gian Galeazzo Visconti - the most powerful of all the Viscontis - wanted just another city. In the years before he had conquered Verona, Viczena and Pavia, and now he was out to besiege Mantua on his way to a Kingdom of Northern Italy.

To add Mantua to his collection, he shelled out the gigantic sum of 300.000 golden florins to build an equally gigantic dam near the small city of Valeggio that would cut off Mantua from the river Mincio - a river that flows out of the Lake of Garda on its southern end.

In only two years the 600 meters long, 10 meter high and 26 meters wide dam was built - but, alas, never used for its original intention. The water of the Mincio continued to flow merrily towards Mantua, never to be disturbed by the dam.

After Viscontis death in 1402 nobody cared for it anymore, and its rather slow detoriation begun. But since this monument of senselessness is quite resilient, this process of detorioation is far from being finished today. The dam is still in use today as a bridge, and cars and busses pass it frequently. Do all passing it really know just how absurd this dam is?

Ponte Visconteo, seen from the Castle of Valeggio

An addendum: The dam was large enough to cause another unbelievable story. It forced the Venetians - at war with Milan in 1437 - to hoist a complete fleet of ships over the northern mountains of the Lake of Garda. Six galleys, two galleons and 26 barques were moved within two years over those quite high mountains, and on November 20th 1439 the battle with the Milan fleet began. The Venetians lost, and this time had the brilliant idea to built new ships directly at the lake. With those they finally defeated the Milans in April 1440.

The Trattoria

2007-07-29T17:45:00.000+02:00

Garda, Italy. Late in the evening on Friday, July 13th 2007. The Trattoria is named Al Pescatore - fish will be served here, hopefully fresh from the lake that can be found around the corner.

It's warm. The pair on the right doesn't look at each other, but at the passing people. Are they tired - or don't they have much to talk about anymore? Who knows.

The man of the left has done some shopping - alone, or his wife is hidden by the girls passing in front. His wife? Could also be his mate. Can't be sure, can you?

Those two girls. They seem to have fun, don't they? They're on the move. They're young.

Then the waiter, in the Trattoria. Guess he's looking for the fresh fish promised in the menu displayed on the left. Sure hope he finds some.

Reading a Journal

2007-07-28T18:23:00.000+02:00

She hides behind the newspaper on her balcony, not to be disturbed by people that walk by in Lazise, Italy. It's July 20th 2007, friday evening. Another week of work behind her. The iron bars protect, we almost don't see her at all. We better leave her alone, I guess.

Venice and Brunetti

2007-07-27T21:41:00.000+02:00

At home again after my visit to Venice I somehow feel the urge to reread some of the "Comissario Brunetti" novels by Donna Leon - book in one hand, Venice map in the other.

I grab "Death in a Strange Country" - the second Brunetti case - and on its first page I read:

"The body floated face down in the canal. [...] The head bumped a few times against the moss covered steps of the embankment in front of the Basilica of Santi Giovanni e Paolo, lodged there for a moment, then shifted free [...]. Close by the bells of the church chimed [...]."

At once I visualize this scene - because I photographed it only a few days earlier, on July 18th during my recent visit to Venice. Here the panoramic picture of the Campo SS Giovanni e Paolo, stitched together out of several single shots (click here to see it in its original size):

It's all there: On the left the canal where the body is found, in the middle the church Santi Giovanni e Paolo with its red facade - and on the right in the background you can see the bar where Brunetti drinks a caffè in chapter two of the novel. ;-)

The canal you can see on the left leads to the cemetry island San Michele - and of course it's just a conicidence that the hospital of Venice is located at this canal ... You can see the hospital's entrance here - it's the white building to the left of the church, named "Scuola di San Marco". It's used as a hospital since 1815.

The police headquarters - the Questura - is located only a short walk away from this Campo, and that's where Brunetti heads after he has drunken his morning caffè ...

A visit to Venice

2007-07-25T19:45:00.001+02:00

18th of July: It's a hot, sunny day. I arrive in Venice after a two hour train ride at around 11 a.m.

The following four short hours are full of photographic possibilities, even if the brutal midday sun and the throngs of tourists make it not that easy to capture the atmosphere of this city.

See my impressions of Venice at my new Venice gallery. It incorporates three panoramic pictures, one of those showing the densely populated Piazza San Marco. More doves or tourists on it? Click to find out! ;-)

Piazza San Marco - click here for large version