A short trip through Weimar

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:

Click here for large version.

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:

Click here for large version.

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:

Click here for large version.

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) ...

Click here for large version.

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

Click here for large version.

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:

Click here for large version.

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

Click here for large version.

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:

Click here for large version.

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

Click here for large version.

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:

Click here for large version.

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:

Click here for large version.

Hope you enjoyed the tour!

A symmetrical tour: The Olympic Stadium in Berlin

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":

Click here for large version

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:

Click here for large version

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.

Click here for large version

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:

Click here for large version

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:

Click here for large version

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:

Click here for large version

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:

Click here for large version

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:

Click here for large version

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:

Click here for large version

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:

Click here for large version

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

Click here for large version

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

A short Berlin trip

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":

Click here for large version

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:

Click here for large version

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:

Click here for large version

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:

Click here for large version

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:

Click here for large version

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: ;-)

Click here for large version

Hope you enjoyed this small tour of Berlin!

Romanesco

Couldn't resist photographing it before eating it:

Click here for large version

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

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

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":

Click here for large version.

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

Click here for large version.

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):

Click here for large version.

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:

Click here for large version.

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:

Click here for large version.

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:

Click here for large version.

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:

Click here for large version.

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! ;-)

Click here for large version.

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:

Click here for large version.

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

Click here for large version.

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:

Click here for large version.

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:

Click here for large version.

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:

Click here for large version.

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: ;-)

Click here for large version.

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):

Click here for large version.

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

Click here for large version.

Hope you enjoyed the tour! :-)

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