The 1500 miles week-end
Mile 400: à Goettingen, à Goettingen...
At the beginning of our walk through Goettingen, on the way to the university, we saw these two girls sitting on a fence, very preoccupiedly reading... Harry Potter 7. Both of them.
afterwards, we noticed that guy trying to climb a kind of steep terrain with his bicycle
speaking of bicycle, it RULES Goettingen. They are parked everywhere. Here, next to the library
The library is the coolest building in the whole campus, if you ask me.
Goettingen is a classic University-centered city, University which is among the recently announced 6 elite German universities. No wonder they have such a library in their significantly sized campus.
This building
is among the oldest on campus, and the trademark of the university.
Moving on, along the St.Jakob church
we enter the walking district.
This is the "Nabel" = the bellybutton, considered the virtual centre of the city
Moving along the main shopping street
we reach the main square
with the city trademark, the Gaenseliesel statue, backed by the old city hall
Gaenseliesel is full of flowers, from a traditional PhD ceremony which must have taken place recently, where graduates come and have to give flowers and kiss Liesel. The most kissed statue in the world, apparently. And all by smart people.
The Fachwerkhaeuser are a joy to watch
and sidestreets are not bad either
home of some alternative lifestyle
Back to the central square...
...going through...
it's dark now on the main street
but soundtrack is still on. Incidentally, Romanian music.
This abruptly concludes our walk. But before we say goodnight, for the atmosphere, here is some different kind of soundtrack.
Good night.
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Comments
I felt like I was walking around with you while the soundtrack played.
Thanks
Rick-Matassa.smugmug.com/
Photos that don't suck / 365 / Film & Lomography
It doesn't even look like Goettingen to me, but very cozy nevertheless. The music throws me off a little bit though. You say it's Romanian but it reminds me of old French chansons - either way, has definitely nothing to do with Germany.
But don't get me wrong - nice shot!
Greetings,
Jana
is but a dream within a dream
- Edgar Allan Poe
http://www.saltydogphotography.com
http://saltydogphotography.blogspot.com
sorry about the confusion with the music. the music the guys in the last photo were playing was romanian. the music in the link is not, it is a french chansonette about goettingen. i mentioned it's a different kind of soundtrack, but i guess it still was confusing. sorry about that - the song is quite french and is called... "Goettingen"
nope. just the 'normal' antishake feature in the lens and a small prayer that it wont come out too bad
We parked next to the Frauenkirche, Lady’s Church, in the convenient underground parking. Frauenkirche, the most well-known church in Dresden, was completely distroyed on Feb 13, 1945 and restored in 2005.
It is impressive, with its „dalmatian” style of old burned black stones and new yellow ones. I dont know if the black ones are real old ones or just for the effect.
It is located in an area which is still in restoration, but some buildings are already finished in nice colors.
Passing by the girls in medieval clothing,
we went into the church.
The interior is rich,
yet different from other churches i have seen. It looks, as M. said, like a Puppentheater - marionette theatre.
Going on, we reach the largest porcelan painting in the world.
It depicts all dukes of Saxony,
who have reigned this land for hundreds of years, and who have funny nicknames: the brave, the strong, the quiet, the merry, the mild-mannered,
The faithful, the mild, the… "one who has been bitten" (!) (or does "der gebissene" mean "the ambitious"?...), etc.
At the other end there was a man in a silver suit, the “living puppet” type, and it said “Augustus the Weak”
We ended up in the Palace square
Where a clown was hiding behind people, scaring them
He picked on some medieval-dressed guys, who seemed used to the scene.
Afte a look across the brigde
at the buildings across the river
we went on on the shore to the Dresden Institute of Arts.
But we handt found the Zwinger, their most famous palace. So we went on beneath passages
passing by an old man playing passer-by-music on the street
seeing old and new meet
among all different means of transport
Till we found the Zwinger palace
Aha.
It relies on some dudes with dubiously funny aspect…
Back towards the parking lot, we discovered some more beautiful cityscapes
along the leather-and-fur market
back towards Frauenkirche and its colorful
surroundings.
Many “roof eyes”,
plenty of terraces to enjoy a drink
with the right soundtrack
Kids were so cool. Very serious, they performed their schedule unbothered.
Was a nice way to say “auf wiedersehen” to Dresden.
Mile 700.
I was blown away by Prague. I knew it is a beautiful city, everyone I heard talking about it was very appreciative, but I didn't expect... this.
The night we arrived we went for a walk, without the camera. Awesome. I couldn't believe it. The old part of town is HUGE, and brilliantly restored. Aristocratic, romantic, opulent and laid-back at the same time. Plus very discrete signs of a dark and grey communist past, which add richness to the portrait. All coated in a very funny-sounding Czech language, which I enjoyed a lot.
But let's go for a walk. First stop, the main square of the old town Staroměstské náměstí.
First sight, the old city hall tower
then St. Nicholas church
and, piece de resistence, the building which looks like a castle from a scary movie but is actually a cathedral called "Tyn".
To get to it you have to walk though a narrow street
and this is how it looks from the inside
with its organpipe and all.
Back to the main square, we find a big crowd
at the famous astronomic clock
where marionettes move at the hour.
It seems it is a favorite time for pickpockets as well. So we don't stay long, and said - since we are here
let's follow the King Kong syndrome and climb the tower.
The elevator case has won some design prize
but we walked up.
View from above shows how big the big square is,
the somewhat unusual position of the Tyn church, behind those buildings,
and the famous Castle Kafka was writing about.
Before descending, a look at a funny version of the german language
Back to the square, we find the local musical scene unfolding
First, The Lonely
singing from glenn miller to italian chansonettes, all in czech language
Then The Crazy
a band of elderly gentlemen in the middle of the square
some looking like bums, some like math teachers,
but who started to swing
pretty strongly.
Sound and image bites here.
I don't know if police appearing was a coincidence, but I liked the photo opportunity
After the swing episode we went on through walking area streets
to the gunpowder tower
and then, finally, towards the Castle
For that you need to cross Charles' Bridge, also known as the "artists bridge"
both musical
as well as paintorial.
On the other side of the river, Mala Strana quarter is not bad either
including a strong baroque church.
But our way was to the top, to see the St. Vitus cathedral
a huge gothic dome erected, it seems in ~600 years.
In this context, the city panorama didn't impress me a lot
so we entered the Golden Lane - I didn't exactly get why it is called the Golden Lane, but the small colorful houses are very picturesque.
That was it. Back down
back over the bridge, with some nice city-river views
and a contrasting image to that lush sight.
Through the walking district,
back to the center,
for the sunset light.
We were hungry; when coming out of the small restaurant where we had a quick bite, it was already dark on the streets
at the city hall
and in the main square.
Prague put its lights on
and we went back to the Vltava river, for a night view
of the Castle.
We crossed the bridge again,
meeting this orchestra-man
Who played something like this.
On the way home, I couldn't resist taking this picture of the Jan Hus statue with the city hall (Jan Hus is the local hero, leader of a protestant movement some 500 years ago - he was burned alive in this square)
The next morning, monday morning, there were not so many tourists
on my favorite street
and the guides
were waiting for their clients
We bade them goodbye (in our minds) and left, with a last amused look at the Czech way of adding a termination to all female names which don't finish in "a". For example, "J.K. Rowlingova".
Ahoj Praha! You made your mark.
Mile 870: Olomouc
They say that less than 10% of the tourists entering the Czech Republic go somewhere else than Prague. We were among those 10% and drove 300 km to Olomouc, a city in the east, close to the Slovakian border; former capital of Moravia, the second region of the Czech Republic, after Bohemia, where Prague lies. Except the football team Sigma Olomouc, i had heard nothing of the city, but a quick search on wikitravel revealed that Olomouc is called the „hidden gem” of the Czech Republic, 100k inhabitants, a decent historic central square, second largest in the country, astronomic clock, UNESCO monument, university center with ~20,000 students. Interesting, a sort of Sibiu, I thought.
Indeed.
It was already late when we got to the center; too late to visit the apparently nice baroque churches. Swo we went towards the central square, immediately spotting the beautiful renaissance building of the city hall
guarding the indeed impressive central square
We took a round of the square and spotted an interesting sign in front of the post office. A building where you are not allowed to enter with ice cream, dogs, photocameras and… guns
From the other side of the square, there was a good view of the city hall and the UNESCO monument, the Holy Trinity Column,
with 35 metres the highest column in Europe (!), done at the beginning of the 1700ds.
When we completed the tour, the moon was already up
and it went dark.
Representative for the story with few tourists outside Prague was the fact that in front of the astronomic clock, there was… this tourist.
The clock has an interesting story. They say it was rivalling the one in Prague in terms of beauty, but was damaged in the second world war; the Communist regime which ordered its restauration, replaced the ancient alegoric figurines with… workers, ingineers and scientists!
After 1989, the new government decided to… leave it like that, both as a memory of past times, as well as… because the old plans were lost
One more nightly look at the two objectives
and then back home, through the light split by the column.
Tomorrow there is a 1000km long road awaiting…
I had almost 1000km ahead of me that day, so i woke up early. With eyes half-open, taking the luggage to the car, I went out of the building and… stopped.
Fog. What a fog. Like in movies.
Was 8 in the morning. So I said – I’ll hang around for a while, by the time I’m ready, it should lift. We eat, and then, around 9;30, I look out the window…
OK, this is going nowhere. And I have to go somewhere, so… around 10 I left. Just that Jane had some misunderstandings with local authorities, and the roads she was telling me to take had „forbidden” signs on them. Given the fact that I couldnt see a damn thing, I didnt risk anything and turned back, towards the city centre – from there I figured Jane should find an alternative road. Indeed.
The highway was pretty empty, but opaque with fog. Luckily I found a “rabbit”, a car that overtook me and was driving at ~140kmh, I kept decent distance, but stayed behind it, and thus was quite fast to get to the Austrian border.
I don’t know why I imagined that once in Austria, the fog will lift. It was evidently a wrong assumption.
I stopped to take some pictures,
to give an idea.
Ahead through the fog, no highway this time, through the villages, slowly… eventually reached Vienna, didn’t even see it coming. You couldn’t see anything coming.
You could soon after Vienna. Little by little, the fog was thinning.
In order to not get stuck to the steering wheel of boredom, I fixed a target on the way, to visit. Salzburg was perfectly place, exactly at the 500km mark.
Mile 1200: Salzburg.
I reached it at 4:30, little before sunset. Finding parking was not easy, but manageable, directly under the hill in the catacombs, I then asked a lady if it is worth climbing the respective hill. She said “iz nais”, so I did. Breath went out after 100meters, duh, age, but kept on going nevertheless.
Panorama didn’t impressn me much. Decent, but nothing fantastic.
The fortress on the other hill
combined with the two churches gives an interesting effect..
City across the river seems interesting too.
With that, I descended to downtown and headed for the city heart, under arcades
reaching the cathedral.
I didn’t want to enter, having seen quite a few, but I did eventually,
and didn’t regret it
at all.
On the other side, an interesting square, with a view towards the fortress
and a man on a bubble.
The man is a statue, obviously. Of Mozart.
In the meantime some real people were getting ready for a big chess game.
This was on the right side of the dome. On the left side, there was another square,
waiting point for horse carriages
This is where “old town” starts, with the Golden Lane
and many bicycles.
Quickly, I wanted to see the house where Mozart was born.
Today it is, of course, a museum.
I didn’t get in, but went back
to catch a view of the river
and the little fortification above, which I don’t know what it is.
Back
along famous chocolate shops
and historic houses (this is where Schubert lived)
on emptying streets…
Time to go home.
Mile 1500: home.
At home, two speed tickets were awaiting silently in the post box. Both, small records. One, 40 francs, for passing the speed limit by a margin between 1-5kmh. I had passed it with 1kmh. The second, 120 francs, for passsing it by a margin of 6-10kmh. I had, of course, 6kmh above.
Welcome back to the “real world”.