U-434

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A bit of on the far end of the fish marked at St. Pauli, the U-434 has found its last harbor. The russian military submarine has been securely fixed at the harbor and is now serving as a museum. You can enter the ship on your own or take part in a guided tour. I can only recommend the guided tour, as you get of course good explanations of what you see and you also get more to see, as the guided tour is the Read More +

Only by Lift

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The “Alter Elbtunnel” is a fully functional tunnel for cars and pedestrians. But despite the fact that you can drive through it, below the Elbe, there is no ramp to the tunnel. Instead, every vehicle that likes to pass the tunnel has to use one of four lifts to down to the ground level of the tunnel. The tunnel itself is quite nice to visit also for pedestrians as its walls are covered with white porcelain, its quite bright and friendly down here. Also there Read More +

Huge

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Every thing is a bit larger here. At least if it can float on water. On the harbor tour, some very impressive ships, cranes and docks can be seen. From a bit of a distance, those cranes look like toys. But once approached with the ship, there real size becomes immanent. Some of those cranes are designed to lift several containers at once in order to be more effective in unloading and loading the panama class ships. With all the technology used here, e.g. also Read More +

A new city

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My first impression of Dresden, after walking around the old city center was a bit different from what I now think of the city at the end of a sightseeing tour day. The well restored “Frauenkirche” and other monsterenous buildings built in sandstone and often decorated let you think you are in a different time. But after a bit of reflection, one recognizes that most of these buildings where badly destroyed in the second World War and have not been maintained during the DDR. So Read More +

Stop Over at Leipzig

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Well actually Leipzig would also deserve a real visit. But it just did not fit into my schedule. As I did not had to travel too far today from Bamberg to Dresden, though a stopover at Leipzig of roughly six hours was easily possible though. At first I tried to discover the center of the city on my own – accompanied by a bunch of Wikipedia articles, which my smartphone nicely ordered by the current location. But to get some background information, I took the Read More +

A Nice Summer Residence

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Just for about 3 months each year, the “Schloss Seehof” was actually used as the summer residence of the regents of Bamberg. Quite obviously hunting was more important at this place, than managing the city. At least the subjects on the paintings in the various rooms available for a guided tour now, mostly show hunting scenes or hunting related motives. That guided tour was actually held just for me alone as it’s a bit end of season and there where no other guests around. For Read More +

Extremely Unlikely is not Impossible

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The story, which did unfold today was very strange but nice. While I was in the middle of a guided tour – almost at the end of which actually – in the Dome at Bamberg, I strolled around the altar of the Dome and was just about to catch up with the group. A young woman in company with her friend sayed hello and then asked: “Could it be that you have visited the USA four weeks ago?”. I must have looked a bit surprised, Read More +

Guided Tour Through Colorful History

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As the buildings in a city hardly speak for themselves, I decided to join a guided tour. I was a bit shocked to see that 80 other people had the same idea. That would get a a difficult tour. But luckily, the tourist office expected that many visitors and the crowed was split in four convenient groups. As the guide of our group was herself just returning from her holidays, she was quite motivated to explain us the various places. And instead of a one Read More +

Giants at Last

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My very last touristic destination on this three week trip became the “Muir Woods National Monument” just a bit outside of San Francisco. They were named after John Muir a Pioneer in protecting nature. The red wood trees have been preserved here in a small an relatively hidden valley. The oldest of these trees are around 1000 years old and therefore have seen many episodes in human history. But they not only get very old, but also very big. They can reach a hight of Read More +

Another World – Mono Lake

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Just a bit outside of the “Yosemite National Park” lies the Mono Lake. This is quite a bit a special place. As the lake only features incoming, but no outgoing water streams – the water evaporates about at the same rate as new water drips in – the lake is accumulating minerals. So in fact, the Mono Lake is an inland salt lake, which has a concentration of approximately 2.5 times the salt concentration as found in the oceans. This environment is not very well Read More +