Hi Mummy,
today the weather became much better unexpectedly. Of course we went out for a walk. We went to the neighbour city Wuppertal, to the district Cronenberg. It is an historic district with many old factory buildings.
Here you can also find those lovely old houses like in Remscheid.
Katja told us that we would walk to a nearby woodland area.
Most of the snow already melted away.
Soon we reached the forest, a very special one: An arboretum, Staatsforst Burgholz
An arboretum is a collection of trees, sort of a botanical garden containing living collections of woody plants intended at least partly for scientific study. We went to "Staatsforst Burgholz", a woodland area which is situated in both urban area of Wuppertal and also the urban area of Solingen. When World War II was over, there were nearly all trees felled for rebuilding of destroyed city areas and also as firewood.
Searching for fast-growing forest species trees from foreign counties were planted than in this area to study their growth in local weather conditions. Plants from North America, South America, Asia and Europe were planted.
There are several walking paths through the arboretum. We decided to walk along a path showing trees of Northern America.
The soil is partly covered with soft moss.
Finally we walked through the sequoia tree area.
Walking back we saw this historic train, situated on the "Sambatrasse", a former railway track, now a walking trail.
After enjoying so much sunshine we were very lazy in the afternoon, visiting a friend and having coffee.
Bye
Tsukumo
