Travelog for: umechan

Hi there! --- Minasan, Konnichiwa!
I'm umechan. Maybe you already know kikuchan. She's my best friend.

Now she is traveling in Europe with Maria.
I enjoy her travelog so much. And I decided to start my journey.
Fortunately I have my first host soon.
Where do I go first? haha, it's a secret. 
You will know it by the next update my travelog from a new place.

Hi Mum,

I just arrived in Bruchsal. So now I try to get to know all these other toyvoyagers here. And I have to take a look at the map, so I know, where I am.

Hugs, umechan



So we are now:

1rst row: Robby, Jennifer, me, Pinky Bear, Kari
2nd row: Nippy, Cilly, Scotty




Later we had a snack: A pretzel (Brezel) and tea (my host loves green tea with sugar and milk - not the way you should drink it, I guess)

For dinner we helped our host to prepare toast. Some of the family members like cooked ham and Maasdam Cheese, but my host likes salami and Gouda Cheese. Under the cheese my host had some bananas, the kids had ananas. We wanted to help more, but our host had a phone call and then she told us, she had to hurry a bit to get finished.







By the way: The weather is still grey, rainy and stormy.





Do you see that house on the left side with the interesting front? It is called Sancta Maria. My host told me, that she will take me with her to this house and tell me more about it - when the weather is nice

Someone told me, that May is called the merry month and I really thougth, that this would mean, that the sun is shining. Right now it seems to be kind of November here, even in the morning it was so misty and here you see another photo in the later afternoon. It was another rainy day.

We were in Forst today. It is a town near Bruchsal and my host's daughter sings in a choir in Forst. On our way home she took some photos while my host drove the car. You still see the bad weather





From here on we are in Bruchsal.

Today we sat still inside the house, so my host decided to show me our place in the school atlas.




At first we took a look at the world map. I found Europe.




Then we looked at the Europe map and searched for Germany - Deutschland.




On the Germany map we searched for Baden-Württemberg. It's in the south of Germany.




Here's a Germany map again. We found Karlsruhe and Heidelberg, both cities aren't far from Bruchsal.




Now here's the middle Germany map and we already found Bruchsal here.




And here's the south part of Germany and you see, that Bruchsal is in the middle of the south The lake you see on the map is Lake Constance, Bodensee in German.

We have thunder and lightning and I can tell you, that the thunder is really really loud. It is raining heavily. You can't see the rain on the photo, but of course the grey sky. The photo was taken out of a window of the back side of the house. You see a long house or better roof. This is the music school, where my host takes singing lessons.

The sun came out today and so my host said, that it is a must to go out and take photos. So we are on the way to St. Peterskirche, church St. Peter. You surely will  see this church sometime later, when we look out of the window of the east side of the house.





St. Peter is a beautiful baroque church.





We sat down at this colourful place, but our host told us to hurry up, because the sun would go down soon.










There is a phone box and I tried to call you, but forgot your number




On the opposite side of the church entrance is this beautiful old street with the statues of Peter and Paul.




Next to the church entrance I read this about the church:




Behind the church is the large graveyard of Bruchsal. Here you see some very old gravestones.




These crosses belong to the oldest crosses on the graveyard.




You only can take a photo of the backside of the church, when you stand on the graveyard. We tried to not show too much of the newer graves.




Here you see graves of those, who died during the first world war.




There also is a Jewish graveyard.




Walking out of the graveyard we saw the backside of the house Sancta Maria.




and this is the front of it:




Again I found a board and read about Sancta Maria:

On our way to Koblenz we had a cappuccino at the service area along the highway.

Today we visited aunt and uncle of my host's husband. We thought, that we maybe could see the German Corner and the fortress Ehrenbreitstein, but because next year there will be Bundesgartenschau in Koblenz next year and many places are closed right now to get everything finished for the horticulture show.
So we only had a short walk "around" the house. We saw some interesting old houses.
Horchheim is a suburb of Koblenz on the right side of the Rhine. The oldest house of God is dated in 1130, but there were settlements in Bronze Age already.











That's a board, that we saw nailed to the house: former it was a house v. Eyss, built 1765 from baron (Freiherr) Matthias v. Eyss, plan attributed to Johannes Seiz, in year 1945 heavily damaged.

This is the back side of the house:




There's a big church too.





We also met some Monchhichis here.






We took some more photos on our way home.

It is still cold outside and in the early evening we had rain again.




So we read a book about Bruchsal, at least we looked at the photos and our host explained, what we saw.




Bruchsal occupies an excellent geogrphical position on the western side of a charming region of rolling hills between the Odenwald and the Black Forest, called the Kraichgau. Thanks to its convenient location the town of more than 40000 inhabitants on the Saalbach, historic yet modern, has developped into an industrial and trade centre. Bruchsal is also regarded as the Euopean  'capital of asparagus', being the main trade centre for this delicious vegetable.

Bruchsal was first named in 976 A.D., but they found pieces, which are much older than that.

This is an old photo of Bruchsal's palace after the bombing on March 1st, 1945.





This is the ground plan of the men's prison, completed in 1848, today a detention centre.





The Damianstor (Damian's Gate) forms the remarkable northern entrance to the palace area and the town. The spendid palace of Damian Hugo of Schönborn - bishop, sovereign and cardinal of the state of Speyer - with its numerous surrounding baroque buildings, is fenced off by walls and ditches to produce the impression of a baroque quarter of its own.





Rebuilt from the ruins the magnificent baroque residence serves many purposes today. The portrait of Maria Theresa, empress of Austria, looks upon the shining and gleaming Marbe Hall from Cardinal Hutten. The crowning glory of the stairwell by Balthasar Neimann leads to the reconstructed halls and modern museums. In the south wing the parish of St. Damian and Hugo has its church with a modern interior.





At the front, on top and at the rear - baroque elements and shapes everywhere.
In the baroque garden you find lifesize allegories of the four seasons and the ancient elements of fire, water, air and earth adorn the main axis of the palace grounds. Stone-halberdiers guard the palace.





There is the town museum of Bruchsal, the Museum of Mechanical Musical Instruments and valuable exhibits presented by the Badische Landesmuseum at the Corps de Logis.





The fountains are beautiful, this time colourful, because there was a special concert.
The 'Ehrenhof' on the right side with Balthasar Neumann's 'Torwache', unfinished - full of smmetry despite the missing obelisk.
The building with the little tower is the county court.





One event that we missed on Mother's day was the Summer's Day procession of the colourfully adorned children of Bruchsal. The snowman will be in for a fiery end after the hardships of the winter - sure, it didn't burn well enough this year, because it still is so cold.

On the right you see municipal architecture and the world of business in the heart of Bruchsal. The big house were you can read a few letters of the word Schneider is a closed shopping center.





I'm sure I will see the carnival procession in Bruchsal's centre next year - if everything goes well until then. So called 'Guggenmusiken' take care of the necessary background noise.
On the right you see a view from the former town hall, built in 1954, which soon will be a shopping center. St.Peter rises above the 'Große Brücke' (Great Bridge). Balthasar Neumann's creation is the town's sacral gem.





The choir and bell tower of the catholic church Unsere liebe Frau (Our lady) are gothic, the roof of the bell tower is baroque, the nave modern. From the bell towe you have a good view to the weekly market, which is in front of the former town hall two times a week.




On the left page you see the old medieval keep, dated in 1358, next to it the Community Centre, built in the end of the eighties. It houses two halls, foyers, conference rooms, a restaurant, shops, an underground car park, the 'Badische Landesbühne'- theater, the municipal library, the tourist information and the adult education centre.





I should try to get a photo of this, because it was taken only a few steps from our home. It is the view from Friedhofstraße towards the Holzmarkt, municipal theatre, keep and part of the new town hall.
Holzmarkt and Kübelmarkt are at the end of Kaiserstraße. During the Advent season fistive lights, the smell of 'Glühwein' and the scent of the pines are predominant. The Christmas market is held under the statues of St. Peter and Paul. The building behind the statues is a music school.





The Saalbach, here at Holzmarkt and Kübelmarkt, flows through Bruchsal from the east to the west. The banks are connected by several bridges and footbridges. The footbridge at the ''Große Brücke' is used frequently - also by us.




At the end of the pedestrian precinct the Seilersbahn leads to Huttenstraße. The limestone building of the Pallotines' private grammar-school St. Paulusheim, built in 1923, towers above the massive concrete walls of the senior citizen's centre at the Klosterberg. The white big houses belongs to the old people's house.

On the doorstep of St.Paulusheim: the remakable landscape surrounding Bruchsal. The fertile 'Löß' soil can be intensively cultivated. The Kraichgau offers pleasant views to nature lovers and walkers throughout the year.




The walker is rewarded by a magnificent panorama after a steep ascent to the top of Andreas-Staffel (Andrew's stairs). It leads uphill from Huttenstraße, next to the senior citizen's centre. In 1852, Victor v. Scheffel hat to take a detour to arrive at his favourite spot, since known as the 'Scheffelhöhe'. The keep, the Community Centre, the catholic church Our Lady and Lutheran Church are below. Karlsruhe and the Palatinate mountains are visible in the background. We surely will go there to take a look.




The baroque retreat of the Belvedere, today situated in the municipal park, has always been a favourite subject of painters. The delicately elded 'Chinese-style' towers with their wrought-iron work crown the traditional building from 1758. Today there is no more shooting at the former shooting range - except possibly during some summer evenings, when the Belvedere serves as a very fitting background for open-air plays staged by the amateur theatre 'Die Koralle'.




Bruchsal's famous former men prison outside the Damian's Gate originally accommodated revolutionaries from Baden in 1848. Today it is a modern detention centre and an important employer, supplier and manufacturer of a broad range of products.
The 'New Men's Prison' for the Grand Duchy of Baden was built as a fortress. It was a modern prison then because of its prison cells for solitary confinement. The four wing building, including a central building - locally known as 'Café Octagon - Caf´d Achteck' - was constructed between 1841 and 1848 by Heinrich Hübsch.
On the right you see the neo-baroque part of Bruchsal's hospital from 1905/06 by Fritz Hirsch. In the old days nu s with their caps with upturned wings took care of 70 patients at the Fürst-Stirum-Hospital. The beneficial work of the 'crested larks' is acknowledged by a statue from the artist Jürgen Goertz. The hospital training nurses and doctores occupies over 700 employees. It can take in 350 patients. The historic central building has been enlarged and modernized several times.




Nature is thriving and blossoming in and around Bruchsal. The 'white gold' - delicious asparagus grows in the sandy soil of the Rhine Valley.
THe central axis of the palace gardens becomes a straight avenue of several kilometres which used to connect the residence with the supplying farm of Altenbürg (Karlsdorf) and continue on to Graben through parks, forests and fields. Today the old axis is interrupted and crossed several times by railway tracks, roads and the highway.






Train tracks from the four points of the compass meet at the Bruchsal junction. The post-war train station in the west of the centre is a stop for Interregio - and regional trains and buses. The Stadtbahn has boosted the public transport service.





Once in the year the is a big flea market near the palace.

The right page shows the Saalbach and one of Bruchsal's schools, the Stirumschule. It was the primary school where also my hosts was from grade one to four.





During hot summer days many people enjoy the cool, refreshing waters of the outdoor pool, Sash.




The 'Justus-Knecht-Gymnasium' is the largest municipal grammar-school. It dates back over a hundred years. In 1953 it was named after the bishop Dr. Justus Knecht from Freiburg, who was born in Bruchsal. This was the grammar school, in which my host was from grade 5 to 13.
The building on the right side belongs to the way of the sorrows of our holy lady, near by the Feldkirchle.





You surely know this house with the nice front. Many women from Bruchsal and the surrounding region still remember their courses in housekeepiong and needle-work at the Sancta-Maria-Institute. Built in 1906/08 by Reverend Kunz, the house is owned by the Fransiscan nuns of Gengenbach. Today it is still led by nuns as a school of social education. Female nursery teachers are trained here in full-time courses.




Pleasant old buildings are rare since the fire storm of March 1st 1945 destrayed 80 per cent of the town. Omly the upper town remained. St. Peter's CHurch with its characteristic onion towers was the only one to survive World War II. 





The sacral baroque gem of Bruchsal is St. Peter's Church. Cardinal Schönborn began the building in 1740, his successor, Cardinal Hutten completed it and had the interior finished. The architect was Balthasar Neumann from Würzburg. The church holds the remains of the last prince-bishops in a crypt. The black-and-White marble gravestones adorn the choir. High altar, side altars, pulpit, gallery and organ are masterpieces of the Rokoko - thought up to praise God and to edify people.

Wow, that's a lot. We need a rest and called at a pizzeria. My host ordered a big Nizza Salad, but without anchovies, because she doesn't like them, instead she had an artichoke. My mum had a pizza, yummy

Just showing some more impressions from Bruchsal.








Bruchsal has five suburbs: Heidelsheim, Helmsheim, Obergrombach, Untergrombach and Büchenau.
This is Heidelsheim:








and Helmsheim:




Obergrombach:






Untergrombach, the biggest suburb:








and Büchenau:

Something exciting is happening. It seems, that I will go on a trip for about 10 days, starting tomorrow. My host's son will take me with him. Please don't be worried, I will be safe with him. He is really trustworthy.

I already miss you. I will be back on 30th May, if the volcano doesn't cause closed airports. I will come online again on 31st May, because I will come back too late on Sunday evening.

Hugs, umechan

I left my host's home early in the morning. It is still raining. I hope, that at my surprise place will be better weather. A teacher is with us and he told us, that surely the weather will be better than here. That's something!

Hugs, umechan