Travelog for: umechan

Take a look at the black roof. If you look well you can see some hail on it.

Today our hosts invited us to a open air theatre in Ötigheim. They love to go there each year. This year they watched the play. Ronja Räubertochter
We had luck, because it wasn't too hot weather.



sorry, this one is without me, because we had to zoom

When we were back at home, we decided to go to have dinner outside at a so called beer garden. The restaurant isn't far from our home, so we only had to walk a few minutes. We passed by at the baroque church St. Peter, which was beautiful in the evening sun. So sorry, that we missed to take a photo with me

After we had a really tasty meal, we walked home again. We saw this interesting car in front of the church then and my host decided to take photos with me.

Today we visited Bretten. Like Bruchsal this town is in the state of Baden-Württemberg and located on Bertha Benz Memorial Route. There live about 28,ooo people.

The centre of Bretten consists of many old half-timbered houses around a lively marketplace.Bretten was first mentioned as "villa breteheim" in the "Lorsch codex" in 767. Since 1148 Bretten had the right to mint and issue coins. In 1254 Bretten received city rights. In 1492 Bretten was granted to hold four fairs by Pfalzgraf Philipp. Philipp Melanchthon was born in Bretten in 1497.(wikipedia)


the Melanchthon house




marketplace






a red half-timbered house with red car





Stiftskirche, evangelic church




Next to the church we saw this half timbered house with the flags of the states which participated at the world championship in South Africa.




Statue of Philipp Melanchthon




a fountain and some pink houses




some shops

This evening we were invited to join our hosts, when they visited the light show at the palace of Bruchsal. It was the first time, that this event happened there and they and we were really curious. There were many people out there and we enjoyed the lights. I'm sorry, but we only took this one photo, it just was too dark to take more. And there is one photo without me. I thought, that you maybe like to see the backside of the palace like this, too.

Maybe you remember, that we saw a small small part of the roof of the prison tower, when we were standing next to the church entrance. Here is the prison. It is called cafe octagon - Cafe Achteck - in Bruchsal, because of the way it is built.

Do you see me and my hosts arm in the mirror?




Only a few meters from the prison is the hospital of Bruchsal. There is the old part with the nice tower and a big part of the newer hospital. We're still standing at the same parking place only moved a bit.





Then we drove to the Stadtgarten, because we wanted to see the Belverdere -  a former hunting lodge.




When you walk out of the Stadtgarten you see that small house on top of the stairs. We took a photo of the sign. The house was supposed to protect its owner from the rain, when he worked on his vineyard.



We walked down the stairs and have a few on the house from there.






Standing next to the little house you have a wonderful view over Bruchsal.











Then we walked back to the Stadtgarten again and took some more photos there. Here is the Ferdinand Keller fountain.




My host loves this lime tree and I do too.




The house behind the fountain is called Schönborn Gymnasium. This school is more than 250 years old.






The last picture today we took at the street, which leads along the St. Paulusheim, another grammar school. You have a nice view on St. Peter from there.

It's my host's birthday. We helped to prepare things for the guests, which came to have breakfast with us, but we toyvoyagers were allowed to eat first before the guests arrived.






For lunch we had some Italian kind of soup and this interesting bread rolls.

Finally it's Thursday morning and we drove to our hotel in the Bavarian Forest. On our way there we stopped at the Railway museum in Nuremberg – Nürnberg in German. It was raining heavily, when we arrived there. Many other people had the same idea and so we had to stay in a queue outside in the rain for several minutes until it was our turn to pay the tickets. We only looked at the big trains, though, because our hosts already have seen the other rooms of exhibitions and said, that it is just too crowded today. We are sorry for the bad photos, but the light made taking photos really difficult.


King Ludwig's royal train.






The Saxonia was the first operational locomotive built in Germany in 1838.




Then we went to the old signal tower. We looked at some more locomotives, while it was raining even more heavily than before.

The Walhalla is a hall of fame  that honors laudable and distinguished Germans, famous personalities in German history — politicians, sovereigns, scientists and artists of the German tongue. The hall is housed in a neo-classical building above the Danube River, east of Regensburg, in Bavaria, Germany.

The Walhalla was conceived in 1807 by Crown Prince Ludwig, who built it upon ascending the throne of Bavaria as King Ludwig I. Construction took place between 1830 and 1842, under the supervision of architect Leo von Klenze.

The Walhalla displays some 65 plaques and 130 busts of persons, covering 2,000 years of history — the earliest person honored is Arminius, victor at the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest (9 CE). (wikipedia)








We took a photo of the Walhalla from the far too, wanted to get the whole building on it. We tried to get a closer view, but haven't been really successful.

Finally we arrived at our hotel and had a rest there. See the view out of our window.

The weather is rather bad - a lot of rain is falling down on us. So at first we had to decide, what to do with this day. Then our hosts remembered, that they wanted to visit a Bärwurzerei and that they could do so on a day like this. We drove to Bad Kötzting. Bärwurz - baldmoney- is an ornamental plant and they use it to make Schnaps - hard liquor-  out of it. Our hosts told us, that they don't like to drink it, but they wanted to buy some other Schnaps and liquor.

At first we read about the Bärwurz.




and took a look at some other plants, which they use for Schnaps and Likör.




The parish church Maria Himmelfahrt is the centre of the defence buildings with exterior circular wall, moat and interior ring. The church was mentioned in a pope certificate in 1179, extented in 1737/38. Inside it is baroque with a high altar from 1771 and pulpit from 1730.








Bad Kötzting is a nice city with many beautiful houses.

Back in the hotel again we took a look at the things we bought. If you see this here, you could think, that our hosts are a lot into alcohol, but they told us, that it is a famous region for theses Schnaps and liquor and also for beer, which we bought on our way back to the hotel.

My hosts found an interesting place to visit for today: Die gläserne Scheune - the glass barn. It is a barn, which Rudolf Schmidt and his family bought to make it a really special place. The inside walls of the barn are glass and he and other family members painted on the glass. You can see different stories on the glass:
about the "Mühlhiasl"
about Saint Francis and more.
It is a really fascinating place and we can all recommend to go there, when you visit the Bavarian Forest and are close to Viechtach.




This trunk on the ball shows the lies that weigh on the world, they make the world fall apart.






You can see those wayside crosses very often, when you drive through the Bavarian Forest.




This one is only painted with pencil.




Here he tells the story of Mühlhiasl.




another painting about Mühlhiasl.

My hosts found an interesting place to visit for today: Die gläserne Scheune - the glass barn. It is a barn, which Rudolf Schmidt and his family bought to make it a really special place. The inside walls of the barn are glass and he and other family members painted on the glass. You can see different stories on the glass:
about the "Mühlhiasl"
about Saint Francis and more.
It is a really fascinating place and we can all recommend to go there, when you visit the Bavarian Forest and are close to Viechtach.




This trunk on the ball shows the lies that weigh on the world, they make the world fall apart.






You can see those wayside crosses very often, when you drive through the Bavarian Forest.




This one is only painted with pencil.




Here he tells the story of Mühlhiasl.




another painting about Mühlhiasl.

We saw the Maypole of Viechtach, which is on a place next to the church of Viechtach. We were standing in front of the church to take this photo.






The church St. Augustinus in Viechtach




At last we visited the Kristallmuseum - crystal museum in Viechtach.