Travelog for: Bokkie

One more time on Petra's balcony. I love these sunsets, you know.



It was raining and the sun was still shining, so we thought, that maybe we can see a rainbow. We ran to the other side of the house and looked out of the window and here it is:



You see the two church towers of St. Peter too.

This morning Petra told me to get up early enough to go to school with her. She had to do some work in the so called paper room, because she has to order the paper there and she had asked me the day before, whether I would like to help her.



There isn't only paper in the room, but also other stuff for the grades 1 to 4.

Today we drove to Forst, which is a town next to Bruchsal. We waited there to fetch Sabrina from her choir.

Then we drove to the Media market, where Martin bought a gift for Sabrina's school friend, who invited her for his birthday.

Hi Mum

today I'm able to show you some parts of Bruchsal. Petra decided to go on a short walk and car drive before the match between Germany and Portugal started. Hey, she had been really nervous about that match.

Bruchsal was first named in 976A.D., but surely it is older, because not long ago they found some interesting things next to the City Church.

We started at her house and had to walk only a few hundred meters, when I saw this beautiful baroque church, which is called St. Peterskirche. This church is next to the graveyard of Bruchsal.



Petra saw this statue and took a photo with me.


She didn't really know, why this statue stands there, so she took a photo of the sign too. It is a memorial stone as reminder of the citizens of Bruchsal, who were victims of the Baden Revolution (1827 - 1849).


We found some really old crosses on the graveyard. One of it is called Pestkreuz (pestilence).


We walked through the graveyard, but didn't take photos there, because too many people were there and we didn't want to be disrespectfully. There are some places, where you have a wonderful view to the baroque church and over Bruchsal and there are really beautiful trees.

Here we are on the other site of the graveyard area. It is close to the city border. I asked Petra to take a photo with me and the sign. Behind the Bruchsal sign you see the traffic sign 30 - it is s zone, where you are only allowed to drive 30km/h.


Here is another view to Bruchsal. On the left side you see a part of Sancta Maria, which you will see on another photos again.


Here is a view to the graveyard from outside. I asked Petra to take these two photos so we can show you how steep this is to walk, especially for older people.




So now we went to the Sancta Maria. Let's see, what they write on the sign.


Maybe a bit closer?


Ok and now the photo of the house:


Now we went down the road and took Petra's bag and car and drove to other places in Bruchsal.
This is the Belvedere, a former hunting lodge.




Then we went out of the nice park, because it was too crowded and Petra seems to be in fear to meet some people from school. She really thinks, they could love at her. Petra, we have to work on that.
Here is another place with nice views over Bruchsal.


Turning to the right side, the towers are from left: the Bergfried (tower of the old castle), the city church "Unsere liebe Frau" and the church called Lutherkirche.



Turning to the left side you see the old people's home. The house with the orange strip and the terrace house belongs to it. The grey house in the far with the small tower is the private catholic grammar school St. Paulusheim, which is only open for Christians (no matter weather catholic or evangelic). It was founded by patres of the Pallotti order.


The flat roof in front of me still belongs to the old people's house. Bruchsal must have many old people. In the far you see the baroque church St. Peter and the house Sancta Maria.



Around Bruchsal you can see many crosses like this one.


But we didn't walk to much there, because Petra wanted to show me the palace.




Here you see the Amtsgericht - county court.


In front of the Amtsgericht you see this fountain, which has a funny name "Schnecklesbrunnen"  -snail fountain, but you see, why it is called this way.





Just turning around on our heels (on the place where we took the photo of the Amtsgericht) we saw the entrance of the main building of the palace.


Turning to the right there is another part of court and a chamber music hall


Turning to the left you see the building of the church St. Damian and Hugo, a catholic church, which is usually called Hofkirche, because it belongs to the palace yard.
The tower is behind the church, built next to the parish hall.


The left side is the back side of the church. You see the tower much better here.


Walking in the palace garden wasn't that great, because there were some people drinking and Petra wondered, whether nobody can do something against this. There should be a place for teenagers and young people, where they can have fun without drinking alcohol.
She only took some detail photos of the back side.
the sundial






and a photo of the park




On our way home I saw this building and asked Petra to tell me, what it is. She said, that it is called Cafe Achteck, cafe octagon. I thought, that it sounds interesting and asked her to go and drink a coffee there, but she said 'No'. First I was a bit grumpy with her, but then she explained, that it is the jailhouse of Bruchsal and that there are some people in it, who did really bad things. I asked her to drive home as quickly as possible.


So we drove to the right and I saw this nice gate, called Damianstor, which is the entrance to the palace area.


Petra wanted to show me another view to Bruchsal. You see a part of Bruchsal, that is built in the Rhine valley. Bruchsal belongs partly to the Rhine valley and to the Kraichgau.




I thought, that we would drive home now, but no, Petra thought, that she would like to show us this nice chapel, which is built in the fields outside of Bruchsal. Nevertheless it belongs to the City Church. The chapel is called 'Feldkirchle' - field chapel - a really great idea to name it this way.


Next to the chapel is another cross.


There are really beautiful trees around.


I thought, that now it is time to go back to the car and I asked Petra, if she would like to take a photo with me and the car. You see the Swedish and German flag there. Petra is collecting flags it seems. In the car is an Australian paper flag, but it is getting old now


So this is really the last photo of our Bruchsal tour. It is just here to show you, that we really had been in the fields.


(more photos with me will be added soon)

Hi Mom,

I'm here in Germany's oldest city. Trier was founded by Romans and is older than 2000 years.



The brown building in the middle of the photo is the Basilica and not close to this building you can see a dark building, which is the cathedral.



Many places in Trier belong to Unesco World Cultural Heritage:
the amphitheatre, which you can see as a green place in the middle of the trees. Behind the trees you see the thermal bath called Kaiserthermen.


Turning to the left you have this wonderful view. In the far you see a small piece of the Moselle


Here are the "Kaiserthermen".


The most famous building of Trier is the Porta Nigra.




We drove over a really old bridge, which was built by Romans.

Early in the evening we drove to Wasserbillig in Luxemburg just to buy some diesel for the car. Isn't that crazy?
Petra and Ralf told me, that the gas is much cheaper there than in Germany. So they drive to Luxemburg each time, if they visit Trier.

There is a street with one gas station after the other.

This is a crazy town. Do you know, that Igel is hedgehog in English? I think, it is just funny.

Petra showed me this column, which is also Unesco World Cultural Heritage.

Germany played in the final of the WorldCup. Of course we watched this match too.

Petra made us some veggies, so we had something to nibble. She said, that this is much better than eating sweets.

















The German team is really sad


But here comes a very happy Portugues team. They played a fantastic match.








A really sad face: Lehmann










The German "THANK YOU" to the organizers of the WorldCup 2008

It was a beautiful day and so we pushed Petra to go out with us.
She thought, that she wanted to show us a nice view over the Rhine valley. That's why we drove to this small hill called Michaelsberg, which belongs to Untergrombach, one of Bruchsal's suburbs.

In the far you see the Palatine Mountains. The town you see is Untergrombach.


Petra loved to swim in the quarry pond, when she was a teenager. In the far you see a white tower with smoke coming out. This is the nuclear power station of Philippsburg.


Petra told us, that her parents live close to the wood between Bruchsal and Untergrombach. She used to walk in this wood, when she was younger. The town you see here is Bruchsal.


It is a nature reserve area, so you see some signs, which show you interesting places or which tell you to take care of the nature.




There is a beautiful small chapel on the Michaelsberg, called Michaelskapelle. We were sad, that the chapel was closed. We only had been able to take a photo from this side, because it was too sunny.


We are still on the Michaelsberg, but this time we look behind us and see parts of the Kraichgau. It is famous for its wine yards.




Driving down the hill, you see houses of Untergrombach.


On our way to Bruchsal we saw this road works and Petra told us, that they build a new railway bridge.

I asked Petra to take a photo of this street, which leads to "our" house. Ok, "our" house is just around the corner, but I like this street. Do you see the silvery car in front of this nice house in the far? Petra's home is just on the opposite site.



In her garden she has some lovely flowers.
These are called phlox.


And this is one of many butterfly bushes

Petra asked us to help her baking a biscuit. She makes a really easy one:
for each whole egg she takes 50g sugar and 50g flour. This time she made a big cake, so she needed 10 eggs and swirled them really long - and we helped her with this, of course. Then we added 500g sugar (yes, that's really a lot of sugar) and one small packet vanilla sugar and again swirled it until everything was foaming. At last we added 500g flour and 1 small packet baking powder, but we didn't swirl this but only folded it in carefully. Then we put it in the baking dish and gave it in the preheated oven (170°C/338°F to 180°C/356°F) for about half an hour.



We had to let it cool down then and Petra told us, that she wanted to the decoration the next day.

But then she needed our help for some handycrafts. She worked on some pages for an album for the headmaster of her school, who left the school. She said, that people, who are older than 63 to 65 years, go on pension. The headmaster will be 64 years old this year and so it was time for him to leave work behind.

This pages we created for those teachers, who take care for their young children at home and who are on parental leave. They thought, that Petra has enough time to do this page for them - crazy girls.

Today we helped to make the filling and decoration of the cake.

For the filling we needed cream, nougat and hazelnut. I have to look, whether I will find the recipe. Petra's headmaster loves to play the saxophone, so she thought it would be a good idea to draw it on the cake.










When we were ready, we had to do some more handicrafts. This time we had to cut out some water lilies for the windows of the school doors.

Right now it seems to have many rainbows here in Bruchsal. And it also seems to be one of Petra's hobbies to take photos of rainbows with toyvoyagers. So here is another rainbow.

So this is the last day before Petra's headmaster receives the special album included all classes of the school as well as all other people, who work there.

Here is the front of the album. Sorry, but we can't show the pages, because there are many photos with children.