Travelog for: Bilica

Helloooooo, my name is Bilica and I am a very adventurous sea turtle. I would love to visit as many places as I can go. My favorite color is green (I wonder why). I don't have many sea turtles friends, but that's ok, I like to have all kinds of friends.
I wish I get a nice host.
Would you host meeeee????

Hey everybody,

today I arrived at my first host BlackCat. She will upload some pictures later. I hope we will have a great time together. At least I am not alone here, other Toyvoyagers are here, too.

Have a nice weekend,
Bilica

Hello !

Today we went to a part of Essen called Margarethenhöhe.
Here some facts from Wikipedia:

Founded by Margarethe Krupp in 1906, the garden city with its 3092 units in 935 buildings on an area of 115 ha (284.2 acres) (of which 50 ha are woodland) is considered the first of its kind in Germany. All buildings follow the same stylistic concept, with slight variations for each one. Although originally designed as an area for the lower classes with quite small flats, the old part Margarethenhöhe I has developed into a middle class residential area and housing space has become highly sought after. A new part, Margarehenhöhe II, was built in the 1960s and 1970s but is architecturally inferior and especially the multi-storey buildings are still considered social hot spots.

We made a lot of pictures for you, of course.








An old street sign.


On a kindergarden !







And then we saw the tram !





What a nice evening !

Hello !

Today we went on a farm for ostrichs and emus. I was so happy to see such nice animals !


Can you see them behind me?


There you can see the house of them !



Here are some close ups from the animals:








And the nature around was nice as well:





It was a nice day on the farm !

Today we went to the water castle Borbeck.

Here some facts from wikipedia about it:
Schloss Borbeck is the central cultural institution of both borough and district. An institution of the cultural office of the city of Essen, it regularly hosts exhibitions and concerts. A permanent exhibition on the history of the abbey  and the city  has been established in 2006. Essen's public music school has been conducting classes here since 1999. The register office has set up a special room for marriages. The 55 ha (135.9 acres) park is open to the public and the largest park in the northwestern part of Essen. A street nowadays separates a smaller part in front of the castle from the rest of the park; this smaller part mostly consists of hilly lawns and includes a former boxing  arena, which is now used for concerts.

And finally some pictures from me:









I really liked it there.

BlackCat went to a fire station with me today. And after that we visit the castle Altendorf. I hope you like the pictures.

Today we visited the Landschaftspark in Duisburg. Here some infos from wikipedia:
Landschaftspark is a public park located in Duisburg Nord, Germany. It was designed in 1991 by Latz + Partner, with the intention that it work to heal and understand the industrial past, rather than trying to reject it. The park closely associates itself with the past use of the site: a coal and steel production plant (abandoned in 1985, leaving the area significantly polluted) and the agricultural land it had been prior to the mid 19th century.

Today we visited the abbey Saarn in Mülheim, which is close to Essen. I don’t know something about the abbey, but it is on the Industrial road. It was built in 1214.

Hattingen became part of the Hanseatic League in 1554 and became an important trading town. In 1720, there were 52 operating coal mines within the municipal area and Hattingen became one of the first industrial cities of the Ruhr region. Steel production started in 1853, when the Henrichshütte was founded. The Henrichshütte became one of the most important employers of the whole region and dominated the town until it closed in 1987.

Behind me you can see the Henrichshütte.




Right next to the Henrichshütte is a firefighter car museum. It is closed at the moment, but there were some cars outside.







Here you can see why it is closed:

Today we saw a wonderful church with cute little streets around.

Today we went to a view place in Essen. From there we saw the Baldeney lake and a part of Essen, which is called Werden.

Hi Mummy,
I am in Remscheid now. I met my new host Katja and some ToyVoyagers. They are Smooch, Roderich, Snuttig and Ceryni, a tiny turtle  

Ceryni told me that there also should be Paddington Bear, who is on a trip to the North Sea with Katja's parents at the moment.



We made a delicious cake than. I helped to bake the cake, Snuttig also. First we read the receipe and looked for the ingredients. The cake is called "Rose cake with apricots", because the surface will look like roses.



We had to use flour, curd cheese, sugar, vanilla sugar, baking powder, veg-oil, milk, apricots and apricot jam.



Katja took eggs out of the fridge but we did not use them.

First we cut the apricots into pieces and mixed them with jam.



Than we had to mix curd cheese with oil, milk, sugar and vanilla sugar.



Flour and baking powder had to be worked under the curd-mix, we had to kneat the dough until we had this dough ball.



It had to be rolled to a rectangle, about 35 x 45 cm large.



We applied the apricots ...



... and rolled up the dough rectangle with this sticky mass on it.



Katja helped us to cut this roll into 14 slices. Can you see the filling bulging out?



The slices had to be put into the baking pan with the cut face up.



In the meantime Katja pre-heated the oven to almost 200°C. The cake had to bake for a bit  more than 30 minutes than.



While we had to wait for the cake we had a look out of the kitchen window. Outside it was raining.



RRRRRRiiiiinnnnggg!!!!! The cake is ready!



We than had to spread warm jam onto the still warm cake and to add some chopped almonds.



We were expecting guests. The table was ready than. Katja bought some baked sweets in the morning and you can also see our cake.



I was very curious who would visit us.

Bye
Bilica

Hi Mummy,
today we took a short walk in the city centre. Outside the weather is bad and it is really cold, only 7°C - brrr.....

Katja told me that all fountains in the city were re-opened after winter today.



This fountain is situated at the end of the shopping street.



This is one of the churches in the city centre.





Here you can see the central bus station.



This is the company building of  the local newspaper Remscheider GeneralAnzeiger.





Here you can see me in front of the public library.



We had to hurry home than - it is simply mean outside.

Bye
Bilica - hoping for better weather

Hi Mummy,

we took a walk in the afternoon. Although the sun was shining it was rather cold. We went to the municipal park first to have a look at the ducks. We hoped to see cute ducklings but it seems there are still no ducklings.








G R E E N!  I love G R E E N!





There is a playground in the park.



The rhododendron is alredy blooming.



This memorial is dedicated to the dead of severals wars earlier than World War I.



We left the park than and walked to one of the oldest districts, to Hasten. You can find those typical old houses here, also old factories among dwellings.



This district is surrounded by woodland.







To walk home we had to walk uphill for an eternity.





Bye
Bilica

Hi Mummy,
we visited the neighbour city Wuppertal today. The first thing to see when you enter the city centre is the "Schwebebahn", a suspended monorail, the worldwide one and only of that kind.

The Schwebebahn is built above the river Wupper. It was opened in 1901 and it is still in use as a local transport system. It travels along a route 13.3 kilometres long, about 12 metres  above the surface of the river Wupper  and about 8 m above the city streets.





We took a short walk along the river Wupper. Here you can see the Schwebebahn in front of a bank building.



The Schwebebahn has 20 stations, each of it built in a different style, some in the original old-fashioned style, some in a modern style. This one is definitely one of the modern ones.



Here you can see me inside the station. We wanted to take a short ride with the Schwebebahn.



We went with the Schwebebahn for three stations.



Here you can see the train coming in from the other direction.



Katja told us that we would visit the Botanical Garden than, high upon the hillside. The city of Wuppertal is situated in the valley of the river Wupper, the slopes of the valley are really steep, so in Wuppertal about 500 stairs were built  along the slopes. Most of them were built in 19th century when the housing areas grew. Here is one of them.



We reached the Botanical Garden than. It was originally built in 1890 as a school garden in the place which is now the rose garden. Between 1908-1910 it relocated to today's site, the Villa Eller'schen, a former country house of textile manufacturers named Eller, which contained a villa , orangery, residential and farm buildings, and the Elise Tower (built 1838) which provides the garden's focal point.



First we had a look at the greenhouses.



We decided to climb onto the tower.



The outlook is fantastic!





On this zoomed photo you can see the city centre with the characteristic bank building.



Here you can see the greenhouses.



This is part of the villa, in the former orangery nowadays a nice café is situated.



I saw a pretty pond.



Here you can see the whole building complex.





Of course we posed for a nice group photograph.



It was time than to leave.

Bye
Bilica