christmas trip: querfurt castle.

christmas was rather quiet and contemplative this year ( it was all that i needed ) and on the last day off we made our way up north into the neighbor state of saxony-anhalt to visit querfurt castle. it was a very dreary and foggy day and everything in this little town and on this castle seemed so very haunted and ghostly. the castle is one of the biggest castles in middle germany and the cities foundations date back to the 8th century. so the whole town ( which is really tiny actually ) is really old. we made a quick side trip to the graveyard and let's just say that it had so many old grave stones where you couldn't even make out the writings anymore. it was a spooky little cemetery, really. this day was kind of magic, i can't put my finger on why it exactly make me feel this way though. i guess it was the combination of the dark, foggy daylight with the ancient architecture.

a beautiful starry portal with lion head above.

the cemetery building.

entrance towards peace.

look at those huge & beautiful mossy graves! you could very clearly imagine a dead body climbing out of them.

a view onto the castle.

these graves stood right in front of the castle. i guess they were even older than the ones in the graveyard.

finally entering the castle.

this tower is called 'der dicke heinrich' ( the fat henry ).

in this building you could find the castle restaurant. the narrow building on the left is the castle church st. mary, peter & paul. its architecture is quite romanic and it dates back to those times.

view onto the city's church & arsenal.

more bits and pieces of the surrounding buildings. on the left you can see the castle church again.

we climbed up one of the many towers to have a narrowed view onto querfurt. when weather is nice you can clearly see a lot more than what is shown here, haha. but doesn't it look eldritch?

christmas decorations soon started to light up.

the tree in the front without the lights was so remarkable to me. i love when nature is crooked and strange :)

a very good view onto the church. i love the romanesque architecture a lot, because it seems so meagre and minimal and it's so dark like the darkest times in the dark age ;)

more city views.

the christmas decorations were not overdone and i loved this about the castle.

this creepy vintage santa was too much, though. it stood outside of the castle restaurant.

the arch of twinkling lights.

when we made our way back to the car we discovered these trenches around the castle. we didn't explore them, though, as it got very dark by now.

a corridor tree. i like to find curious things like these.

one last view onto the castle. there was also a ruinous building right next to the castle that was really, really creepy. apparently it had been a guild hall ( this photo looks definitely not creepy - but it was so dark - i couldn't manage a good picture of it anymore - it's definitely not in such a good shape anymore as it is pictured here ) but it's atmosphere was more likely the one of an abandoned mental institution. my nerves started to tickle just by imagining to enter this house and exploring what was still in there. we didn't enter it, though, it was just too blood-curdling, haha.

may '20: seeking modernism.

super pink rhododendron buds emerging! i start off this post with some flower images to appreciate and praise the time of spring, especially the month of may, which is the most abundant spring month to me personally. all the blossoms, all the fresh greens amass during may, and my heart and mind are hardly ever able to not frolick & gush about it all! for this post i am returning to one walk i did with the sole purpose to find a special mid-century villa in königstein ( which would ultimately prove to be a failure - i did find it, but i couldn't approach it properly to have a good look at it and only ever saw a tiny bit of the garden/forest side ). the whole walk was not a letdown, though, as i did find some other mid-century & brutalism gems and thoroughly enjoyed walking through the old spa town in the taunus mountains. rhododendron shrubs yield all kinds of different blossoms in myriad colours, they are easy to breed, therefore a wide variety can be found all over the wor...

july '20: lake petersdorf discoveries and a plea against genocide.

the green wild meadows of malchow's sandfeld. in the west of malchow there is a big chunk of forest that spans towards plauer see, a widely 'uncultivated' area these days, but it hasn't always been this way. in my last post i mentioned the nazi munition factory that had been built in these woods, away from prying eyes of their enemies and where they also built an external subcamp for the concentration camp ravensbrück. exactly these woods we explored on a pretty sunny day, betraying the darkness that happened around these parts. isn't it weird that there are places in this world that were built or used by dark forces and horrible regimes and you vist them 80 years later and they are the most peaceful places you can imagine? sometimes my brain can't cope with the contrast of knowing what was in the past and what the present looks and feels like. it definitely leaves me with a strange impression often, kind of like a little sting in my heart and brain that is not ...

the america chronicles '22: austin I - city of the violet crown.

sighted on the way to austin: the texas colorado river . but beware, this is not the iconic colorado river ( 2.334 km long ) that has its source in the rocky mountains and confluences in the gulf of california, flowing through the grand canyon and other magnificent landscapes along the way, but this is texas' very own colorado river with a length of 1.387 km starting in the llano estacado plains in northwestern texas, and eventually ending up in the gulf of mexico at matagorda bay . why there are two colorado rivers in the US, i really don't know 😅 my guess is, that they were named by two people in different times, not knowing of the other's colorado river discovery. we'll meet the texas colorado river again in austin, so i will probably bestow more information on you eventually ;D a random road squirrel, also found on the way to austin. austin is about 187 miles ( 300 km ) away from baytown and is situated west from there in central texas. it sits at the foot of th...

ghost of nature.

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