april: forest and city walks.

in erfurt there's a forest called steigerwald, and it's basically where erfurt citizen go, if they want to relax and clear their minds. you can see a lot of joggers and cyclists around there. there's a long established italian restaurant up there, too, a ( not so ) secret ( anymore ) institution, which serves fantastic italian cuisine and solid home-brewed beer. we were visiting my brother in erfurt and thus decided to do a little walk there. it's a rather swampy area, so if you leave the paths it can happen that you end up with wet feet if you're not cautious.

a lot of anemones were growing at the time we were there, white and soft lilac ones.

boggy swamp! i'd have really loved it to explore more, but my companions didn't want to.

light blue tiny blossom.

tulips by a bench.

old boundary stone.

wild viola.

the park near my flat is so beautiful in spring. always.

a view onto wiesbaden and the taunus mountains in the back.

i discovered a breathtaking graffiti while roaming around near the schlachthof. this is by far my most favourite graffiti in the whole city.

schlachthof sculpture. the schlachthof is a cultural centre right next to the main station. concerts, flea markets & festivals are taking place here, and it's a rather cool institution. every year the schlachthof hosts a festival called folklore - they showcase a mishmash of all kinds of music styles in a kind of hippie-esque surrounding. this year it will be a bit more expensive than in the past years, but i think 25 euro for a festival day is quite okay-ish if you want to spend a whole day there. and like i said, there are a lot of interesting artists and bands and nice activities.

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november: kickelhahn, himmelblau & weimar cemetery.

i had a week off in november and visited my parents ( as i often do on my vacations ). on a sunday morning we headed to the thuringian forest to climb onto the peak of the kickelhahn mountain. the kickelhahn mountain is the landmark mountain of the city of ilmenau . johann wolfgang von goethe , the famous writer & philosopher, often visited ilmenau and also climbed the kickelhahn. oftentimes he stopped at a little hut in the woods to relax for a while and on one of these stops he wrote one of his most known poems. our little adventure didn't last the whole day, though, as we had a little date with the weimar cemetery to look after the grave of my grandparents and then to visit my cousin and his family. tiny peek onto the kickelhahn tower. thuringian woods - deep dark green. at the goethe hut. this plate shows the german version of the poem goethe wrote here. inside the hut. and here's the english translation. i love this poem so much, as ...

in the forests.

it's that time of the year again.

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 ...

ghost of nature.

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