august: hot & humid days.

i didn't do much in august, it was pretty hot a lot of times and i just decided to stay in or maybe drive to an outdoor pool once in a while. one of those outdoor pools i've visited is the natural water swimming pool in bingen. and surely it is my most favourite one to date! you have the best view onto the rhine and swimming through a pool that has water plants on every side of it is just really nice, especially when dragonflies and butterflies are sitting down once in a while. it kind of feels like you're swimming in a real pond. of course it was quite crowded, because the days i visited it was just too hot to do anything differen than going for a swim. but the surrounding lawns were big enough to house many sun bathing people and i rarely felt watched ( and if they do watch you, you need to ignore them and just do your thing and read or write letters or whatever you want to do until you hop back into the water ).

i also did a little forest walk again ( favourite pastime, yes ) around the town's city forest. there are still places to discover in these woods, even though i always think i've seen everything. one of my favourite places in the city forest is the goldsteintal because it is more secluded in comparison to all the other wood areas in town that are often quite overcrowded. perfect for destressing.

outdoor pool bingen. i only shot one picture the first time i was around. i always feel quite intimidated to shoot on my own... need to grow up already.

i found a remote field in the woods. spent quite some time there chasing grasshoppers.

such a beautiful camouflaged tiny thing, huh?

i think this mushroom is a death cap, but i'm not completely sure. what i'm always sure about though, when seeing those kind of mushrooms is the fact, that they're rarely edible. the mushrooms i'm always picking don't have lamellae, but are spongy. i learned very early on that most lamellae mushrooms are very difficult to identify as they always have some twin mushroom that can be deathly or toxic. so i never pick those, only when i'm completely sure i've found edible ones. of course the spongy ones have their perils, too, but i'm much better at identifying them. sigh, i'm a tiny mushroom maniac.

typical view in german woods - the hide.

and orchard meadows are also a common sight.

love shack?

the outdoor pool again, this time with the view onto the river rhine. so idyllic.

the sewage field. apparently it helps to filter the water. it also makes for an interesting picture.

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.

Search This Blog