october '17: castle of happy return.

castle of happy return in wolfersdorf.

in late october / early november i made my way to thuringia again, to spend the first week of my vacations at my parent's place ( the second week we drove to potsdam ). on the last day of october we made our way to a tiny village called wolfersdorf, for the main reason of visiting a hidden castle and a market that took place there. the day started out really dark & moody, but it brightened up later. in retrospect i really liked getting to know this little gem of thuringia that's hidden in the back country somewhere near jena. to get there we had to drive on a very bumpy road, passing by cows & hilly meadows, actually a really tranquil region. more than once i thought to myself, my goodness, where are we driving to? because the place seemed so sealed off from civilization. in the end, i really loved exactly this fact. i would love to visit this region again in the future, for sure.

wolfersdorf castle was erected from 1548 to 1550 by nikolaus gromann for john frederick I, elector of saxony. it's build on an island in the middle of a tiny lake ( even though i can't remember that the lake was full with water, at least not entirely. ) it was used for a very long time by the aristocracy until they were expropriated in 1945/46 after the big war. the last owner ernst II, duke of saxe-altenburg, was allowed to stay in the castle until he died in 1955 and after that it was used as a youth facility, which wasn't exactly beneficial to the overall structure and the historical elements got tampered with on a pretty heavy level. after the fall of the wall a citizen of jena bought the castle and since then he's been working on reviving & restoring the beautiful castle to its former glory.

again, i kept experimenting with the programs on my camera. i didn't take a lot of photos, though. why that is, i can't really answer. in my memory i was absolutely impressed with this castle, but i suspect it was so cold that i often buried my hands inside my coat instead of taking photos... another reason might be that we visited this place together with my cousin & his family, so i probably was talking & interacting with them quite a lot and forgot to take pictures. things like that happen from time to time, i guess ^^;

i am so in love with this shot, especially because the sun emerged after a tiny rain shower and shone a light on the beautiful neo-gothic extension and the historic renaissance building. the super dark sky lets the castle shine like a diamond, right?

i love that the turret next to the spiral stair tower is not restored yet and shows the old half-timbered work. there's still a lot of work to do on this castle, but step by step they seem to move forward.

the bell tower of the castle chapel.

yup, clearly i found the HDR button again.

we made a small tour through the castle as well. this room was probably the most beautiful with its blue coloured walls and the wooden interior. a lot of the rooms inside the castle are still in renovation mode - the use as GDR youth center did a lot of damage and it's apparently quite a hassle to restore everything to its prior beauty.

this room was another restored one, and the main eye-catcher was the beautiful pan ceiling.

absolutely mesmerizing 😍

there were a lot of antlers hanging around as well. apparently this room has always been some kind of conference room.

i really love how this picture turned out. ( notice the modern wire snaking out the door - hissssssssss )

i had to get this shot in HDR as well.

these leaveswere really that bright. couldn't believe it myself.

some scaffolding indicates more restoration work being done.

after our castle visit we made a short walk through the nearby woods before we headed back home again.

rootage.

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...

autumn impressions.

a selected assortment of autumn related things. ( or things that don't fit into a 'bigger picture' ) i will get around to posting my autumn vacation photos as well. my parents and me visited france a second time and i think it was almost as wonderful as the first time. but i'll get to that soon. moth in front of a vinyl shop window. i bet you know who's smile it is that strikes at you from the record. elvis! i went mushroom hunting again, this time with jasmin, the best mushroom finder i have :) but we didn't have a lot of time together this past autumn, i am very sad to admit this. she's one of our apprentices in the serving area in our market, but recently she's on exchange in a different outlet until january. but soon we'll have her back and our sporadic meetings will stop being sporadic. i think times like these make me realize that there's something worth living for. mostly my life is very grey and i'm so thankful to s...

of dragons & critters and yin & yang kittens.

my cat shadow is a very prolific cat and gives birth to baby sweethearts annually. we always let them grow up until they're old enough to be given away. growing up in a huge garden where they can roam around freely - isn't that the best way to grow up? it's always a joy to visit my parents and my cat in that time of the year. i have also included some pictures of a little rhine trip i made in the middle of may. and the occasional random ones that didn't fit somewhere. rhine wood dragon. sitting on the rhine beach enjoying the beautiful day. my stone collection of the day. ( i seriously have a lot of stones in my home. i love to collect them! ) the river rhine near eltville. random skull assortment ( shot this at the naxoshalle in frankfurt - i was there for a japanese movie festival ) rosey roses. they also smelled heavenly. raindrops on my window. chameleon tail. i adore spirals. baby kittens drinking momma m...

ghost of nature.

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