liliencarré backside.
continuing with my past adventures - now finally with the arrival in the month of may! hopefully i will someday get around to catching up fully. i really need to get my act together, haha.
anyway, some words to these 80 something photos...
i shot these on the first of may, a national holiday ( labor day ), which was perfect, because that day was so beautiful it literally hurt. like, i NEEDED to get out of my flat and explore the city. especially since i knew that a lot of areas were finally turning green and lots of bushes and trees were blooming. this city is really irresistable in springtime, i kid you not. i decided to go for a lengthy walk into the southeast of the city, direction towards biebrich district. i'm not sure if i initially had the intention to check out the cemetery in biebrich, or if i was just meandering around, but fact is, i would end up on this graveyard and it was seriously a perfect treat! although the cemetery is very close to the autobahn, it was nestled into wonderful park-like grounds and felt incredibly peaceful & idyllic! there are not enough exclamation marks to properly describe how anodyne this place was to me.
when i left the cemetery i also stumbled upon an architectural gem which practically made my day. but before i elaborate on that, let's start at the beginning, because that particular beginning of my walk gifted me with lots of colourful flowers!
brickstone grids.
human forms. ;)
nearing the main train station. left: liliencarré from 2007 & right: train station from 1906. loving the 100 year time difference in architectural style.
spotted wonderful deep purple lilacs! may is always in abundance of these blossoms - which i love!
the petals are forming a grape-like cluster - looking quite delicious indeed.
the blossoms of the mountain cornflowers were really looking like little fireworks 😍
passed by some garden allotments and found a little garden cabin with yellow highlights.
and more yellow/golden goodness of the golden chain tree 😍
lookout windows.
all the blooming trees were such a treat on this walk! i can't believe i got this lucky.
the judas tree is one of those rare trees that has blossoms ON its trunk and twigs! i didn't even know this was actually a thing until i discovered it on this walk! and it's such a sight, isn't it?
here you can see the blossoms growing on the trunk. what a strange plant.
on my way to the cemetery i passed by this residential building. i like when there's lots of natural materials used in contemporary architecture.
when railroad tracks lead through fresh green jungles. that colour of new greenery is something i adore about springtime so much!
like it's the most vivid colour of hope, i think.
nothing super special here, i just liked the structural facade of one of the factory buildings of the henkell company - a wine & bubbly producing company.
there is just something about power poles and their set-up that kind of intrigues me.
entering the biebrich cemetery immediately gifted me some lovely grave sites! there's a lot of 50ies styled graves on this cemetery, mixed with older tombs as well! what really caught my eye, though, was the fact that the cemetery had so many blooming & green corners. i mostly visit graveyards in autumn, rarely in spring, but this visit showed me that i've been missing out quite a lot with this practice! turns out graveyards are MESMERIZINGLY beautiful in springtime! with all the blooming and the budding leaves it left a heavy impression on me, one of feeling really welcome and hugged and lured in!
loved this corner of dangling water cans in all kinds of colours. looked like a cheerful sculpture installation!
a figure behind bars. ( or grids, haha ) i suspect this is some sort of saint, alas, i really don't know who this might be. could be judas, could be matthew, could be simon.
better view on his withered face. this carving was kinda delicate and is actually quite unusual in these latitudes. wooden figurines are signs of hyper-catholic regions, and more a routine sight in southern germany & rural areas.
strolling under the alley trees.
reached the mourning hall where beautiful wisterias greeted me welcomingly. the mourning hall was erected around 1891.
nothing beats a good wisteria x brickstone x cross situation, right?
never can i ever get enough of the wisteria's beautiful pastel colour grading!
sunk-in columbarium. really loved that these were surrounded by snowball bushes. the relief shows pietas ( commiseration) & historia ( history ).
aevum for eternity. enter with caution, i suppose?
the combination of growth against old brickstones is another favourite.
peaking over some walls to glimpse a tiny jewish cemetery!
there were roughly 50 graves on here, but fairly deserted.
modern columbarium site.
looked like a city skyline of some sorts from afar.
pondering sculpture - memento mori - consider, you are going to die.
the columbarium viewed from the backside. quite figurative and decorative.
the whole site was erected surrounding a big old tree in the middle. i sat down here for quite a while, enjoying the sun & drawing a little, also saying hi to some caterpillars crawling around.
pink blossoms scattered on the ground.
one thing i know for sure, i need to visit graveyards more often in spring. all the growth and the blossoms made me almost squeal!
spirea - i noticed it a lot more in 2018 - maybe new candidate for favourite bush ever?
those tiny blossoms were so delicate!
made a selfie around these bushes. hi!
then i discovered this beautiful grave site - which was quite overgrown and not well-groomed. the symbolism was so strong here, with the stylized dove & the circles.
upon closer inspection you could take a look at the structure of the gravestones - the lines leading away from the dove for example. also, you could finally see that the circles had stems and leaves and transformed into flowers. i look at these as sunflowers - which complements the lines and the circle where the dove is flying in. doesn't it look like she's flying in front of the sun? i really loved inspecting these details and putting together does associations.
better look at the sunflowers.
those carved structures were so subtile yet so important to the overall look of the stones.
i love this little dove, it looks so happy flying away.
exploring more super green and blossoming grounds.
couldn't identify this tree. first thought was it's a robinia, but really, rubinia blossoms look completely different. these looked like little clouds of white against the green background :)
gold chain trees were also part of the cemetery botany, and enhanced it quite beautifully.
ah, this scenery ❤
she was so gorgeous and almost looked elysian.
approaching some more worthwhile surprises.
this is erna raisch, an angelic-looking beauty that died fairly young - 13 years of age.
the corresponding gravestone.
the family grave of the dyckerhoffs, a very influential family in wiesbaden. they have cement factories down in biebrich and got quite wealthy with the production of it.
i'd even guess that the grave was built out of concrete as well. love the sculpture group.
the whole cemetery had these very idyllic spaces & perspectives...
love how the shadows of the leaves linger on the wall in the background and how it gives the sculpture the perfect amount of elegance.
tried to slowly find a way out of the cemetery again...
but tiny pansies were distracting me.
and then i found this world war memorial with a fine dude guarding it.
the fine dude turned out to be very attractive. which was one of the reasons i needed to take photos of him :P
fine dude had very delicate features. they distracted me from the actual memorial, a memorial to remember the dead of two world wars.
seed, sown from god, bloom, bear fruit hundred-fold on earth and let death become life!
uhm, i know, i'm still not done with fine dude.
goodbye, sad boy.
and finally, i left the cemetery for good to return back home. found some more garden sheds sporting yellow facades.
an abandoned house advertising for johnson&johnson technicare, which sold medical equipment & scanners. technicare doesn't even exist anymore, at least since the late 80ies, so this building ( an actual residential home ), must be abandoned for quite some time. and why the fuck did they have a shop in one of the most residential areas of wiesbaden? questions upon questions... maybe it was just advertisement, though, and nothing else. the house itself was super hidden.
but do not ponder about forgotten places anymore, remember the places that are still kept in neat condition like the church of the holy ghost. if you've been attentive you know that i love mid-century architecture, and not exactly the conveyor produced mid-century architecture, no, i really do love the eclectic specimens. this church was built in 1960 by herbert rimpl. herbert rimpl is quite a controversial figure in architecture. while he produced some very interesting work later in his life, he still had some history working for nazi germany and being a nsdap member. after the war he was denazificated and could continue working on unusual projects. i'm pretty sure that man wasn't the uninformed and mislead person he always stated to be, he helped erecting some important nazi architecture, after all, like subsurface armament construction sites for the concentration camp mittelbau-dora. claiming he wasn't part of it or not even a member of the nazi party obviously was a foul statement.
looking at the architecture without regarding the uncomfortable facts, i still love this church! it's super extraordinary and quite a beaut! i love the honeycomb windows & the parabola as a recurrent element in the whole building. the bell tower completes the look of the whole terrain.
the huge perron leading up to the main gate is another interesting detail.
honeycomb window detail.
i hear that the church is quite spectacular from the inside, with the windows having various colours and therefore creating an atmospheric illumination spectacle. hopefully i will have the chance to see it for myself someday.
against the blue skies the building quite literally made a good figure.
polkadot doors with button doorknobs.
fish scale windows were the most compelling aspect when you view the church from the side. and again, the parabola returns.
i'd even say that the side view was even more interesting to me. it looks so completely alien, this church!
the back.
suffice to say, for the rest of my day, i was completely satisfied and happy. a wonderful day spent on a blooming graveyard and the discovery of a remarkable church basically made my day. i was, as the title of this entry suggests, in a very merry mood by the time i returned home again.
on my way back home i even had the immense pleasure and the incredible luck to take a picture-perfect photo of one of our local rose-ringed parakeets inside of pink blooming bushes! indeed, we have a small population flying around the city - a local peculiarity! i REALLY love this picture, the colours are sooooo nice!
final picture shows my beautiful second home wiesbaden featuring the taunus mountains in the back and the most prominent buildings ( marktkirche, main station & the russian chapel ) scattered throughout the city.
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