spring signs slowly starting to emerge.
schlangenbad is one of my favourite places to visit for a good nature fix, they have 4 trails around the town that lead you to very beautiful spots, and in addition to that also some other smaller walking trails. of course you can always also opt for simply just walking whatever path you desire, if following official trails is not your thing either ;)
in any case, schlangenbad always manages to steal my heart during every season! i have experienced walks during all kinds of weather conditions, in the foggy mysterious autumn, the lush & jungle-like summer, in snowy winter wonderlands and also in spring, when the earth is slowly awakening.
what i also like about it, is the fact that it never is overrun and always quite chill. i like my little hikes to be quiet and nearly undisturbed, it increases chances to relax more and focus on all the little details around you!
the path i took this early spring day was a mixture of many, sometimes i just walk where my instincts lead me. i passed by the 'wild family' first which are some smaller rock formations you can find in the west of the town. actually, the most well-known formation is called 'wilde frau' ( wild woman ), and there is a 'wilder mann' ( wild man ), too. also, you have the 'wilde kinder' ( wild children ), which are basically just scattered rocks, near the warme bach stream. all of them together of course comprise the wild family and make this part of the schlangenbad woods quite mysterious! it's also a very beautiful area, wildly romantic!
in the far back you can see the wild man ;D it's next to the still tiny warmer bach.
everything was still pretty much in winter mode up there - the taunus mountains do need their time to arrive in spring.
arriving at the wilder mann rock. a small crossing bridges the stream and will connect you to other paths around schlangenbad, one of which was a path towards bärstadt - a district of schlangenbad. that one i chose to continue my hike.
i had to take a few photos of the wild man first, though, it is one of my favourite spots.
warmer bach streaming downhill. this stream is a spillover of the thermal springs that make schlangenbad so special, it flows through the whole town and ends in the river walluf.
found some fuzzy mushrooms! with these i have a much harder time to identify them, there's trillions of species when it comes to tree growing mushrooms.
approaching the wilde kinder rocks! as you can see, they're all scattered around the floor. all these rocks were formed in the latest ice age.
a leftover old tree is guarding the kids.
the existence of small and big rocks makes me think of them as babies, toddlers, pre-school & elementary school kids and teenagers 😁
a school of rocks.
on this one someone built a little fort, which i of course had to check out!
the rock basically functions as the the balcony here ;)
the entrance. come to think of it, the fort was built quite interlaced and filigrane!
i'd say, a big nature architect was at work here.
inside looking back to the entrance, the 'balcony' on the left.
see how everything was wedged into each other? even the tiny wall on the bottom was almost weaved, as if it was some textile.
looking out the balcony. maybe this rock was the oldest teenager of the kids and had watch over them!
i mean, it certainly had a good overview down the valley!
balcony view into the hut.
the whole structure in its entirety! a work of art 😍
found a random daffodil! i think it was only the blossom, someone must have lost their loot from the town 😅
it looked fresh, though, maybe it was a singular one growing here, and you just couldn't see the plant underneath all the autum/winter leaves.
very common in the taunus woods: periwinkles!
always nice to see their lilac blossoms covering the grounds 💜
a little bit of sunshine peeking!
these wood stacks always add interest to any kind of wood image!
i reached the edge of the woods from which you have a beautiful view over the walluf valley and the extensive fields that surround bärstadt.
bärstadt is, as mentioned before, a district of schlangenbad, though the village itself was formerly the municipal center of 15 villages, and schlangenbad never was part of it. only in 1972 it was incorporated into the schlangenbad municipality - schlangenbad got the headquarter position because it was more well-known by the time, mainly because of its luxurious spa history. the village covers the largest area of all the schlangenbad districts and is the second most populous out of all the 7 ( 1.438 peeps ) and schlangenbad ( 940 ) is not ranking first - that honour goes to georgenborn ( 1.941).
farms and lots of family homes are dotted all over the walluf valley, with bärstadt seeming to be a place a lot of former city dwellers want to retreat to. it's situated close to the rhine main region, so commuting isn't a big problem, and the close vicinity to the rheingau and all those big cities nearby, adds to the living quality of these places, too. like you're never too far away from the hustle and bustle of society, but still get to maintain a quaint little peaceful life in the countryside.
as nature was still needing quite some time to wake up here in the mountains, i enjoyed the yet skeletonal trees for what they were - craggly, windblown creatures with spindly fingers.
i do love finding deteriorating and abandonded structures, isn't it amazing how this rather rickety wood construction is still holding up - especially with heavy roof tiles on top?
the core of the village - with martinskirche in the front. this church was first mentioned in 1190, but the current building stems from the early 18th century. apparently it houses a very big organ, one created by the famous organ builder family stumm ( built from 1769 to 1771 ) - it still is a testament to bärstadt's once influential position as the center of the historic cluster of villages it presided over ( 'überhöhische dörfer' - higher-up villages ).
cluster of houses on one of the hillsides.
almost complete village seen here, though it still extends a bit to the left and right.
after enjoying the view of bärstadt i retreated back into the schlangenbad woods, finding tree spirits formed as antlered snakes!
and always, woodstacks will most likely attract me to them, especially old overgrown mossy ones!
looks like a former shepherd's hut to me, but usually you do not find these in the woods, but on the fields outside of the woods! maybe someone repurposed it as a forestry shack or hunter's hut.
someone should perhaps put a little bed inside and rent it out for people who want to spend a night inside the woods! i would try it out!
bye-bye little abode!
hello, rock sculpture!
suddenly a chapel emerged when i ran around a corner - and as i didn't know what it was, i got a little excited over a hidden gem find!
turns out, the chapel belonged to schlangenbad's little cemetery, which is pretty far into the woods, away from the town's center. it was erected around 1900 and donated by a regular schlangenbad visitor - laura heye, a wealthy merchant's daughter from bremen. the reason why the cemetery was built so far away from the spa town is a rather curious one: it wasn't chic to die in a spa town, because you went there to get healthy! and a cemetery near the center of the city would've just been a very unwelcome reminder that death existed and that it was always closeby - bad publicity for a place that was designed to celebrate life and health.
window detail that usually would be covered by beech foliage in other seasons of the year.
the chapel could be gothic architecture, the awning reveals the connection to the belle époque, though, which makes this structure a child of neo-gothic architecture. steel constructions like this were typical for the late 19th, early 20th century, it was a material that told of prosperity and wealth and progress...
... however, the current awning felt very modern to me, so i very much doubt that it was the original construction, or that it ever was part of the original chapel design. it did still remind me of the early steel era from yore ;P
and as you can see, there was no corroded iron everywhere, and everything looked fairly new. plus, the corrugated plastic roof definitely wouldn't have been a historic element ;) and the design is simply too minimal and modern, too.
the little cemetery did have a lot of charm, though, especially since it was designed in a park-like structure. old trees were looming over the gravesites and the localization in the middle of the woods also contributed to that special, sacred feeling i had while wandering over the cemetery.
i am pretty sure the whole place would've been even nicer if it weren't for the freshly cut-down trees, apparently the bark beetle and the ongoing dryness of the forest grounds for several years, did quite a number on them ( probably spruces - as they are the most affected trees currently ).
another cute window! i was curious what the chapel looked like from within, but it was closed up, so no satisfaction for my curious little brain!
the back of the chapel.
spring did finally show itself again on this cemetery, pansies were dotting several graves, but also grew randomly in the grounds.
i liked this particular grave with the menhir-like rock and the diverse plantings on it. though i pretty much made up my mind about how i want to be dealt with after i die ( and it's not by having a traditional gravesite ), this is still a very cute way to style a grave, without it being too over-designed. i would like my remembrance location to be very close to nature as well, no big stone, or engraved dates and name, even just taking collected items and putting them on the place i want to be remembered on would be enough. i do like the idea of a tree as a place to go to and remember people by, so a woodland burial really connects to me, too. i definitely want to be cremated after my death, and always thought about my ash being scattered around the places i have most loved in life, though i am not sure how much of a regulated thing that is in germany ( 'cause germany regulates every fucking thing :P ).
another sweet gravesite, with two beautiful figurines and a seat to rest on, while contemplating your loved ones.
i loved these two women so much, they looked like dancers in the wind to me, and i love how one holds a setting/rising sun above her head ❤
an old family grave site that had the air of being a bit forlorn, but still very much loved.
glance back down the chapel.
... 'on his golden wedding day.' someone obviously died well advanced in years, though maybe it was a bit tragic and sad that it had to be on a day when he was married to his wife and it should have been a celebration. or maybe it was, because he did get to reunite with his wife? whatever the story is, details like this always makes one wonder and ponder about the people buried.
old gravesite and memorial from probably the late 1910s, i think the one in the front said 1918, so my brain tells me that the memorial in the back might be one for the fallen people of the first world war from the village.
returned to the entrance of the cemetery and bid adieu to the little hidden gem in the woods.
further down the alley that lead back to schlangenbad, i stumbled upon this interesting wood/concrete construction! would certainly be interested in living in such a place, but definitely with more plants and trees in the backyard and up front.
this backyard was almost park-like, too, it belongs to a building from 1930, built for the founder of a purification plant. it looked to me like modern and historic architecture met in the middle, thus creating some interesting mix-up of old and new.
i spied a deer sculpture inside that garden!
another listed building, 'haus sonnenschein'. the sunshine house certainly gets lots of it, since it is situated on one of the highest slopes surrounding schlangenbad. the house is from the late 1920ies and incorporates a garage ( which is also the foundational element for the terrace on top ). its round roof and the rounded oriel give the wholehouse kind of a soft look and i also like the quarried stone base!
the main entrance to the sunshine villa. loved the blooming trees!
haus hainburg - built in 1876 it looks like a little castle, and also overlooks schlangenbad in such a way! i absolutely adore the clinker facade made out of quarried rocks!
this is the perspective that definitely helps the castle cliché. the building today is a hotel, but back when it was built, it was built for a jewish financier: albert cohen. the architect was edwin oppler, a hanoveranian government building officer, who was related to the cohen family by marriage.
i tried to check out the hotel's website, but apparently it only shows an image of the house, but has no other access to any further information on booking or renting. therefore i consider it not operating at this time.
the last glance onto the building!
a little walk around schlangenbad ends again here, and i am pretty sure that at some point i will have showed you all of this little town's secrets and nooks and crannies. schlangenbad is not super big, but i still like it for its worldly disposition and feeling, like a teeny-tiny miniature version of wiesbaden, only tucked away in a much sweeter and cozier landscape in the taunus mountains. sometimes it feels a little lost and forgotten, though, especially when you walk the city center and the old spa premises, that unfortunately have been abandoned partially and live out a sad uninhabited existence. i can only hope that at some point people will try to breathe fresh air into them again, because they surely deserve to be filled with life! until that happens, i will still enjoy this place a lot, for the cute outdoor pool for example, and of course its extensive hiking paths that i have already embraced warmly into my heart ❤
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