We left the Black Forest in southern Germany the day before, and drove back up to near Frankfurt again. The next day, we visited the picturesque town of Michelstadt, just south of Frankfurt and wandered around, visiting some gift shops and taking photos inside the town's church. Later that evening, we visited some very good family friends near Frankfurt, Günter and Renate. My mother had gotten to know them a very long time ago, even before she had met my father, and it was wonderful seeing them again, even though the visit was only brief.
Show: All blog postings from my 2022 Germany tripWednesday, February 15, 2023
Sunday, January 29, 2023
Germany 2022 - Gengenbach
Gallery (45 images): Germany 2022 - Gengenbach
The next day on our trip, we were in the Black Forest region of southern Germany, visiting the town of Reichenbach. Franziska's son helps to run a wonderful hotel and restaurant there, the Land-Gasthof Rössle. The food was incredible, including the best Schnitzel Cordon-Bleu that I have ever had. Not only was it stuffed with ham and Swiss cheese, but also had caramelized onions inside. The flavour was amazing, as were the perfectly cooked pan-fried potatoes too. I can't wait for the next time I visit where I will surely order that again!
We left my dad to relax at the Rössle and Emily and I drove to the nearby town of Gengenbach. It is a small town, filled with interesting shops, and it had some very picturesque, narrow cobblestone streets lined with historic timber-framed post-and-beam constructed houses and buildings. In German a building constructed like that is called a Fachwerkhaus. There was an externally unassuming church in Gengenbach that turned out to have a wonderful, ornate interior.
I just have to share an iPhone shot that Emily took of my wonderful schnitzel dinner at the Rössle!
Tuesday, December 13, 2022
Germany 2022 - Stuttgart & Tübingen
Gallery (15 images): Germany 2022 - Stuttgart & Tübingen
A big meeting of nearly the entire extended Mander family happened in Stuttgart. We first visited the cemetery where my uncle Kurt is buried and met three of my cousins and their families, as well as an uncle, to pay our respects. Then it was off to a big lunch get-together, where a few additional family members joined us. All in all, we were about 17 people if I recall. After lunch, we all visited the 217 meter tall Stuttgart TV transmission tower, with a viewing platform 150 meters up.
Then the next day, we drove to Tübingen to visit the Mountain Cemetery there, the final resting place for Franziska's ashes, my fathers partner of 9 years after my mom passed away from cancer in 2008. Franziska passed away in early 2018 after having a bad stroke. The cemetery is beautifully set in a forest, although Franziska's urn is buried in a very low-key area, her location unmarked and her resting place only noted with an engraving on a small stone tower. The last photo in the gallery shows Franziska and my dad during happy times together in 2017.
Show: All blog postings from my 2022 Germany tripWednesday, November 30, 2022
Germany 2022 - Burg Herzberg
Gallery (60 images): Germany 2022 - Burg Herzberg
Today, while my dad spent the day being interviewed for the book by his friend in Frielendorf, Emily and I drove to the wonderful and scenic old castle ruins of Burg Herzberg. Amongst other things, there is a tiny little chapel, with some lovely stained-glass windows that add a beautiful splash of colour to photos of its interior. There was a restaurant with lots of outdoor seating and we had a tasty lunch there, albeit one that was constantly disturbed by hungry and obnoxious wasps!
Thursday, November 10, 2022
Germany 2022 - Burg Hohenburg (Homberg)
Gallery (25 images): Germany 2022 - Burg Hohenburg (Homberg)
On the second day in Germany, we arrived in the small town of Frielendorf, visiting a friend of my father's, who is also writing a book about his rose hybridizing endeavours. In the evening we all visited the nearby small town of Homberg, where there are some castle ruins up on the hill overlooking the town. The old tower was very photogenic, with its old and weathered stone masonry construction, just full of texture and detail. The evening light filtering in through the windows and doorways cast a wonderful warm glow in spots. The view of the surrounding countryside from the top of the tower was also spectacular.
Show: All blog postings from my 2022 Germany tripSunday, October 2, 2022
Germany 2022 - Kassel, Bergpark Wilhelmshöhe
Gallery (80 images): Germany 2022 - Kassel, Bergpark Wilhelmshöhe
This year, my father and I, as well as my partner Emily (now fiancée - we got engaged in December 2022!), finally managed to get back to Germany in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Originally my father and I were slated to go in 2020, but had to cancel our plans. This year we went in early August for two weeks and I borrowed a Fujifilm X-T4 since I knew its in-body image-stabilization (IBIS) was going to come in very handy for many dark interior shots. My X-Pro2 came along as a backup but was never used. I also used my iPhone 13 for a few selfies with Emily.
I know I was in the midst of working on my 2018 Germany trip galleries, but I'm going to focus on this latest trip and then go back to the 2018 trip afterwards.
This is the first day of shooting and exploring, where Emily and I wandered through the UNESCO World Heritage site of Bergpark Wilhelmshöhe in the city of Kassel. "Bergpark" means a mountain park, and indeed, a central feature of the park is a 500 meter mountain, with a statue of Hercules at its peak. In the summer, every Wednesday and Sunday there are Wasserspiele, which literally means "water play," where water is released from a large reservoir at the top of the mountain. This gravity fed water flows down over a multitude of cascades, rapids, waterfalls and a reconstructed Roman aqueduct, ending in a large fountain in a pond near the main Wilhelmshöhe Castle. The gravity fed fountain is powered by a second reservoir about half way down the mountain and a person has to manually pull open a valve at the right time.
My father grew up in Kassel, right next to the park, and his father -my grandfather- was the park's groundskeeper. The park is an absolutely wonderful place to spend a summer day, with lots of shade, walking and hiking paths, and many things to see. In the latter part of the gallery, we visited the gothic Löwenburg Castle, although we came too late to get a tour inside.
Monday, June 6, 2022
Germany 2018 - Idar Oberstein & Herrstein
Gallery (115 Images): Germany 2018 - Idar Oberstein & Herrstein
On this third day in Idar Oberstein, we visited a historic gemstone grinding shop, the Historische Weiherschleife, where all the huge grinding stones were powered by a waterwheel and a system of large belts and pulleys. We also visited the associated gemstone mine, the Edelsteinmine Steinkaulenberg.
Afterwards, we drove a few kilometres and wandered around the historic town of Herrstein, where we joined in with a tour group and marvelled at all the very old buildings, a large number of which are many hundred of years old and of original construction. My ultra-wide Laowa 9mm lens got a lot of use in the cramped little town! All of Herrstein's charming streets and alleys are constructed from very well worn cobblestones, with grass and plants forcing their way up between them in many areas.
This was the last day in Idar Oberstein and from there, we drove to the small town of Frielendrof where we visited some old castle ruins, Burg Herzberg, the following day.
Show: All blog postings from my 2018 Germany TripTuesday, April 5, 2022
Germany 2018 - Idar Oberstein - Day 2
Gallery (155 images): Germany 2018 - Idar Oberstein - Day 2
On the second day in Idar Obertsein, we visited two more museums. First was the "Deutsches Edelsteinmuseum", or German Gemstone Museum, and the second was the "Industriedenkmal Jakob Bengel", or Jakob Bengel Industrial Monument. The Jakob Bengal museum has displays of Art Deco jewellery and a large array of fascinating machinery that automates the tedious process of making necklace chains. Somewhere I also have a video showing this process, which I may add to this posting in the future.
For now, there is a huge gallery of 155 images showcasing many of the amazing displays of gemstones, both raw and cut, Art Deco jewellery as well as shots of the town of Idar Oberstein and also the famous Felsenkirche, or "Cliff Church", which is literally built into the cavern near the top of a cliff.
Sunday, January 16, 2022
Gallery: 2018 Germany Trip - Flight & Idar Oberstein
Gallery (120 images): Germany 2018 - Flight & Idar Oberstein
I'm going to call this my the first "official" posting from the Germany trip that I went on with my father in the summer of 2018. I had posted a few galleries previously a couple of years back, from the middle of the trip, but since I am now using new software to process my images (Capture One Pro instead of Adobe Lightroom), I will be republishing those galleries in the appropriate order and reprocessing everything I had already done.
The above gallery contains images mainly from a mineral and gemstone museum, called Deutsches Mineralienmuseum (or German Mineral Museum), in the town of Idar Oberstein. The town is famous for the processing of rocks & gems, lapidary and jewellery manufacturing. There are many rock and gemstone museums, and in a future posting, I will be showing photos from another spectacular one, as well as some others I took during a tour of a local gemstone mine. This is a long gallery, 120 images, but there are so many fascinating displays of minerals and gemstones, as well as some sculptures, that it was hard to pare it down.
There is one photo of my dad (photo 28), standing next to some giant crystals. The above blog post photo also shows some massive amethyst geodes, amongst others, most of which stand taller than my dad as well. In the middle of the gallery, photos 100 to 105, there are some shots showing UV fluorescence of some minerals, with pairs of shots, one in regular light and the next in UV light.
I am way behind in my image processing, and I am not going to promise that I'll get through all these quickly, but this is the first of many more galleries to come from my 2018 Germany trip!
Wednesday, October 13, 2021
Gallery: 2021 Island Trip - Victoria & Saltspring - Days 7-9
Gallery: 2021 Island Trip - Victoria & Saltspring - Days 7-9
This final gallery of our 2021 Island trip has photos covering the last few days of our vacation. After the long 460 km drive from Port McNeill down to Victoria, we stayed at Marketa's B&B. The stay was wonderful in this large Edwardian style home, with very cozy rooms and an absolutely delicious breakfast in the morning. We had a room with its own large Jacuzzi tub, and it was wonderful to soak in it after a long day of driving! The next morning we visited Fisherman's Wharf in Victoria, which features tons of colourfully painted floating shops and house boats.
After a delicious fish&ship lunch at Fisherman's Wharf, we headed off to Schwartz Bay to catch the ferry to Saltspring Island, where we stayed for three days at my friend Ted's place. The first evening on Saltspring was great, nice and clear but the following days, the smoke from all the wildfires in BC and Washington finally got pushed out far enough to severely affect the visibility there too. In the last few shots in the gallery, you can see the smoke and haze, and the orange and red sun which was nearly blotted out completely. It was really too bad that the amazing views from Mount Maxwell were all hazed out. Oh well... we will definitely be visiting there again in the future, hopefully with clearer skies next time!
That's it for this trip, summer number two of the COVID-19 pandemic. Next year, Emily and I really hope to be able to visit Germany with my father! Crossing fingers the pandemic is under control by that time finally...
Link to: All the blog posts from my 2021 Island Trip
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