Celle is a town and capital of the district of Celle, in Lower Saxony. The town is situated on the banks of the River Aller, a tributary of the Weser. Celle is the southern gateway to the Lüneburg Heath, has a castle (Schloss Celle) built in the renaissance and baroque style and a picturesque old town centre (the Altstadt) with over 400 timber-framed houses, making Celle one of the most remarkable members of the German Timber-Frame Road. From 1378 to 1705, Celle was the official residence of the Lüneburg branch of the dukes of Brunswick-Lüneburg (House of Welf) who had been banished from their original ducal seat by its townsfolk. read more…
Bergen is a town located between Soltau and Celle on the Lüneburg Heath in Lower Saxony. Administratively it acts as a municipal borough divided into 12 subordinate parishes based on the town and its surrounding villages. The town has 13,100 inhabitants. Members of the British military and their families, who were not included in the census, bring the actual population to about 17,000. These soldiers occupy a NATO base and exercise on the Bergen-Hohne Training Area just outside the town. The Sieben Steinhäuser, a cluster of dolmens dating from the Stone Age, are located within the training area. read more…
The Elbe rises at an elevation of about 1,400 metres (4,593 ft) in the Krkonoše (also known as Giant Mountains or in German as Riesengebirge) on the northwest borders of the Czech Republic. Of the numerous small streams whose waters compose the infant river, the most important is the Bílé Labe, or White Elbe. After plunging down the 60 metres (197 ft) of the Labský vodopád, or Elbe Falls, the latter stream unites with the steeply torrential Malé Labe, and thereafter the united stream of the Elbe pursues a southerly course, emerging from the mountain glens at and continuing on to Pardubice, where it turns sharply to the west. At Kolín some 43 kilometres (27 mi) further on, it bends gradually towards the north-west. read more…
Gifhorn is a town and capital of the district Gifhorn, in Lower Saxony. It is situated at the confluence of the River Ise and River Aller, near the cities of Hanover, Celle, and Wolfsburg. Gifhorn is home to the International Wind- and Watermill Museum which contains a comprehensive collection and working replicas of the world’s most common windmills. read more…
