Roonstrasse Synagogue in Cologne

21 April 2023 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  7 minutes

Interior © Horsch, Willy/cc-by-3.0

Interior © Horsch, Willy/cc-by-3.0

Roonstrasse Synagogue, located in Cologne, Germany, is the only surviving of the five synagogues of the city before the Nazi era. On August 19, 2005, Pope Benedict XVI visited Roonstrasse Synagogue. This visit was the second ever visit to any synagogue by any one of the Popes. There, he condemned Nazism and antisemitism.   read more…

Cologne Central Mosque

26 March 2023 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  2 minutes

© Raimond Spekking/cc-by-sa-4.0

© Raimond Spekking/cc-by-sa-4.0

The Cologne Central Mosque (German: DITIB-Zentralmoschee Köln, Turkish: Köln Merkez-Camii) is a building commissioned by German Muslims of the Organization DİTİB for a large, representative Zentralmoschee (central mosque) in Cologne, Germany. This mosque was inaugurated by Turkish President Erdogan. After controversy, the project won the approval of Cologne’s city council.   read more…

Kranhäuser in Cologne

19 September 2022 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  5 minutes

Kranhäuser and Cologne Cathedral © Martin Falbisoner/cc-by-sa-4.0

Kranhäuser and Cologne Cathedral © Martin Falbisoner/cc-by-sa-4.0

Kranhaus (“crane house”, plural Kranhäuser) refers to each one of the three 17-story buildings in the Rheinauhafen of Cologne, Germany. Their shape, an upside-down “L”, is reminiscent of the harbor cranes that were used to load cargo from and onto ships, two of which were left standing as monuments when the harbor was redesigned as a residential and commercial quarter in the early 2000s. Each building is about 62 m (203 ft) high, 70.2 m (230 ft) long, and 33.75 m (110.7 ft) wide.   read more…

Ordensburg Vogelsang in the Eifel National Park

9 November 2021 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  7 minutes

© Guido Radig/cc-by-3.0

© Guido Radig/cc-by-3.0

Ordensburg Vogelsang is a former Nazi estate placed at the former military training area in Eifel National Park in North Rhine-Westphalia. The landmarked and completely preserved estate was used by the National Socialists between 1936 and 1939 as an educational centre for future leaders. Since 1 January 2006 the area has been open to visitors. It is one of the largest architectural relics of National Socialism. The gross area of the landmarked buildings is 50,000 m².   read more…

Bad Münstereifel – City Outlet

17 June 2020 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  9 minutes

© panoramio.com - Jan Uyttebroeck/cc-by-sa-3.0

© panoramio.com – Jan Uyttebroeck/cc-by-sa-3.0

Bad Münstereifel is a historical spa town in the district of Euskirchen with about 17,000 inhabitants, situated in the far southeast of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. The little town is one of only few historical towns in the southeast of North Rhine-Westphalia, and because of this is often overcrowded by tourists throughout Spring and Summer.   read more…

Classic Remise Berlin and Düsseldorf

1 December 2019 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Architecture, Berlin, House of the Month Reading Time:  9 minutes

Classic Remise Berlin © Sieben7/cc-by-sa-2.0-de

Classic Remise Berlin © Sieben7/cc-by-sa-2.0-de

Classic Remise is the name of a business model (service centers around the topics motorcycle and automobile with specialization in the field of classic, vintage and collectible vehicles). There are two Classic Remises in Berlin and Düsseldorf. Both service centers are located in listed buildings with an industrial-traffic background.   read more…

Old Synagogue in Essen

18 October 2019 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  8 minutes

© Tuxyso/cc-by-sa-3.0

© Tuxyso/cc-by-sa-3.0

The Old Synagogue (German: Alte Synagoge) is a cultural meeting center and memorial in the city of Essen in Germany. It is located in the center of the city on Edmund-Körner-Platz 1 (formerly Steeler Straße 29), close to the present city hall. The memorial center was founded in 1980 and is accommodated in the pre-war Jewish community’s synagogue. The synagogue, together with the attached Rabbinerhaus (House of the Rabbi), which today houses the Salomon Ludwig Steinheim Institute, was finished after a two-year construction period in 1913. It was originally consecrated as the Neue Synagoge (New Synagogue). Today the building is one of the largest, best preserved and architecturally most impressive testimonies to Jewish culture in pre-war Germany.   read more…

Aachen Cathedral

7 October 2019 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Architecture, UNESCO World Heritage Reading Time:  18 minutes

© CEphoto - Uwe Aranas/cc-by-sa-3.0

© CEphoto – Uwe Aranas/cc-by-sa-3.0

Aachen Cathedral is a Roman Catholic church in Aachen,Germany, and the see of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Aachen. One of the oldest cathedrals in Europe, it was constructed by order of the emperor Charlemagne, who was buried there in 814. From 936 to 1531, the Palatine Chapel saw the coronation of thirty-one German kings and twelve queens. The church has been the mother church of the Diocese of Aachen since 1802. In 1978, Aachen Cathedral was one of the first 12 items to be listed on the UNESCO list of world heritage sites.   read more…

Oil Mountain in Wuppertal

10 April 2019 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  5 minutes

Ölberg Panorama © Carsten Hahn/cc-by-sa-2.0-de

Ölberg Panorama © Carsten Hahn/cc-by-sa-2.0-de

Ölberg is the local place name for a residential district of the Wuppertal district Elberfeld, which forms the southern half of the Elberfeld Nordstadt. The name goes back to the fact that even in the 1920s in this quarter mainly occupied by workers – in contrast to the immediately west subsequent bourgeois Brill quarter – many houses were not connected to the public grid and the apartments were mainly illuminated with oil or kerosene lamps were.   read more…

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