Bautzen in Saxony

3 October 2022 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  13 minutes

© Stephan M. Höhne/cc-by-sa-3.0

© Stephan M. Höhne/cc-by-sa-3.0

Bautzen is a hill-top town in eastern Saxony, Germany, and the administrative centre of the district of Bautzen. It is located on the Spree river. In 2018 the town’s population was 39,087. Until 1868, its German name was Budissin. Bautzen is often regarded as the unofficial, but historical capital of Upper Lusatia. The town is also the most important cultural centre of the Sorbian minority, which constitutes about 10 percent of Bautzen’s population. Asteroid 11580 Bautzen is named in honour of the city. The town is situated about 50 km (31 mi) east of Dresden between the Lusatian highland and the lowlands in the north, amidst the region of Upper Lusatia. To the north stretches the Bautzen Reservoir, which was flooded in 1974. This is the former location of the villages of Malsissy (Małšecy) and Nimschütz (Hněwsecy).   read more…

Schorfheide-Chorin Biosphere Reserve in Brandenburg

20 May 2022 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Palaces, Castles, Manors, Parks, Environment, UNESCO World Heritage Reading Time:  5 minutes

Glambecker Mühle © Uckermaerker/cc-by-sa-3.0

Glambecker Mühle © Uckermaerker/cc-by-sa-3.0

The Schorfheide-Chorin Biosphere Reserve, often shortened to Schorfheide, is a biosphere reserve in the German State of Brandenburg near the Polish border. The reserve was established on 1 October 1990 following the German Reunification and is under the protection of the UNESCO Man and Biosphere Reserve Programme. It stretches over the German districts of Barnim, Uckermark, Märkisch-Oderland and Oberhavel and incorporates an area of 1,291 square kilometres (498 sq mi). Notable towns are Eberswalde, Joachimsthal and Friedrichswalde. The core area of the reserve is formed by the Schorfheide forest, one of the largest cohesive woodlands in Germany.   read more…

St. Nicholas Church in Potsdam

13 May 2022 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Architecture, Berlin Reading Time:  12 minutes

© Bärwinkel,Klaus/cc-by-3.0

© Bärwinkel,Klaus/cc-by-3.0

St. Nicholas Church (German: St. Nikolaikirche) in Potsdam is a Lutheran church under the Evangelical Church in Berlin, Brandenburg and Silesian Upper Lusatia of the Evangelical Church in Germany on the Old Market Square (Alter Markt) in Potsdam. The central plan building in the Classicist style and dedicated to Saint Nicholas was built to plans by Karl Friedrich Schinkel in the years 1830 to 1837.   read more…

Ahrenshoop Baltic Sea Resort

30 March 2022 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  7 minutes

© Pkw98/cc-by-sa-3.0

© Pkw98/cc-by-sa-3.0

Ahrenshoop is a municipality in the Vorpommern-Rügen district, in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany on the Fischland-Darß-Zingst peninsula of the Baltic Sea. It used to be a small fishing village, but is today known for its tourism and as a holiday resort.   read more…

German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina

21 February 2022 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Universities, Colleges, Academies Reading Time:  7 minutes

Main building, formerly the bulding of the Freemasons' lodge 'The Three Swords' © panoramio.com - Michael aus Halle/cc-by-sa-3.0

Main building, formerly the bulding of the Freemasons’ lodge ‘The Three Swords’
© panoramio.com – Michael aus Halle/cc-by-sa-3.0

The German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina (German: Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher Leopoldina – Nationale Akademie der Wissenschaften), short Leopoldina, is the national academy of Germany, and is located in Halle (Saale). Founded on January 1, 1652, based on academic models in Italy, it was originally named the Academia Naturae Curiosorum until 1687 when Emperor Leopold I raised it to an academy and named it after himself. It was since known under the German name Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher Leopoldina until 2007, when it was declared to be Germany’s National Academy of Sciences. The Leopoldina has a claim to be the oldest continuously existing learned society in the world. The validity of the claim depends in part on how certain definitional and historical questions are answered.   read more…

Muskau Park

14 January 2022 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Museums, Exhibitions, Palaces, Castles, Manors, Parks, UNESCO World Heritage Reading Time:  2 minutes

New Castle © Jochen Sievert/cc-by-sa-4.0

New Castle © Jochen Sievert/cc-by-sa-4.0

Muskau Park (German: Muskauer Park, officially: Fürst-Pückler-Park Bad Muskau; Polish: Park Mużakowski) is a landscape park in the Upper Lusatia region of Germany and Poland. It is the largest and one of the most famous English gardens in Central Europe, stretching along both sides of the German–Polish border on the Lusatian Neisse. The park was laid out from 1815 onwards at the behest of Prince Hermann von Pückler-Muskau (1785–1871), centered on his Schloss Muskau residence.   read more…

Bundestag election 2021

26 September 2021 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, EU blog post series Reading Time:  80 minutes

© bundestag.de

© bundestag.de

(Latest update: 4 April 2022) After Chancellor Angela Merkel announced her voluntary retirement from office after 16 years and that with approval ratings that other heads of government may only wish for, the CDU suffered a severe setback with a drop in votes of 9% compared to the 2017 federal election. The Chancellor candidate Armin Laschet got the worst election result of the party of all time and he owes that to himself. After many years in government responsibility, it would certainly not be bad for the CDU not to work in this role for a while, but instead to be a opposition party in order to reorganize itself and counteract incrustations and obvious nepotism.   read more…

New Garden in Potsdam

14 May 2021 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Berlin, UNESCO World Heritage Reading Time:  6 minutes

Old Dairy-Farm on Jungfernsee, today a restaurant © Biberbaer/cc-by-sa-3.0

Old Dairy-Farm on Jungfernsee, today a restaurant © Biberbaer/cc-by-sa-3.0

The New Garden (German: Neuer Garten) in Potsdam is a park of 102.5 hectares located southwest of Berlin, Germany, in northern Potsdam and bordering on the lakes Heiliger See and Jungfernsee. Starting in 1787, Frederick William II of Prussia (1744-1797) arranged to have a new garden laid out on this site, and it came to be known by this rather prosaic name. The New Garden is one of the ensembles comprising the UNESCO World Heritage Site “Palaces and Parks of Potsdam and Berlin,” a status awarded in 1990.   read more…

Annaberg-Buchholz in Saxony

29 March 2021 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, UNESCO World Heritage Reading Time:  10 minutes

© Devilsanddust/cc-by-sa-3.0

© Devilsanddust/cc-by-sa-3.0

Annaberg-Buchholz is a town in the Free State of Saxony, Germany. Lying in the Ore Mountains, it is the capital of the district of Erzgebirgskreis. The previously heavily forested upper Ore Mountains were settled in the 12th and 13th centuries by Franconian farmers. Frohnau, Geyersdorf, and Kleinrückerswalde—all now part of present-day town—are all attested from 1397. The most well-known personalities associated with Annaberg-Buchholz include Adam Riese, the “father of modern arithmetic”.   read more…

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