The medieval Jüterbog
With its historic town centre, Jüterbog is considered the medieval capital of the Fläming, a historically grown cultural landscape southwest of Berlin. Jüterbog has three monasteries: Kloster Zinna, Mönchenkloster and Liebfrauenkloster (Monastery of Our Lady); three town gates: Dammtor, Zinnaer Tor and Neumarkttor; numerous fortified towers and Brandenburg’s oldest town hall.
St Paul’s Cathedral
I have known about this particular church since I was a child. It plays a role in the film Mary Poppins, where the “little old bird woman” sings her song “Feed the birds”. The setting was not quite as magical in reality as in the film, but inside the cathedral
The Tower of London
There are places that have been familiar since early childhood from books, school lessons and countless films. You think you know them and then one day you stand in front of them. And they are exactly as you always imagined them. That’s what happened to me with the Tower. The
Canoeing on the Ardèche
We like to kayak and look for interesting river sections for it when we travel. The Ardèche, a tributary of the Rhone about 120 km long, has carved a deep canyon in the southern French mountain landscape on its way through the karstified rock. The result is a natural spectacle
Kyffhäuser and the Imperial Castle
The Kyffhäuser is a small low mountain range south of the Harz. On a mountain promontory in the north-east are the ruins of the thousand-year-old Reichsburg Kyffhausen. A multitude of German legends have grown up around the Kyffhäuser. The most famous is the Barbarossa legend. It states: “The old Emperor
The New Berlin of the Millennium
Berlin has experienced many highs and lows in its history. When I moved to Berlin in 1986, the city was still strictly divided into East and West. A wall enclosed the western part of the city, which languished as a de facto appendage of West Germany. The eastern part vacillated
Quedlinburg, medieval jewel
The over 1000-year-old town of Quedlinburg, situated on the north-eastern edge of the Harz Mountains, is characterised by numerous Romanesque buildings, over 2000 half-timbered houses and villas from the Wilhelminian and Art Nouveau periods. The Renaissance castle and the collegiate church with its famous cathedral treasure are famous. Due to
Bamberg, Baroque and Beer
The Old Town of Bamberg is one of the largest intact historic city centres in Germany and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The photo shows the Old Town Hall, built in 1467 in the Gothic style. It is located in the middle of the wild river Regnitz and can be
Tegernsee, Bavarian idyll
Many clichés apply to Lake Tegernsee. It is idyllic, enchanting, sophisticated, tranquil and – difficult to translate – urbayrisch (original Bavarian). Lake Tegernsee was formed towards the end of the last great ice age, when a huge glacier carved a depression between the mountains. This later filled with water. Lake
Altenburg
The successful general and ingenious state administrator, whose portrait can be seen here in a window of Altenburg Palace, became regent of the newly created Duchy of Saxe-Gotha in 1640 in the middle of the Thirty Years’ War. His church and school reforms earned him great merit. Immediately after his