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Kategorie: Bridges (Seite 2 von 8)

Moltke Bridge in Berlin, Germany

Like probably every decent traveller, I love airports and I love train stations. Berlin has one of the biggest train stations in Europe, and when you exit toward the Spree river and walk towards the water, this view is your reward: Moltkebrücke, Berlin, GermanyWhen I’ve spent a weekend away inside of Germany, I often take an early morning train back to Berlin and walk from the main station to my work. I could public transport instead of walking. But I love arriving in Berlin and being welcomed by the river, the bridges, even the government buildings you see in the background of the picture. This is also part of the pulsating, thriving capital I love, even far away from cool hipster neighbourhoods like Kreuzberg and Neukölln.

The bridge in the picture is called Moltkebrücke. Helmuth von Moltke was chief of staff of the Prussian army in the late 19th century. The bridge certainly shows Prussian grandeur with its red sandstone structure and its delicate ornaments. If you google it, you will find pictures of it with the old Lehrter Bahnhof in the background – the beautiful historicist train station that once stood in the place of what is now the modern, steel and glass main station. Berlin, a palimpsest made up of different time layers – if only you want to see them.

If you have read My Mission statement, you know why I love bridges. To me they are the most universal symbol of connection, of bringing people together and overcoming anything that may seperate us. I want to present to you pictures of bridges that I really love in places that I really love on my blog every Sunday. If you have a picture of a bridge that you would like to share with my readers as a guest post, feel free to contact me!

Stari Most in Mostar, Bosnia & Hercegovina (III)

Yes, yes, this is the third time I am blogging this bridge for Bridges on Sundays. But it did give the blog its name. And isn’t it fantastic? Starim Most, Mostar, Bosnia and Hercegovina Stari Most, which I have talked about previously here and here, is not just an architectural marvel. It is a symbol for many things that have taken place in Mostar through the ages. The economical and political significance of a bridge in the middle ages is probably quite obvious, and city life has always centered around it.

When now I stand in this probably most favourite spot for taking pictures of the bridge, at night time, seeing it in the spotlight against the schemes of the hills in the background, my heart is full of love. But it is not because of the beauty, or because I understand the historical impact fully – I could probably never get to a point where that was the case. No, I stand, deeply moved, because this place means something to me that I have no words for. It symbolizes too many things to phrase in even a whole book. And yet so many people just walk idly by, admire it for a moment, only to basically forget it just after having left Mostar. This is not to judge – au contraire. This is to express my heartfelt gratitude that I have been given the gift of loving places as much as I do.

If you have read My Mission statement, you know why I love bridges. To me they are the most universal symbol of connection, of bringing people together and overcoming anything that may seperate us. I want to present to you pictures of bridges that I really love in places that I really love on my blog every Sunday. If you have a picture of a bridge that you would like to share with my readers as a guest post, feel free to contact me!

Bridge in Germersheim, Germany

This week my being grounded was shortly interrupted for a quick work trip – out of the 16 federal states of Germany the train took me through seven to get to the little town of Germersheim in Rhineland-Palatinate. Germersheim, GermanyI didn’t spend much time, and to be quite frank, getting off the train the town made a rather dull impression on me. But when my work commitment was done and I was walking with my colleague through town to the smaller regional train station, the sun had come out and Germersheim presented itself as quite charming.

We walked a long a runway just above a small river that runs into the Rhine outside the centre of Germersheim. The name of it must be among the funniest German words I have ever heard, it is called Queich. The runway ended in the little bridge you see in the picture, opening up onto a wide square just in sight of Germersheim fortress. I mentioned that I thought it was quite pretty. My colleague said: „There is just about one pretty spot in Germersheim, and this is it.“ I smiled. Leave it to me to find and enjoy anything that is even the least bit pretty. I guess that is a gift.

If you have read My Mission statement, you know why I love bridges. To me they are the most universal symbol of connection, of bringing people together and overcoming anything that may seperate us. I want to present to you pictures of bridges that I really love in places that I really love on my blog every Sunday. If you have a picture of a bridge that you would like to share with my readers as a guest post, feel free to contact me!

Lohmühlenbrücke in Berlin, Germany

On a recent short photo tour along the canal, I realized just how pretty the Lohmühlenbrücke was that connect the districts Neukölln and Treptow, with Kreuzberg just around the corner.

Lohmühlenbrücke, Berlin, Germany

I am sure I have mentioned how much I love blogging and the way it drives me to learn more about the places I want to tell you about. I only now learned what a „Lohmühle“ is. The English word is bark mill, and it’s a mill that grinds kindling into a poweder that is then used for tanning leather. Apparently there used to be bark mills around this area. None of that to be seen today, but I still like the bridge a lot. Just behind it, one canal flows into the other. Water all around, and the Neukölln coat of arms glistening colourfully in the centerpiece of the bridge.

Until 1989, the Berlin wall stood at right angles to the bridge on the Treptow side of it, which made the bridge lead into a dead end. The idea of a bridge being thus bereft of its intentional use fascinates me, as do so many broken, ruined and disfunctional things. But there is nothing like witnessing their restauration to their original use, as is the case with the Lohmühlenbrücke.

If you have read My Mission statement, you know why I love bridges. To me they are the most universal symbol of connection, of bringing people together and overcoming anything that may seperate us. I want to present to you pictures of bridges that I really love in places that I really love on my blog every Sunday. If you have a picture of a bridge that you would like to share with my readers as a guest post, feel free to contact me!

Bridge at Rheinsberg Castle, Germany

One does stumble upon amazing little gems in the vast Brandenburgian nothingness that surrounds Berlin. My latest discovery is the beautiful Prussian castle in Rheinsberg.

Bridge at Rheinsberg Castle, Rheinsberg, GermanyOverlooking Lake Grienerick, Rheinsberg castle sits idyllically in a sleepy little town. It is surrounded by a moat that opens out into the lake in two places, and bridges cross it on either side of the pretty building. People were lazing on the parapets, and promenaders walked along idly in the hot late April sun when I visited. A family of ducks waddled out of the water toward the wide footpath. In the distance across the lake, one could spot a monument. It was almost too neatly arranged in its flawless symmetry, standing eye to eye with the castle. Architectural perfection.

If you have read My Mission statement, you know why I love bridges. To me they are the most universal symbol of connection, of bringing people together and overcoming anything that may seperate us. I want to present to you pictures of bridges that I really love in places that I really love on my blog every Sunday. If you have a picture of a bridge that you would like to share with my readers as a guest post, feel free to contact me!

Footpath in Vipperow (Müritz), Germany

I had a really bad day this week which called for compensation, and to get some of that, I rented a car on Saturday to drive out of the city for a day. I cannot wait to write about all of it. For today, I am bringing you a somewhat unusual bridge I found which I guess isn’t technically a bridge.Vipperow, GermanyI found this path, which I suppose should be called a rampart, in the tiny town of Vipperow at the Southern side of Lake Müritz. Lake Müritz is, after Lake Constance, the second largest lake in the country, and I just read that its name stems from the Slavic morcze meaning little sea – I loved that, obviously. The path crossing a small swamp and leading down to boathouses by the lake looked so enchanting, with the dandelions spreading little dots of yellow into the juicy green. Had it not been so damp, I would have sat down and started writing a fairytale.

If you have read My Mission statement, you know why I love bridges. To me they are the most universal symbol of connection, of bringing people together and overcoming anything that may seperate us. I want to present to you pictures of bridges that I really love in places that I really love on my blog every Sunday. If you have a picture of a bridge that you would like to share with my readers as a guest post, feel free to contact me!

Rainbow in Porto, Portugal

I had originally thought that this week I would be forced to present you a second shot of a bridge I already wrote about. But then I found something very pretty in my archive. Rainbow, Porto, PortugalThis was taken last November at the Atlantic in Porto in Portugal. When the breakwater comes crushing onto the pier, rainbows are thrown into the air, and they look just like bridges into the sky. We all know that fairytales promise miracles at the end of the rainbow – gold, love, fortune. To me they are above all a reminder of childhood wonderment. I cannot help but smile when I see a rainbow – and why is that? I am old enough to know that the magic of it just physics. But who cares about that when they look so pretty – coming about seemingly out of thin air in their colourful beauty. If nothing else, they are a momentary, fleeting bridge into the future, if only into the next moment. And who knows what magic that next moment of our lives will entail?

If you have read My Mission statement, you know why I love bridges. To me they are the most universal symbol of connection, of bringing people together and overcoming anything that may seperate us. I want to present to you pictures of bridges that I really love in places that I really love on my blog every Sunday. If you have a picture of a bridge that you would like to share with my readers as a guest post, feel free to contact me!

Bridge in Leipzig, Germany

Last year, I wrote a bridge post about a bridge in Stuttgart where I met up with three friends from grad school. We are making this meet-up an annual thing, and this year it took us to Leipzig.

Bridge, Leipzig, GermanyJust like last year, the weekend with the girls left me inspired, grateful, and all in all fulfilled. I have never had a stable group of „my girls“ that has accompanied me through me entire life. Funnily enough, the girls and I didn’t even hang out all the time when we were studying, and we are not the kinds who speak on the phone every week. But out meetings have come to be something I look forward to all year.

The bridge metaphor I used on last year’s post still holds true – we are crossing through stages of our lives together, and once a year we meet and discuss what is going on, how we see the world, what is on our minds. We are alike enough to understand each other, but different enough to learn from each one’s perspective. On my way home to Berlin, I thought: „Well, now we’re going to make new experiences for a year, and next time those experiences will help us explain life to each other, as they do every year.“ I have to say I can’t wait.

If you have read My Mission statement, you know why I love bridges. To me they are the most universal symbol of connection, of bringing people together and overcoming anything that may seperate us. I want to present to you pictures of bridges that I really love in places that I really love on my blog every Sunday. If you have a picture of a bridge that you would like to share with my readers as a guest post, feel free to contact me!

Bridge in Yaremche, Ukraine

In search of more bridges for you, I go through my photo archives again and again (cursing myself for not having started to take decent pictures of bridges much earlier in my travel life), and this week, I found one for you in my Ukraine folder.

Bridge, Yaremche, UkraineThis was taken in Яремчe, or Yaremche, in Western Ukraine, five years ago. With everything that’s been going on, I’ve been thinking much about my trip to that beautiful country. As a Slavist (that is, someone who works in a Slavonics department at university), I cannot shake the feeling that most of the people I interact with outside of my work perceive the events in Ukraine to be very far away. They are just two borders away. They are happening in the heart of Europe. I am no expert, and this is not to be a super political post, but media coverage here in Germany is dreadfully one-sided, polemic, and all in all not informative. I am very worried about what is going on.

None of it was to be anticipated (well, certainly not to this degree!) in 2009 – at half time between the Orange Revolution and what is happening now in the realms of Euromajdan. I remember Yaremche, set in the Carpathian mountains and site of a pretty waterfall and cute wooden houses, to be a sleepy, unexcitable little town. Peaceful is the word that comes to mind. When I look at the rusty bannisters, I indulge in the morbid charme that I love so much about so many places in Eastern Europe. All my good thoughts go to Ukraine and its people in their fight for democracy.

If you have read My Mission statement, you know why I love bridges. To me they are the most universal symbol of connection, of bringing people together and overcoming anything that may seperate us. I want to present to you pictures of bridges that I really love in places that I really love on my blog every Sunday. If you have a picture of a bridge that you would like to share with my readers as a guest post, feel free to contact me!

Stari Most in Mostar, Bosnia & Hercegovina (II)

Lately I have developped a strange fascination with the ground. I think it is because I feel literally grounded these days, both in the sense of being slightly captive and of having to be realistic. When life gives you lemons, make them lemonade – so I am looking to discover beauty in and on the ground. And how would that be easier than re-travelling some of my favourite places in my mind.

Stari Most, Mostar, BosniaThe bridge that gave this blog its name, Stari Most in Mostar, that place that stole my heart in that country that holds part of my soul, Bosnia & Hercegovina. The stones are just as shiny and soft as they look in the photo. The material is calles Tenelija, as I recently learned, and seems to be a specific local stone that I did not find an English (or German) equivalent for. They are slippery, the raised parts are necessary to even walk across the bridge without falling. I have managed to slip on it a few times anyway. I am so proud and happy to know that I have walked that ground so many times. I feel like every time I crossed the bridge, a piece of me was left clinging to the stone.

It is strange, but with Stari Most, the Old Bridge, it never bothered me that it was a reconstruction. The bridge was destroyed by Croat forces on November 9th, 1993. Just one more historically significant thing that happened on that day (next to the November progromes of 1933 in Nazi Germany, or the downfall of the Berlin wall in 1989). The reconstructed bridge has only been opened for ten years, so it isn’t actually the 400 years old that it looks. But it’s still full of history, and of individual stories. It is full of life.

If you have read My Mission statement, you know why I love bridges. To me they are the most universal symbol of connection, of bringing people together and overcoming anything that may seperate us. I want to present to you pictures of bridges that I really love in places that I really love on my blog every Sunday. If you have a picture of a bridge that you would like to share with my readers as a guest post, feel free to contact me!

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