Travel Tips

So...after Middelburg, Luxembourg and Heidelberg came ULM and DACHAU.

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Driving from Heidelberg to Ulm was pure pleasure. The sun was shining, I felt happy, everything was OK till....there was a STAU ( tailback). Seeing lots of people turning to the right where was a small road, I did the same, I was near Ulm, so nothing could go wrong.

It turned out to be a perfect idea: the road wasn't crowded, no STAU oder stockender Verkehr and I could drive slower and enjoy the rolling landscape and the villages where the road meandered through

But for this old orchard I stopped, wanting to take some photos: I had to walk over a carpet of lush, greener than green high grass, dotted with yellow-red little apples, which I did very carefully of course.

Here you can see two of the photos: real old fashioned high apple trees.

Here in our Dutch orchards the trees are no higher than a person: easy to pick the ripe apples but.... no characteristic trees, just row after row of dwarfed trees, all the same, short trees with short branches, you can hardly see the branches.....
I love the higher ones, every one its own "personal" shape!

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This one, that one.....it takes time to make the right choice!

But the morning was sunny, the smell in the orchard good and aromatic and sweet, definitely sweet, the buzzing of busy bees sounded sweet in my ears.

We, the bees, the trees and me, we all were under that DELFT-blue sky, in complete serenity and quietness, with the sun adding her bit!

Stupid me, I should have taken a photograph of the wonderful, colourful carpet I had to walk, to stride over, it made me feel like "the queen of the Orchards 2001".

My day was already an extremely fine one.....

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Not being a real GOLDEN-WINGED angel, able to fly high, I have to go step by step...786 steps...

Oh, how I love to do these things........and enjoy them to the full, looking at the panorama but also if not in the first place to all the details of the tower.
And all details: perfect, completely perfect till the highest topstone: amazing.

Would we have the endurance and the patience? I doubt it. Isn't this photo wonderful?

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Here, green from algae the most wonderful organical curves and lines, leaves (acanthus, of course) and fruit, so high in the sky!

I took this photo through an opening of the part where the spiralling stairs and I myself, wound and whirled around!

But isn't there always a time of coming and a time of going?????

I could have stayed there till dark and even longer but...786 steps down........down to earth...... to the still sunny market place, to buy a book, some postcards to write to friends and family, to have something to eat and a bed to sleep, going up to that wonderful top again in my dreams...the spire surrounded by angels, waiting there for me.........to have fun, to laugh, to chat..........

Come on, bes, down again to the sunny streets of ULM.

This really is my favourite photo!

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Of course I climbed the 786 steps up and 786 steps down again......who would resist to do so.....not me!!!

In the lace-like top the breeze, warm from the summersun played with my skirt, my hair, with me, challenging me to go higher and higher........

Plenty of time to rest from time to time and have a look around, >the higher you come, the mightier the feeling of freedom and of being away-from-it-all! and......786 steps, thick steps, that really is very HIGH I can assure you!

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Again time to catch my breath and at the same time have a look around and use my camera! The sweet breeze, teasing me because I am wearing my black, very thin skirt today, gives me a break!

So nice to have a look around, to see Ulm disappear, getting smaller and smaller, still red roodtops but now from a miniature town!

But more steps are waiting for my feet to carry me up and up: I haven't seen angels yet, haven't climbed high enough I am afraid, ...otherwise I would have asked for some help.
I surely will do that when I see them, because I am not an angel and don't have these nice feathery wings to help me up!!!

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There is the DONAU, river DANUBE, meandering through the fields and valleys: that rich river that has so many wonderful cities that chose its banks to settle there, near that source of life!

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This really was someting to write home about, or wasn't it??

And where better to do so than on a wall, with the sun, the late afternoon sun shining on my back, warming my muscles that had had to work so very hard to bring me up to the top of the ULMER Münster??

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Did LUXEMBOURG CITY have its , BERLIN its bears, ULM had its birds, look at them, cheerfully standing there in rows, all over the town! Such a surprise! I was amazed and it made me feel happy!

Dozens of birds on this lane alone and many more in all the streets..festivities would start soon....but I had to put my right foot on the accelerator the next day......to continue my trip...

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The contrast of that fairy tale bird with the green of the trees and the old cathedral walls in the background , isn't that just GREAT!..........and the sun was still shining and the police didn't give me a ticket for parking my car in a forbidden place but I didn't know where to leave it........and took the risk...... must have been the help of those sweet angels.........

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The CROWNED QUEEN.........a real eye catcher she was.

Byebye, see you in my dreams tonight......and tomorrow, dancing in front of my car.........please, take care of me......keep me safe, please!!......together with those angels you can do that for me, can't you?

CLICK for my LUXEMBOURG page here...

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The sound of water is like the sound of music, so endearingly sweet and nice to the ear! And the smell....wonderful as always whether it is fresh, brakish or salty

Isn't the very smell of fresh water mysterious and alluring? ? Don't you think that it smells of LIFE itself? It IS life itself, isn't it? Water is always life giving....

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I definitely do think so, no doubt at all.......don't we all prefer places where we can see, hear, smell, feel water?? Think of beaches, riversides, fountains, canals and even a hot, fragrantly smelling bath !

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This wonderful RATHAUS was a commercial building until 1419.
The eastern side has a Renaissance façade with ornamental figures and an AMAZING ASTRONOMICAL CLOCK (1520).

There is a clock with Arab numbers above it and if this is not enough for you, check the SUNDIAL above or listen for the bells, which count off every quarter of an hour.

Inside you can see a replica of Berblinger's Flying Machine.

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I love watching out of hotelroom windows, to have a look at all that will surround me during the dark night, when the sun has gone to sleep, when the lights and open-fires have been turned down or out.....

Bye sun, and please, do come back in the morning; I know you will but don't bring clouds or rain. I love to see you, to feel you and your bright light that is all so heartwarming, which is what I need, especially in times of distress.

Afterthought:
The very idea that such a short time, a few hours ago, I had been in thet high, thin tower-top........

Catch this soft, hazy evening colours with my eyes and close them to keep the colours in my head: a perfect sleeping pill I suppose!!

This was a perfect day, as perfect as perfect can be....

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What a pity that THEY (?) were allowed to build that awfully white, modern building there, in that special historic center! What a blunder!

Inside is the Tourist Info center (small) and I thought a Bank that was closed.

The right part is a big modern Restaurant: shame on ULM for this mistake!

It just doesn't fit in: that chilly white building in the middle of warm, old, faded reds, ochres, browns and greens........ right in front of the Cathedral!!

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Some postcards I bought and scanned: beautiful things you are not allowed to photograph yourself, which I can understand!

HELLESPONTISCHE SIBYLLE 1469 - 1474

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SAMISCHE SIBYLLE 1468 and isn't that very, very old?

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DELPHISCHE SIBYLLE 1469 - 1474

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ALMS, please give.......for those who haven't got anything, are ill, disabled, too young or to old to work......don't have parents..

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MISERICORDIE

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On the 30th Juni 1377 the First Stone of this majestic building, this wonderful House of God, with >its spire reaching higher than any Church Tower in the whole world: 161 meters, probably trying to reach heaven.....

Every house and every human being isdwarfed by its enormity and height!

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Do you see the enormous buttresses and flying-buttresses, girders and joists?
How else could this building still be standing there for us to feel stunned by its height and sight!

And...no computers there at that time, no electronic calculators, just paper, pencils and pieces of chalk.....and most and foreall: KNOWLEDGE and a lot of EXPERIENCE.

Please let me recommend to you the booklet: THE SPIRE, written by the English author WILLIAM GOLDINGand after reading, no, while reading you will feel how it is to be one of the builders.

Have you ever realized that they actually LIVED there in the top? Food and drink they had to pull up in buckets etc.. They slept there in sort of hammocks.....and hoped it would all be strong enough.....

do read that wonderful NOVELETTE, IT WILL HELP YOU UNDERSTAND THE THROUGHTS AND LONGINGS, BELIEVES, TRUST AND HOPES OF THOSE PEOPLE.

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After all we have seen and heard last week, after the Day The World Changed, Tuesday 11th September there is no need to write here how cruelly we can hurt each other, everywhere in this world, that should be a PEACEFUL one

This live-wire and ditch and wall and lamps are still there, in Dachau. They were there to prevent innocent people to flee that cruel, evil place where they were held against their own will and moreover, they all were innocent, they only belonged minorities, which seems an awful disadvantage!.

Crazy war...crazy, cruel wars in past, PRESENT and......??

LET US KEEP PEACE SAFE!

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The very impressive KZ-Gedenkstätte DACHAU

Walk....watch it all..... weep......and spread PEACE.

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What can I say?

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A little ray of sunshine as a sign of Nature's compassion?

Again: no words needed here........

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Think about these places and don't ever forget......

I won't show you the most horrific scenes!

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PLEASE, SEE MY NEXT DESTINATION WHICH WAS THE CITY OF REGENSBURG CLICK here for REGENSBURG!

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My dear friend LOUBESS presented me with the wonderful postcard and told me to put it in my ULM page if I wanted and yes, I LIKE IT, both the friendly gesture and the beautiful postcard.

It shows Napoleon in 1805 in the Third Coalition War against France.
His objective was restoring the balance in Europe.

Napoleon fought with his allies England, Russia, Austria and Sweden against France.
Prussia remained neutral.

Napoleon triumphs at ULM, thanks to his great talents as a strategist (destruction strategy).

General MACK and 25,000 Austrians are taken as Prisoners of War.

At the left side of the card ULM'S famous CATHEDRAL is clearly visible! It was that same tower I climbed!! 786 steps one way.

Thank you very much, Loubess!
But I am sorry to have to say that it got lost in one of the many VT changes through these last years!!

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