bamberger bürgerpark (13. 396)

Taking a short stroll through the village of Bug, we crossed the bridge south of the city to the massive public green space bordered by the Main-Danube canal and the Regnitz called the Theresienhain and took a long walk around the park’s perimeter. 

 The Franciscan order was donated the village palace with its mansard roof for its missionary work in India and Sri Lanka, the former royal forestry office of the Kingdom of Bavaria—and is the only branch of the brotherhood in operation in Germany. 

Designed in the style of Munich’s English Garden in 1803, the commission of Maximilian I, the area was preserved during renovations and expansion of the inland waterway and shipping channel, and the forest, rewilded, true to the route that writer ETA Hoffmann took through the Hain on his brainstorming walks for inspiration, and is dotted with pavilions, monuments (including one to the author himself) and a so called druid temple, Monopteros (see also) as well as sports facilities and a botanical garden. 

We stopped at a former boathouse that was converted into an open air tavern and sampled some more beers as a band played before returning to the campsite.

bug (13. 394)

 

Pronounced “boog,” we joined our neighbours for a long Labour Day weekend on a colourful campsite just south of Bamberg on an island in the river Regnitz at the mouth of the Aurachtal. 

Though the retreat made no pretensions of being an artists’ colony, there was a surfeit of paintings and statuary everywhere, first discovering the art in the restaurant, converted from the former studio and dance hall of the camp’s founders, Fritz and Else Hoffmann-Bug (the nobiliary particle adopted for the couples’ adopted residence and long-term project) who began the campgrounds after the war in 1952, exhibiting his own works and chairing the first professional visual artists’ association for Upper Franconia.

We were going to order wine with dinner, but then remembered how Bamberg is famed for its beers, and had a Rauchbier (the flavour won from toasting the malted barley) that paired well with the smoked trout, with a distinctive taste like s’mores and campfire. The restrooms for the campers were rather vaulted affairs themselves, outfitted as a gallery of paintings and murals and a singular experience to pass through and assuredly much appreciated by guests—the camp remaining in the family over the subsequent generations and maintaining the showcase and artistic spirit of the establishment. The village was until recently also host to the museum and publishing house for the adventure franchise of Karl May before being repatriated in 1995 to the writer’s native Radebeul.

 

störmthaler see iii (13.223)

Returning to Leipziger Neuseeland for the long Easter weekend and staying at a familiar campsite on the shore of an artificial lake created from the former open-cast lignite mine of Epsenhain. 

 Revisiting a seafood restaurant in the Kahnsdorfer lagoon, we got to see the serving-robot in action (see above)—though mainly a extra tray and probably a more ubiquitous feature in most gastronomical venues, in was pretty good at avoiding obstacles like the diners and other waitstaff—as well as the largest windpark in Germany straddling farmland on the Autobahn from Saxon-Anhalt to Saxony and adjacent the largest photovoltaic array in the shadows of the former cooling towers of Kernkraftwerk Lippendorf. 

We also explored the towns of Borsdorf and Panitzch on the Partheau, historically serving as toll stations along the main route from Leipzig to Dresden and presently part of the city’s Green Ring, a corridor to encourage biking from the suburbs and wetland reclamation project to mitigate flooding.

katzenkopf iii (13. 281)

Taking advantage of the nice weather, H and I got the camper from storage and prepared for the season with a weekend trip back to the Frankish wine islands, staying in the village of Sommerach. The vineyards waking up too for the spring, we took a long hike crossing the island and over the canal of the Main river through fields and pine forest in protected environment known as the Sandfluren (inland dunes, the sandy areas reminding me of trekking from Wiesbaden to Mainz under the bridges and over the islands) outside of Volkach on the mainland. 

Reaching the village of Dimbach, we headed back to the island over the lock and weir at the southern part of the river loop at the Mainkanal. In the distance, we could spy the twin steeples of the cloister Münsterschwarzach with a cruise ship docked at the weir. Exploring more of the landscape on the way back, we walked around the village a bit, trying out that wine automat we saw on our last visit—it wasn’t dumped out like a soda machine but rather a mechanical arm guided our selection down to the flap—and had a late lunch before going back to the camp grounds.

More details about the history of these places and impressions at the links above.

jack nasty (12. 989)

Released for general audiences worldwide on this day in 2005 following premiers at the Venice film festival and New York City, the neo-Western by filmmaker Ang Lee—based off of the eponymous short-story by author Annie Proulx first published in the New Yorker magazine in 1997—focuses on the complicated romance between two shepherds-cum-coyboys. In pre-production since 2001, the realised film received critical acclaim and industry accolades and was among the biggest commercial successes of the decade (the first major film to be later released simultaneously as a DVD and digital download), with a global box-office (given slightly cryptic titles for foreign audiences, mostly in essence translating to “the secret of Brokeback Mountain and Túi a barátságon in Hungary, friends with benefits) markets ten-fold of its budget and stars Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal (Matt Damon, Joaquin Phoenix, Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, Josh Hartnett, Edward Norton and Ryan Phillippe were among the first choices) with supporting cast of Anne Hathaway and Anna Faris, with the opening set in 1963 Wyoming. Producers rented Airstream trailers for the cast and crew to live on site (filmed primarily in Alberta in the Canadian Rockies, whose wildlife authorities made an exception to allow in domestic sheep with careful controls and limitations to ensure that they didn’t infect wild herds, though the guild defending animal actors took issue with the sheep’ shuttling to location and quarantine, resulting in digitally created flocks) with the atmosphere of a summer camp and the first intimate scene between Jack Twist and Ennis Del Mar took thirteen takes before Lee was satisfied with it. Although pleased with the adaptation and screenplay, Proulx has expressed personal, not professional, regret for writing the story since the movie, receiving wide spread criticism from reply-guys who submit fan-fiction and alternative endings—fine for the unsolicited critiques but failing to recognise that the narrative arc is not some kind of choose-your-own adventure scenario.

*    *    *    *    *

 

synchronoptica

one year ago: assorted links worth the revist (with synchronopticæ) plus Noah Webster’s daily newspaper

 

twelve years ago: electro-swing plus more persuasive maps 

 

fourteen years ago: UK objections to EU budget 

 

seventeen years ago: sick days 

department of the interior (12. 987)

Having encountered some of these brilliant and iconic Depression Era posters sponsored by FDR’s Works Projects Administration, we appreciated learning about the landscape architect and graphic designer behind the strategic and unified tourism campaign to promote US national and state parks, Dorothy Waugh, through an exhibit of seventeen of her placards—particularly at such a fraught time for these preserves, understaffed, subject to revisionist histories, corporate encroachment and surge-pricing. Due to the scope and scale of her work for the Civilian Conservation Corps’ infrastructure projects for the parks system, Waugh went from being the sole artist to hiring and supervising a team of draughtsmen and also produced easy to follow diagrams and designs, most workers unable to interpret blueprints and formal specifications, for the construction picnic areas and campsite conveniences as well as other basic structures. Much more from Print magazine at the link above.

riquewihr ii (12. 772)

For our last day in Alsace, we walked back through Riquewihr and wandered the ancient streets and the alleyways. Completely enclosed by a medieval wall in 1291, with three of the four cardinal towers still standing—the Thieves’ Tower, the Anabaptist Tower and the twenty-five metre half-timbered Dolder Tower, considered the landmark in a village with an overabundance of architectural gems and serving as a watchtower and bellfry.

The walls remained after the advent of gunpowder and were reinforced in the seventeenth century with ramparts. The Hôtel de Ville lies in the Place Voltaire and the fairy tale setting—amalgamated with Ribeauvillé were the inspiration for animators in the Disney adaption of Beauty and the Beast for Belle’s fictional home. While certainly a spot popular with tourists and for good reason, the place certainly was not Disneyland and we are all looking forward to returning soon.

synchronoptica

one year ago: a banger from Maurice Williams and the Zodiacs (with synchronopticæ), the Berlin Freedom and Unity monument plus thirty-one days of Halloween

thirteen years ago: ohaguro

fourteen years ago: flag-counters plus der Tag der Deutsche Einheit

éguisheim (12. 771)

H and I next drove a bit further on to make a return visit the the ancient commune whose estate lies on the borderlands where the Vosges intersects the plain of the Upper Rhein valley, the Gallo-Roman settlement referred to as Exsa or Exa, meaning a fortified withdrawal or retreat from a thoroughfare—the Wine Route—and seemingly preserved in the code-switching nickname for the three donjons, die drei Hexe (the three witches) for the ensemble of castles, watch-towers on the slope of the mountain, sparking to more etymological interest in the toponym and its continuum of cognates, ultimately with the accent and u added to give it more of a French sound.

The historic centre includes numerous well-preserved medieval buildings as well as the château with a chapel dedicated to Bruno von Egisheim-Dagsburg, cousin of St Odile future Leo IX whose pontificate oversaw the schism with the Orthodox Church, the mandate of celibacy for the clergy down to the rank of sub-deacon and promulgating the legitimacy of the Donation of Constantine. The surrounding vineyards produce exceptional varieties of wine.

synchronoptica

one year ago: The Taking of Pelham 123 (with synchronopticæ) plus a giant hybrid sheep

seventeen years ago: out-of-body experiences