perfect for roquefort cheese: 🏕️

Monday, 12 October 2026

bad kösen, schulpforte, freyburg (unstrut), an der poststraße (13. 879)

We went into Bad Kösen to explore the massive Gradierwerk (see previously here and here, a graduation tower—sometimes referred to as a thorn house that produces salt through evaporation, a tall wood frame structure that contains bundles of brushwood, blackthorn, encrusting the twigs with mineral deposits over time. The three hundred twenty five metre installation in a park on a hill at the top of the town dominates the skyline and is a nice promenade to stroll, the sea air having health benefits, saline continuously pumped in from a well station via an additional one hundred eighty metre Stangenkunst (a flatrod system driven by a water wheel). When the extraction of salt became no longer profitable, Bad Kösen, as many other spa locations, marketed itself as a health resort, aided by the rail line that runs through the town on the Leipzig to Erfurt route.

Next we went just a few kilometres further to see the campus of Schulpforte on the grounds of a former Cistercian abbey, named for its impressive Torhaus, gatehouse facing the road between Bad Kösen and Naumburg—secularised with the Dissolution of the Cloisters in 1543 and becoming the personal property of Duke Moritz of Saxony, an institute of higher learning was founded there, eventually as an agricultural school with the vast tracks of farmland enclosed. The religious buildings are still intact, it made of think of Hogwart’s from the Harry Potter franchise with students rushing to classes.

Afterwards, we took a nice stroll across through the fields and pastures up to the foothills of the vineyards. The community of Roßbach has several wineries (Weingutter) with tasting and direct sales, but it being a Monday at the end of the season, most had closed up shop, even the automats empty, so we decided to drive a bit further to visit Freyburg on the Unstrut, a tributary of the Saale.

Overlooking the town from its high promontory is the fortress Neuenburg, constructed from the ninth through eleventh centuries, which remains mostly in its original condition. We parked on another high hill of Freyburg opposite with a view, next to the old photography studio since converted into a luxury hotel and wandered the streets of the Altstadt until we came to the headquarters and main manufacturing and distribution site of one of the world’s largest sparkling white wine producers, Rotkäppchen—now merged with Mumm’s since its acquisition by Canadian beverage giant Seagram’s. We had a drink and checked out the vistas of the Neuenburg and Unstrut valley below. On the way back, we passed the first fitness studio and mauseleum of the founder of the German gymnastics movement, Turnvater Jahn.

On the way back through Naumburg, we hit an unsuspected traffic snarl, discovering that the safety gate blocking the railroad crossing had not lifted in over an hour, and turned around for a lengthy detour back towards Bad Berka, taking us through the county, municipality called An der Poststraße (Along the Mail Route, the old post road between Leipzig and Kassel) for a nice drive through the countryside in during the autumnal Golden Hour, touring a string of villages along the road (see also), including Burgheßler with it 1493 Gothic Haus, a manor successor likely to a medieval castle for the local gentry—later used as a granary and warehouse by the locals.

synchronoptica

one year ago: a never-ending, generative Wikipedia (with synchronoptica) plus Edwardian scrapbooking

two years ago: assorted links worth the revisit

three years ago: macroscopic seeds plus first kindergarten in the United States and its pedagogical method

four years ago: the lingua cosma of SETI, assorted links to revisit plus building the fake, composite bridges shown on euro bill

five years ago: typographical ornament, a plan for Italy to be annexed by the US plus Jesus Christ Superstar

six years ago: an AI makes memes, Free-Thought Day and other celebrations, a Khrushchev colouring book plus foliage studies

seven years ago: Étienne de Silhouette, the founding of Iran plus social media’s sins of omission

eight years ago: more links to enjoy, mapping returns on solar panels plus the miniature world Tatsuya Takana

Sunday, 11 October 2026

rudelsburg und berg saaleck (13. 877)

The landscape reminding me a lot of the Rhein and the its valleys, particularly for its castles and viniculture, we arrived at our base camp to the explore the Saale-Unstrut region, a part of Germany we’ve regularly passed through but hadn’t devoted much time or attention to previously, finding a spot along the river, behind the limestone escarpments between Bad Kösen and the ruins of the Rudelsburg. Fortified around the mid-ninth century at the commission of a local bishop to secure trade and for border control, like its Hessian counterparts, archeological studies suggest it was the expansion of a defensive settlement occupied since the Bronze Age, the castle was first besieged in 1348 during a territorial dispute in the first documented case of gunpowder in Germany.

No longer regarded as impenetrable, as was the fate with castles in general, it was rebuilt several times over the centuries as a symbol of power, though one expensive to maintain and eventually allowed to fall into disrepair. The masonry of the keep were ordered to be torn down and used for reinforcement elsewhere but a debilitating accident befell the owner, who took his ordered demolition as a bad omen, currying disfavour and decided to the ruins stand, the profile from the sixteenth century more or less remaining to this day, preserved by romantically-minded fraternities from the nearby university cities of Leipzig, Jena and Halle. An enterprising caretaker of the desolate grounds in the 1830s revitalised popular interest after offering food and drink for passing hikers, prompting citizens of the Naumburg to petition the barons von Schönberg to turn it into a official gastronomic destination and venue for visitors. A repast at the Rudelburg by the King Of Prussia, Friedrich Wilhelm IV, during a large-scale military exercise solidified the locale’s prominence and as a meeting place for students’ corps, a society for tolerance and pacifism that rejected parallel movements during the lead ups to the first and second World Wars. A series of monuments were installed in the mid 1870s, taking a cue of public sentiment following the restoration of the Wartburg, including an obelisk honouring Wilhelm I, the Löwendenkmal in memory of fraternity brothers killed in the wars and young Otto von Bismarck seated with his dog, a early pledge to the society. With many of these memorials facing destruction during the East German era, the group relocated from Bad Kösen and the Rudelberg to Würzburg and the Marienburg.

We took a short hike around the river’s bend to the twin Turme, architecturally related to Schloss Thurant, of Burg Saaleck—erected as a counter-foundation to the neighbouring episcopal, elevated to a knight’s estate before becoming quarry for the farmers of surrounding villages. Ultimately saved by the romanticisation of its neighbour and former foe, Burg Saaleck took a quite different trajectory in modern times after a tower served as the final refugee of the murders of Walther Rathenau, minister of reconstruction of the Weimar Republic and a signatory of the Treaty of Rapallo, in an attempt to overthrow the government—which eventually succeeded—the site became a sort of pilgrimage destination for Nazi-sympathisers but the memorial was removed in 2000 by the local pastor with the help of the Bundeswehr. Hiking trails from the campsite also led to a half-completed bridge over the Saale, a stone marking a ghost birch (no longer there) and the Johannisquelle, the pump-house and mill spring for the baths of Bad Kösen, first discovered in 1725 and covered in an Art Nouveau style pavilion in 1909.

synchronoptica

one year ago: Je t’aime... moi non plus (with synchronoptica), slowing light speed, more esoteric programming languages, artistic idioms, assorted links to revisit plus the many anniversaries of SNL

two years ago: Texas Chainsaw Massacre plus a last day on the Havel

three years ago: the death of Pope Pius XII plus more links to enjoy

four years ago: Barbarella (1968), ancient animation, a Coming Out simulator plus a declassified map of nuclear targets

five years ago: the micronation of Rose Island

six years ago: an appreciation of the Smiley Face, a system for coding emotional facial reactions, St Gummarus plus the debut of Saturday Night Live (1975)

seven years ago: more on the moons of Jupiter plus the better letterer’s corner

eight years ago: päntsdrunk, more on Coming Out Day, the technical mastery of chindōgu, a moon moon plus The Secret Life of Plants

Saturday, 5 September 2026

lütschetalsperre (13. 768)

Having to get the camper seen for its annual inspection, we decided to make a long weekend of it and returned to the Ilm district, near the workshop, and took a camping pitch on the Lütsche reservoir outside of the town of Frankenhain on the northern slope of the Thuringian Forest. On the way there, we stopped in Geratal and saw the memorial to the death march to Buchenwald from one of the three concentration camps in the area (see more)—again missing the garden gnome factory, maybe next time.

The water levels looked pretty low after the drought conditions of the summer but the reservoir was being slowly replenished and the surrounding woods seem to have survived successive heat waves, still we know that nature is under stress. Sustainably logged and protected since the first human settlements around the sixth century, the area has always had a thick cover of woods, the inhabitant at the edge of the Thüringer Wald primarily making a living from carpentry, resin, tapping, pitch production and escorting merchants and travellers through the rather dark and foreboding forest. The Stauseen (see above) were later additions with the development of industry and agricultural was only suitable for certain, limited areas of the basin.

Petrol and diesel is always more expensive on the Autobahn and we saw these prices at noon, the one time per day that German stations are allowed to raise prices since the start of the Iran war, but it was nonetheless pretty shocking, coinciding with learning that diesel prices in the States had hit an all time record, even surpassing the jump experienced when Russia invaded Ukraine. Thankfully, it was not a very long trip to this landscape that feels very different than home.