Okay - guess it's my turn now The face: The place: This is Castle Oranienburg in the city of Oranienburg. I think you Americans would call it a county seat. About 8 miles north of Berlin this town of 42000 celebrates its 800th birthday this summer (so it's actually 21 years older than Berlin itself). I live in a smaller city (Leegebruch, 6000 people) that belongs to this county, right outside Berlin city limits. A bit of information for all the history buffs: The statue you see in the last picture shows "Luise Henriette von Oranien", first wife of Frederick William, the Great Elector (the guy who basically paved the way for Prussia to become a major power). She loved this area, because it reminded her of her dutch home, so her husband just gave it to her as a gift. She hired some architects and had the first castle built here in 1652. It has been enhanced and reconstructed quite a few times since then.
Thank you guys - it was fun taking the Bunny out for the photo shoot ... though I wonder why some of the passerbys looked at me as if I were bonkers
Great pics, Marverel! I liked the history lesson as well! You can't blame them for their insight into character, can you?
The Bunny joined me on my way to work yesterday - and we did some sightseeing, visited a few of the iconic places in Berlin: (oh and btw: this is my 1000th post ) The Brandenburg Gate: One of the most well-known german landmarks, the Brandenburg Gate was built between 1788 and 1791 as an entrance gate to the then much much smaller, walled city. Its original name was "Peace gate", the capital Quadriga shows the Peace goddess Eirene on a chariot drawn by four horses. Nowadays the American and French embassies are located right next to it. The "Reichstag": Our "Capitol" Built from 1884 to 1894 it housed the imperial diet, was badly damaged by the fire in 1933 and during the Second World War. After the reunification Christo wrapped it in 1995, reconstruction (led by Architect Norman Foster) was finished in 1999 and today it's the meeting place of the German parliament (federal diet, "Bundestag") The remains of the Berlin Wall: Very few parts are left of the wall that divided Berlin from 1961 to 1989. The "Anti-Fascist Protective Wall", als the GDR officials called it, completely surrounded West Berlin and cut it off from the Eastern part of the city and from East Germany. 106 km of concrete wall plus 66 km metal fences. 106 people were killed when they tried to cross the border. Checkpoint Charlie: Now a major tourist attraction, this was one of the few crossing points between East and West during the Cold War - in this case between the Russian and the American Sector. You can have a picture taken with actors dressed as military policemen (for a fee of course). Funny - one of these guys recognized the Bunny as a razor and said: "Now that's a first for a souvenir picture" The "Trabi" (Trabant) For us Germans, this car represents the GDR and its inefficiency like almost nothing else. It was by far the most popular car in East Germany. There were three production lines (the 500 from 1957 to 1962, the 600 from 1962 to 1964 and the most common 601, built from 1963 to 1991). They all were driven by 2-cylinder two-stroke engines, the later models had 600 cc and about 26 horsepowers, all were noisy and exhausted quite a lot of smoke. People who ordered one of these cars often had to wait for years before it could be delivered. So the Bunny and I had fun yesterday - and I hope I did not bore you with my explanations
Of course he is. And so am I And guess where my granddad worked in the 1930s while living in Leegebruch? Schöne Grüße aus London....
