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The City of Magdeburg
Magdeburg is a large, metropolitan city (a county-seat equivalent in the US) with very interesting architecture that ranges from majestic (their cathedral) to funky (the pink building). A former DDR city, there are still many artifacts from that time of the city's history. Twenty years ago this was a fairly dry, gray city...but re-unification has led to an explosion of self-expression. Even the boring DDR buildings get new, brightly colored facades put on them and the city is looking more and more like its western counterparts. The "Die Grüne Zitadelle" is a perfect example of the "new" East Germany.
Here's the complete Flickr set
The weather was warm and mild, though it was wise to carry an umbrella at all times. Frequent, short showers sprang out of nowhere! One second it was a clear, blue sky-- the next it was a heavy shower. Still, you could walk all day or night with short-sleeved shirts. The city is also -very- clean and friendly.
There is, of course, both a castle/fortress and a magnificent cathedral. I didn't do any formal sightseeing, but I did enjoy wandering down the main street and generally exploring the area within a mile or two of the hotel. There is something relaxing about the pace people go about their business in Europe that I find soothing.
I wandered over to the river where I saw people and dogs, ancient buildings (ancient to my Yankee standards at least) and a few oddities, like the sticker with The Simpson's Mayor Quigly on it (not sure what point it was making, but I was amused).
The pink building (aka, "Die Grüne Zitadelle") is worth a good look: it appears to have sprung forth from a Seussian picture book. I'm not sure what it is used for, but it's bright and cheerful. Right next door was another building that was more starkly designed and covered with blue marble.
I'll definitely enjoy exploring this more in future years!
Here's the complete Flickr set
The weather was warm and mild, though it was wise to carry an umbrella at all times. Frequent, short showers sprang out of nowhere! One second it was a clear, blue sky-- the next it was a heavy shower. Still, you could walk all day or night with short-sleeved shirts. The city is also -very- clean and friendly.
There is, of course, both a castle/fortress and a magnificent cathedral. I didn't do any formal sightseeing, but I did enjoy wandering down the main street and generally exploring the area within a mile or two of the hotel. There is something relaxing about the pace people go about their business in Europe that I find soothing.
I wandered over to the river where I saw people and dogs, ancient buildings (ancient to my Yankee standards at least) and a few oddities, like the sticker with The Simpson's Mayor Quigly on it (not sure what point it was making, but I was amused).
The pink building (aka, "Die Grüne Zitadelle") is worth a good look: it appears to have sprung forth from a Seussian picture book. I'm not sure what it is used for, but it's bright and cheerful. Right next door was another building that was more starkly designed and covered with blue marble.
I'll definitely enjoy exploring this more in future years!
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I hope to have a bit more time to stroll through Magdeburg next year, from what I've seen it is a nice city, regardless what the people of Magdeburg themselves say. ;-)
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The arches we probably open at one time and provided cover for troop/artillery/stores. Nest to the door on the uncovered portion of the wall are what look like gun-loops.
The sphere... half spheres, really, are a nod to the "Magdeburg hemispheres". Some guy proved the power of vacuum by matching up to copper half-domes, pumping all the air our of the resulting sealed sphere, and then tried to pull them apart using two teams of draft horses. They failed. He then turned a little valve letting the air back in and the two pieces simply fell apart, to the great wonderment of the crowd. (This was before IMAX.) ;)
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And thanks for clearing up the mystery of the spheres: leave it to the technological Germans to use these things as their city-wide art project! No spotted cows or frivolous blue pigs for them!
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