Kiel – Snow & Christmas Market

All of Germany is covered in snow which includes Kiel, the capital of the furthest north German state Schleswig-Holstein. Kiel is not the most exciting city in the north and Lübeck is undoubtedly more popular with tourists. But I had more than one reason to go there

The central station is connected with a shopping mall, a larger shopping centre is on the other side of the street. It’s nice if you have to wait for the train. Kiel Central Station is a so-called “Kopfbahnhof” (terminal, terminus). Trains have to stop there or reverse their direction. Frankfurt and Stuttgart are other popular examples of terminal stations in Germany, although there is construction underway to turn Stuttgart into a through station.

Christmas 2009

These past days I’ve been doing quite a lot of video editing. Just like “Hamburg in Snow”, this one was edited quickly using iMovie. I reserve Final Cut for the more fancy projects, like the Resurrection Freeze. This time I found a nice track on ccmixter, a great site where artists contribute pieces (vocals, guitar etc.) which are used by other artists to create songs.

Hamburg in Snow

It doesn’t snow often in Hamburg in December, but this month has been exceptional and I’m happy to be in Germany at this time. Honestly, many cities which I would call “summer cities” because they are not an exciting sight during the winter time, are now worth a day trip.

Anyway, I had some time to spare so I edited a short video about Hamburg in snow, filmed at the city park.

Day trip to Hamelin (Hameln)

Hamelin was for a long time on my list for potential day trips from Hamburg, so today I could scratch that town off my list. The town is of course famous for the tale of the Pied Piper who can be found at various places in the city.

This year the weather is exceptionally cold, so we weren’t keen on spending too much time outside. The old houses of the town covered in snow looked fantastic and of course there was a christmas market. The city centre is about 15 minutes by foot from the train station, although there is probably a bus too.

 

Toy camera impressions: Train to to Hameln

Impressions of Germany, covered in snow during a train trip to Hameln (Hamelin)

Somewhere in between: Neumünster

If you travel from Hamburg to Kiel by regional express, the train will surely stop in Neumunster. This is definitely not a tourist destination, but since I passed the city so many times I wondered how it looked like – plus I wanted another pin on my “Cities you’ve visited” map. I had bought a Schleswig-Holstein ticket, so I made a stop-over on my way back from Kiel.

I did stay for approximately forty minutes which is enough I guess when leaving out museums and just walking down the main street. Neumunster has it’s share of shops although I guess the city is suffering from its proximity to both Hamburg and Kiel.

Anyway, the weather was fine so I enjoyed a short walk in the park. “Short”, because, well, it was a small park.

If you are looking for good shots, you can find them anywhere, like this crow munching some fast food. Fast food may be not correct in this case however, because the crow had some difficulties eating the burger.

Kiel – Not quite a leisure trip

Time for another trip to Kiel! Okay, this is not exactly one of my favorite cities nor is it one of the cities I dislike most. Although this wasn’t a leisure trip everything went well. The weather was also great so I took a few pictures. They are still working on the “other side”, i.e. the one where the concert hall Halle 400 is situated.

Although I pretty much dislike “modern” glass architecture, this building was amazing:

Stealth office! Other than that, the redesigned area is quite boring and could have used more green.

After a stop-over in Neumunster, I briefly left Elmshorn station to find this forbidden affair between an old and new style display:

Going underground in Saarbrücken

With my German language skills fully confirmed, I finally arrived at Saarbrücken or rather Saarbrücken Ost which is one station before the central station. The station is run down and can be quite scary at night, but my cheap hotel was nearby. The walk to the center was longer then anticipated though but I wanted to at least give the city a chance although I didn’t come her to see the city. Rather I wanted to use the convenient location to travel to France and Luxemburg.

OK, there are many churches with each probably important for some reason or another. But I’ve seen so many churches that it has to be a real special one to impress me. After ticking off the other usual suspects (town hall, wells, sculptures), I reached Saarbrücken Castle.

Duisburg

This ladder was on top of a shopping center.

The fourth city I visited today was Duisburg. The city can be easily reached from Xanten and my train to Hamburg left from Duisburg anyway. Obviously, I didn’t have time left to visit some industrial ruins, so I only strolled through the central city.

There are some plastics and sculptures there, including a big one made by Niki de Saint Phalle. Her works are more present in Hanover, where several of her “Nanas” can be seen at the Leibnizufer.

Wow, four cities on one day. If these cities were in four different countries, I could almost say that I’m going Japanese. Anyway, I only wanted to visit Moers and Xanten so Duisburg and Muenster were bonus.

Xanten – A German town with “X”

The amphitheatre in the Archeological Park Xanten (APX)

Not far away from Moers is quite an interesting little town called Xanten. Xanten is the only German town beginning with an “X” and thus a good opportunity to finally add an iPhoto album with that letter. The town is situated at the very end of a regional train line. While there are frequent trains, they only leave Xanten once every hour.

Xanten is a town with a history dating back to the Roman empire. Therefore you will not only encounter a lovely old town, but also various buildings left from that age. The old part of town is approximately 10-15 minutes by foot from the station. There was a market going on today and various tourist groups walking the streets.

While there is a bus tour (well, sort of – it’s more like a train-shaped car), everything can be easily reached by foot. It was only photographing the old town, a windmill, the city walls and a church that I went to the tourist office to get a leaflet with directions to the Archeological Park.