Soccer Ball Tree

Wiesbaden is getting read for the FIFA World Cup which is gonna start June 9th in Munich (Germany - Costa Rica) and Gelsenkirchen (Poland - Ecuador). The tree downtown which was decorated with Easter Eggs before is now covered with soccer balls (I actually didn't notice until Sam from Montchauvet, who was visiting Wiesbaden this weekend, pointed it out to me). Also check out what Berlin did to get into the FIFA mood!

Theme of the City Daily Photo Bloggers today is to post a symbolic picture from our city that can be linked to another city/country. Since Brasil won the FIFA Confederations Cup 2005, I'm linking to Sao Paulo, Brasil.

Fresh air in Wiesbaden

One of the responsibilities of the Hessian State Office for Environment and Geology is to monitor the cleanliness/pollution of the air in the cities. Therefore they have these stations set up. It's all automated and you can check the values on their website (in German). Breathe some fresh air...

Pink Scooter

I found the perfect scooter matching the dress I posted last Friday!!! ;)

Roofs of Wiesbaden

Today I take you on top of the roofs of Wiesbaden. Do you recognize anything (or should I say anyone ;) )? Check out another version of the photo with the explanation.

Spring in the Kurpark

Another Spring photo from the Kurpark. Looking at this photo, I thought that the tree in the middle behind the statue must be quite popular around Christmas time since it's full of mistletoes.

If you're up to a photo quiz today, check out my Rheingau Daily Photo Blog.

Grüne Welle

I agree with you if you say that this is not really a pretty photo. :)
But it's actually neat what it shows: this is part of a progressive signal system in Wiesbaden. These "speed traffic lights" are positioned at the 2. Ring - a beltway going around half of the city, trying to lighten up traffic downtown.

If you don't drive faster than 30km/h here, you'll hit what we call the "Grüne Welle" (green wave). The other light shows 40 when it's on.

Sorry about the weird color of the sign above. I had my flash on and this is how the reflection came out.

Graffiti No. 4

Another graffiti right next to "Wiesbaden's most colorful house". I'm not sure what it's supposed to display... Reminds me of machines fighting against each other maybe?

Also check out graffiti No. 1, No. 2, and No. 3.

Doors No. 1

A lot of houses in Wiesbaden have some fascinating doors. Like this building in the Westend. Please click on the image for a larger view to better see the details. Both doors have "Salve Amici" (welcome friend) written on it.

Any mail for me?

This is how mail delivery works in Wiesbaden. The mailmen or mailwomen wearing the Deutsche Post uniform (dark blue with yellow) have these carts for their mail. In some towns in the Rheingau I noticed that they actually drive around with a car now and also deliver the parcels and larger packages, not only mail anymore. In Wiesbaden that's still seperated.

2nd hand shop window

This is the window decoration of my favorite second hand store downtown. They are always very creative about it! And no worries - once you're inside they have quite "normal" and chic clothes :).

Afternoon in the Kurpark

It's been a beautiful afternoon yesterday so that everbody wanted to get out and enjoy some sun. All the park benches were taken in the Kurpark and people were sitting or lying in the grass.

By the way, did you notice that in Spring the air smells so completely different? :)

Facades

Here you see some typical facades outside the main shopping area downtown. I took this photo in the "Rheingauviertel" (Rheingau quarter) - streets are named after different towns of the Rheingau in this quarter.

Since I took this shot in the morning, the sun didn't reach the sidewalk yet. But it must've been nice to sit on one of the balconies - well, people are busy and off to work I guess.

Nostalgic Buses

An advertisement from Wiesbaden's bus operating company offering oldtimer bus rentals for special occasions or events like company outings, birthday celebrations, etc.

They used an old photo from a bus passing the roman gate in Wiesbaden which is currently under construction (fixing the wooden roof). As soon as they're done, I'll show you how it looks like today.

This photo is taken at the back of the bus stop at the Luisenplatz.

Nice Dessert

First of all: I have a sweet tooth and I love desserts!! So this place here ("Die Waffel") is perfect for me - they serve waffles of all kinds. On the photo you see the "waffle of the day" with bananas, vanilla and chocolate sauce.

I had a Latte Macchiato with it which seems to be the "IN-coffee" for the last few years here in Germany.

And if you look closely, the guy next to us was reading the newspaper with a special about San Francisco (the 100th anniversary of the big earth quake).

Balcony No. 2

Found this balcony on a walk through the neighbourhoods. With all the Easter decoration, I thought it's the perfect picture for today.

H A P P Y    E A S T E R !
 

Graffiti No. 3

A graffiti I found next to a playground. Only thing I found missing on this world map is the tip of the "boot" of South-Italy and a few islands got left out but besides that it seems to be alright.

Bionade

Todays photo is for my friend Maya - one of her goals this year is to become a better "green" and I think she's doing an amazing job in finding all the information about it and starting to re-organize or maybe better said integrate this into her everyday life.

I found this "bionade" (bio-lemonade) at a bar by coincidence. Gave it a try (I had "Holunder" (elder) taste) and it was really good and not as sweet as most of the regular lemonades... it also looks quite cool, don't you think :).

Faulbrunnen

This is another one of Wiesbaden's fountains - the Faulbrunnen. Claudia, who left me a comment, had suggested to take this picture. She told me that she used to get a can of water for her grandmother here regularly. Unfortunately, the area around it seems to be construction area at the moment (there's a fence and machinery standing around). I'll check back to see if something changes.

An also interesting discovery was the facade of the building behind it. It's an office building of a bank. The glass has a light blue tint (one of their corporate colors) which made the sky look really nice blue. I'll have to go back and see if I can get some more interesting photos out of that...

Lunch at the Luisenplatz

The weather has been really nice over the last few days - a bit chilly but the sun was out. So it was perfect to have lunch or just a coffee outside, like here at the Luisenplatz with the Luisenkirche in the background. The only challenge was, not to get everything blown away by the wind :). Unfortunately, I forgot to take photos before we started to eat - the food looked and, more important, tasted really good! - but I'm sure that was not the last time, I've been there...

Balcony No. 1

Walking around in Wiesbaden's different neighbourhoods I saw this little balcony on an (what I think is an) art deco house (correct me if I'm wrong here!). Especially its glass roof reminded me of these little asian paper umbrellas, so I had to take a picture to show it to you.

Construction Area 2

We have a number of construction areas in the city at the moment. There are two shopping centers being built, for example.

This photo is taken at one of the sites where they take down a former department store. Everyone walking by wiped their eyes after looking up (including me) since there was still a lot of dust in the air, although they tried to keep it down with water. It was quite a sight though...

Graffiti No. 2

This weekend I can join Sebastian from Trier DP in his "Graffiti Sunday". This one is right next to "Wiesbaden's most colorful house". It's amazing to me how much painting-like this looks. I didn't know that you can work this detailed with an airbrush.

Also check out Graffiti No. 1...

Freedom of Press

Since I post photos for this photo blog, I noticed that I started to pay more attention to my surroundings, always looking out for interesting things to share with all of you.

That's how I spotted this guy - he stands on top of a publishing house, the "Wiesbadener Kurier" (a local newspaper), holding this big book over his head, supposedly reminding us of the freedom of the press.

Playground Sign

This sign is at the entrance to one of the playgrounds downtown Wiesbaden. I liked the use of pictures to explain the rules, so that smaller kids not knowing how to read yet still know what is allowed and what not. What do you think?

P.S. If you're in the quiz mood today, check out my photo quiz in my Rheingau Daily Photo Blog...

City Hall by night

A street lantern in front of Wiesbaden's City Hall. It's not an original but I like the fact that they tried to copy the style. If you look closer you'll also see a hint of the Marktkirche behind the city hall.

Drehorgelspieler

Here is a typical german long word: Drehorgelspieler. It's actually a nice feature in German language (in my opinion) that you just connect different nouns together and create a new word through that. This one contains Dreh (twist), Orgel (organ), Spieler (player) - the English translation would be "organ grinder" (according to my dictionary). Sometimes they're also called "Leierkastenmann" (another nice long word).

Let's see, what other long words do you know? How about Fabrikschornsteinfegerbürste (a chimney sweeper's brush for a factory chimney)?

Carlos offered: Schraubenschlüssel, Fußgängerzone and Pflegespülung
Philipp mentioned: Donaudampfschiffahrtskapitänsmütze

Hot Spring Fountain

A fountain right next to the Kochbrunnen, that runs with water from the hot springs (water temperature is around 65°C). The fountain's color comes from the sulfur and minerals in the water. On really cold days, there's even more steam, making the place look quite mysterious. The doves seem to like it...

Previous posts:
Kochbrunnen
Kaiser-Friedrich-Therme

Spring Market

This is a not a common sight in Wiesbaden downtown on a Sunday. But it was Spring market yesterday and as an exception the shops and stores were allowed to open as well (usually everything is closed on Sundays, except restaurants and bars). And people did not get discouraged by the rain, so there was a lot going on.

Crocus

Happy Spring and Happy Sunday to all of you!

 

Graffiti No. 1

This is one of the graffitis from Wiesbaden's most colorful house I posted on Monday. An everyday story: in the center is the beautiful woman, highly desired by the two men around her but she is reaching out to the third (maybe unreachable) guy... I'm just making this up, but this is how it could be, don't you agree?

I actually wanted to post this tomorrow to join Trier Daily Photo in his "Graffiti Sundays" but then we, as in City Daily Photo Bloggers, decided on a theme for tomorrow - we're all gonna post a Spring photo tomorrow! Still have to decide on one...