A Palace Near the Castle

Heidelberg Castle is a essentially a ruin in the Rhineland section of Germany. It sits on top of a hill overlooking the town of Heidelberg and dates back to 1214. In 1294 a second castle structure was joined to the first. However in 1537 a lightning bolt destroyed part of the castle and later in 1764 the rebuilt section of the castle was also destroyed by lightning.

In a future post I will post pictures of the castle but as I waited in line to take pictures of the view of Heidelberg from the castle. I noticed to the left this beautiful structure. The guides didn’t talk about it, nobody else seemed interested in it but I wondered what the story was behind this beautiful palace that was just below the castle with the same magnificent view.

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The Palace near the Cstle

The Palace near the Castle

Rhine Church Three Ways

I cannot decide which version of this image I like the most. Once again the digital dark room makes it in some ways harder to make decisions. In a real darkroom, I probably would ave not wasted the chemical, paper and time to make multiple prints but the digital darkroom makes it easy to create multiple versions and hard to choose just one. Which do you like better?

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Original

Original

Color Edited

Color Edited

Monochrome

Monochrome

Vines along the Rhine

As we left Holland and cruised down the Rhine River we would sit on our veranda or the sun deck and see grapes being harvested on the sunny bank of the river, sometimes to port and sometimes to starboard as the river gently turned. In the heart of Germany these vines produce the Riesling and Gewurztraminer wines that are famous in the region. We saw people hand harvesting the grapes the way they probably have for hundreds of years.

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Vines along the Rhine

Vines along the Rhine

Köln Out of the Ashes

I was excited to visit Köln (Cologne). I had heard it was one of the best cities in Germany but I was more impressed withe Heidelberg, München and the smaller towns we visited. Maybe it was the guide that we had. She was the worst guide of our excursion. Maybe it was because the city was bombed to almost oblivion so it didn’t have the architectural diversity of other cities. Maybe it was the cold and dreary day that we were there.

The cathedral,Kölner Dom was magnificent however and was not bombed during the war. It goes back to the year 1270 and is one of the oldest cathedrals in the world and the most visited historic building in all of Germany. The walkway along the Rhine River is also quite a lovely place for a walk or bike ride. This picture was taken from the river walk.

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Köln Cathedral

Köln Cathedral

Dutch Clouds

The first two times I went to the Nederlands (Holland) I visited only Amsterdam. We did rent a car and visited Castle country but it was a gray rain filled day. Even the day we went to the Keukenhof Gardens was stormy. On this trip we started in Amsterdam but then took a river cruise and the second day we woke up in Kinderdijk Nederlands and finally learned the meaning behind the expression Dutch Clouds

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Dutch Clouds

Dutch Clouds