The S-Printing Horse is said to be the largest horse sculpture in the world. It seems to have left two footprints or rather hoofprints in the pavement in front of the Print Media Academy, so when you come out of the central train station in Heidelberg you could cross the Read More …
This Old Main Bridge was built from 1473-1543 (a mere seventy years), to replace an earlier bridge which had been destroyed. Here’s a wider view of Würzburg, with the Old Main Bridge in the middle. The name of the river that flows through Würzburg is the Main, which is pronounced Read More …
For 466 years, from 1253 to 1719, the Prince-Bishops who ruled this part of Lower Franconia lived up in the (easily defendable) Marienberg Fortress overlooking Würzburg and the Main River Valley. It wasn’t until 1720 that one of them felt secure enough to start building the Residenz down in the Read More …
The neo-classical Hôtel de Ville (City Hall) occupies the entire south side of Place Stanislas in Nancy. In the exact mid-point of the square is the statue of Stanislas himself, facing north. The statue, dated 1831, is dedicated to “Stanislas, the benefactor” from “the thankful Lorraine”. On the other side Read More …
Neptune, the Roman god of the sea (Poseidon to the ancient Greeks), is featured in an elaborate set of fountains at the northwest corner of Place Stanislas, next to the Fine Arts Museum in Nancy. Details of these fountains were featured in the videos used in the opera production of Lully’s Read More …
Even on the sunniest of days or the clearest of nights, it never quite stops raining in Germany’s thirteenth largest city. Here in the pedestrian zone in downtown Hannover, at the corner of Georgstraße and Große Packhofstraße, stands a dumpy, grumpy couple with a few drops of rain always dripping Read More …
This pompous equestrian statue of King Ernst August I, who ruled the Kingdom of Hannover from 1837 until his death in 1851, is located directly in front of the main railway station. People often agree to meet “under the tail”, meaning at the rear end of Ernst August’s horse. The Read More …
Behind the modern façade of the Oldenburg City Museum (Stadtmuseum), three nineteenth-century villas contain art works and cultural history exhibits from the 17th to the 20th centuries. Two of these villas belonged to the wealthy art collector Theodor Francksen (1875-1914), who bequeathed the houses and his extensive art collection to Read More …
A claque, especially in the 18th and 19th centuries, was a group of people who were paid to applaud certain singers or actors, and to boo others. This group of four statues, called The Claque, was created in 1987 by Guido Messer. The statues are now located by the Enz Read More …
In the night of July 30, 1943, a devastating fire-bomb attack destroyed large parts of Hamburg and started a huge fire-storm. The fire in this neighborhood was so intense that it consumed all the oxygen from the air, causing the people who had taken refuge in one of the underground Read More …