leutkirch im allgäu, DE

what a nice stop-over at our tour to matterhorn / switzerland in leutkirch im allgäu, in the federal state of baden-württemberg (BW), germany (DE). why leutkirch? well, we were hungry and decided to eat cheap in germany before we'd cross the swiss border ... well, my daughter and me have paid 70-80 euro for 2 main dishes and 1 drink each (or 3 in total?) ... which is not cheap, if you asked me. at least we've been conditioned to pay 80-90 swiss francs later 😂

leutkirch ~ coat of arms. source wikipedia here

the town hall at the market square

restaurant goldene krone, market square, leutkirch

brigitte bardot here?

what a nice timber-framed houses (fachwerk)

timber framed gate house (torhaus)

pulverturm = tower for gunpowder

martinskirche + pfarrhaus + pulverturm = a postcard from 1902

arts?

few more pictures here.

zugspitze, top of germany, 2962m

my youngest daughter and me were ready to open our ski season this weekend. well, after she read the weather forecast, our team shrank by 50% 😄

i love the zugspitze even if the skiing area is not really good. it is called 'zugspitzplatt' which means flat or weißes tal (white valley) and is mostly in the range 2300m - 2600m. it partially  contains also parts of a small glacier, which is one of the last 4 remaining glaciers in germany, if i remember that correctly. btw, my favorite ski run is down to the bruntal (or brunntal?) which is a valley some 200m further down and unfortunatelly often closed due to lack of snow or the like ...

heaven & hell, was this a crazy skiing at zugspitze! but you know what? even if it was foggy + windy and only 75 cm of snow which is not much and not enough for all lifts up there, at least it was cold enough at abt minus 5° celsius .... down in garmisch it was plus 3° celsius and raining in the morning. what would YOU choose for today? 🍀

enjoy few graphically processed pictures as the original ones would be even much darker & drearier (trostloser)

what an allegory for my skiing today 😂🏂⛆🌋⛄

heaven & hell! what a foggy day!

zugspitze not really in full beauty, top of germany, DE, 2962m

the first rays of hope at lunch time ...

(almost) the full sunny beauty ot the bavarian alp at about 1 pm😃

a ski cottage at 2600m 

historical photographs at the station ~ cogwheel train TO the zugspitze

cogwheel train FROM the zugspitze

picture taken from the train after we came out of the tunnel ~ frozen lake eibsee

picture taken from the train

back down at lake eibsee

the cable car to zugspitze holds few world records (biggest overhype?

 just 1 pylon? highest cable car pylon? ... and the like)

wanna enjoy the zugspitze at a sunny winter day? it is really easy my dears. just move back in time to april 2024 ☃🌋🌞

faber-castell, stein, franconia, DE

what a nice birthday party of a friend in wachendorf, franconia ... as i can't ask the folks if i could post their pictures on the internet, so you will basically see houses and not people in this blog. agreed? 😇 

pictures of what? from our 1/2 day sightseeing in the city of stein, the home of many timber-framed houses and especially of the faber-castell castle (since 1843) & faber-castell pencil factory (since 1761) at the rednitz river. it is a really nice part of germany (deutschland). i'm not sure if you already knew, faber-castell ist today the worldwide biggest producer of pencils and colored pencils with approx. 6,500 employees and an yearly production of about 2 billions pencils (2 milliarden bleistifte).

faber-castell castle (built 1843 till 1846) in stein, franconia

frei-staat-bayern (frei statt bayern? franken)

on the right the hospital from 1684 + the old church from 1660

the rednitz river

a.w. faber-castell pencil factory #3 (stifte-fabrik)

fabercastell castle

castle's park

next faber-castell factory. dont ask me abt its number. maybe #1? 😁

stein, franconia => the old town hall + the new church

birthday party in wachendorf:

(guest house) gasthaus zeilinger, wachendorf

more pictures here.