bautzen (budyšin) ~ saxony

bautzen (= budyšin in serbian language) was our stop over on our way to poland. what a stop over! well, this time it really made sense not to eat in a highway restaurant but to visit this small, beautiful, medieval, mustard city of bautzen in saxony / saxonia 😄.

bautzen ~ budyšin ~ budysin ~ budissin

a serbian restaurant. the lusatian sorbs / serbs (lausitzer sorben, lausitzer serben) were the one and only flagship national minority in the former DDR. today there are still approximately 60,000 serbian people, but mostly completely assimilated, if you asked me ... enjoy few lusatia / lausitz / luzice pictures from our visit in this area two years ago

hauptmarkt ~ main square 

 town hall (rathaus)

dome st. petri

bautzen is about mustard (senf) today, you know?

mustard manufacture

few pictures from posters

reichenturm ~ rich tower

nicolaiturm ~ st. nicholas tower from 1522

cemetery

an another tourist restaurant ~ the historical guest house mönchshof

all in one collage

more pictures here.

eof

spreewald + brandenburg I

this hot summer was our our holiday completely different than usually. we just sat in our car and drove north :-). our first stop was the east german water and forest nature area of spreewald (=river spree's forest) in the brandenburg district in eastern germany. 

river spree and its islands, forests, inhabitants, tourists, ...

for the first two nights we have made a reservation in kreblitz (luckau, lübbenau) in an old blacksmith's manufacture where we have felt like in a museum. all following nights we have to decide and look for a roof above our heads spontaneously. even if it was not always easy in the main tourist season, we've got very different accommodations from wooden cottage without water, toilet and electric power up to a castle resort at a lake ...

the car statistics show us a short overview about our wonderful 2 weeks :-)

our stops through germany, poland, lithuania, poland, germany were:

• spreewald ~ pictures in this blog post below
• city of cottbus
• ucermark lake district
• polish baltic sea coast
• german teutonic knights castle marienburg (malbork, in today's poland)
• castle karnity + masurian lake district (PL, mazury, masuren)
• vilnius (lithuania)
• water castle trakai (lithuania)
• lodz and central poland
• lusatia = lausitz = luzice (eastern germany)
• north bavarian lakes (rothsee)

 lübbenau, the main gate to spreewald was quite full of tourists, all other areas were almost empty

our blacksmith's inn in kreblitz / luckau

 city of luckau

lausitz lake district. this lake near luckau covers a former mining area (even if lausitz is known as a brown coal area, here was probably a metal mine if i remember the information boards correctly. probably copper or iron ore, who knows?)

the best of all wives :-)

good-bye, dear spreewald ...

more holiday pictures are here

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