Roughly 45 minutes by car (or about 50 kilometers) southwest of our home, right here, the beautiful castle of Lichtenstein (Schloss Lichtenstein) is situated. Built between 1840 and 1867, the Romantic chateau is also well known as the "fairy-tale castle of Württemberg". It is open to public viewing from February until November - and we were lucky enough to go there before the season of the big crowds starts (February 6th, 2011).
In 1911, the year it was invented in Ulm, the Patenter-sled was specificated as a steerable toboggan with flexible runners, which front can be bend lateraly while steering it. 100 years later, the Patenter-sled is still famous around Gerhausen, where it was manufactured until the sixties. Once a year, the historical sledge is celebrated with a unique race, 200 meters downhill on an icy forest trail.
Best time so far through out the years is around 17 seconds; the average speed of the two-seaters is close to 40 km/h (24 mph). But even more spectacular are the crashes...
Thaw, sun and 15° (C) last sunday - snow, high clouds and frost one week later. To breathe some fresh air instead of staying indoors all day long, the kids and I decide to climb up the hill to the ruins of ancient Rusenschloss. Up there, the vista of the valley is wonderful, despite the overcast sky. (Blaubeuren, January 23rd, 2011).
January 15th, 2011. On the way back from Ulm we pass - a new lake! All the snow is gone; instead, the thin Blau-Creek, we canoed last July, changed into a proud river and flooded the meadows between the small villages of Blaustein-Herrlingen and Arnegg. The area now looks quite different from autumn... Mighty impressed by the colours of the sunset, I stopped the car for a snapshot. Maybe I should come back during daylight.
After two weeks of perfect winter of snow and sun, wheather conditions are supposed to change. Heavy rainfall and warm temperatures are predicted within the next 48 hours. The pictures below were taken in the late afternoon sun, trying to catch the traces in the deep snow before it melts (west of Ulm-Maehringen, on the way to Blaustein, Jan 5th, 2011).
December 26th, Swabian Alb, southern Germany. Today, wheather was indulging us with another gorgeous winter day. In the early morning, I started taking pictures of Blaubeuren-Gerhausen in the moonlight, bathed in blue. Later, in the early afternoon, I caught some sunshine impressions of snow and shadows. And finally, a little later, I came off with a few snaps of the cool light around our cosy village.
This christmas a children's dream came true. For the first time in - felt - decades, we had the most beautiful, picturesque whitest christmas one can dream of. Here in Blaubeuren it started to snow the morning of December 24th; the flakes kept falling the whole day through until the next morning.
The pictures were taken on our night walk thru the woods on December 25nd. Merry christmas to all of you out there!
Overview of the traditional Christmas market of Ulm, located on the "Münsterplatz" in front of the world famous cathedral of Ulm and seen from a nearby, but private roofgarden of Abt-store (December 9th, 2010).
Odd wheather these first days of December 2010! Monday, when I took some pictures while driving to work, we had really heavy snowfall. Everything was topped with snow; 17 centimeters (6,7 inches) of it covered our patio. It seemed like all the colours of this world were swallowed by a tremendous bluish white blanket. But only two days later, after even heavier rainfall and warm temperatures up to 11° C (53 °F), all the snow is gone, and instead floodings are feared. Now, for tomorrow, Thursday, December 9th, wheather forecast on TV predicts new cold and substantial snowfall again.
What a food adventure! For the very first time we gave a thanksgiving dinner-party. Therefore, we ordered a 20-pound-turkey, prepared it well with oil, salt, pepper, butter, an orange, celery and onions, arranged it into our old BBQ-smoker outside on the patio and let it roast there for five hours! Then we put the bird into the oven for another hour. Our guests were told to cook some typical side dishes according to the recipes on this site - what they all bravely did. The result: delicious! We had:
All this fed 14 people - and there are still leftovers enough for the rest of the week...
