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Tag: Germany

Nuremberg is shining the spotlight on its Nazi torchlight rally past

Nuremberg is shining the spotlight on its Nazi torchlight rally past

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On my first two visits to Nuremberg you have to take yourself off to find the monumental structures built by Germany in its Nazi period. While the city was keen to show off its magnificent medieval past, castles, walls, churches, the home of its famous son Albert Durer, beer halls and restaurants, the ever lingering shadow of its shameful past was kept just that, a hidden shadow. Now there has been a rethinking of what to do about the structures…

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The wine on the Rhine is all mine, all mine – well, and yours

The wine on the Rhine is all mine, all mine – well, and yours

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If, like me, you think most TV wine experts sound as if they have consumed too much rather than telling us anything sensible, imagine my trepidation at listening to actual wine producers. Add to that, the fact that these wine producers are predominantly young, incredibly enthusiastic people in Germany’s most celebrated wine growing area, the flood of fruity, flowery fabulousness would surely be unstoppable. Fortunately, the over-the-top tipple-talk seems to be confined to our shores – or at least the wine…

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Roman holiday in Trier

Roman holiday in Trier

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“What are those windows balanced on your nose?” our toga-wearing guide Heidi asked me before embarking on a tour of Trier where 2,000 years of history pass under your feet in an afternoon’s stroll. “I have heard these vehicles have horse power but I am looking and I cannot see the horses”, she continued, staying in role as a Roman citizen of the city that was once known as the second Rome and is so closely linked with the first…

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Cars, culture and cuisine in Stuttgart

Cars, culture and cuisine in Stuttgart

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Even if, like me, you see cars purely as a way of getting from A to B you still cannot be impressed with two of Stuttgart’s favourite tourist attractions, two magnificent modern museums and their shiny exhibits, one for Porsche and one for Mercedez-Benz. But don’t get the impression cars are the only attraction to this city with its industrial reputation as the ‘cradle of the automobile‘.  The sixth largest city in Germany, the capital of Baden-Württemberg, is one of the…

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Rust in time: Rhur industrial heritage trail

Rust in time: Rhur industrial heritage trail

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  WHO would have thought a rusting closed down steelworks, coal mine or gasometer in Germany’s Ruhr would be on the tourist trail as we increasingly value industrial architecture? The former heavy industry powerhouse has preserved some of the best examples of it economic heritage and saved them from the bulldozer to be replaced by retail parks. The Ruhr region has been transformed from slag heaps and smoke-belching ugliness to a green, leisure-based landscape that include the vibrant cities and towns…

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Shining role of Leipzig in fall of East Germany

Shining role of Leipzig in fall of East Germany

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The shadow of the Wall was lifted from Berlin  more than a quarter of a century ago yet the spark of freedom that finally took flame across the German Democratic Republic in 1989 started in Leipzig, just 70 miles away. It was away from the glare of Western media and politicians in Leipzig that a peaceful protest on October 9, 1989 after prayers for peace in the city’s St Nicholas Church and three other cities across the city that around…

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