Halle (Saale) is a small town in the eastern part of Germany, it is not only the birthplace of the famous composer Händel (engl. George Frideric Handel), also the famous Halloren Chocolate Factory / Museum is located in this town.

Halle is the largest city in the German State of Saxony-Anhalt. It is also called Halle an der Saale (literally Halle on the Saale river, and in some historic references simply Saale after the river) in order to distinguish it from Halle in North Rhine-Westphalia. The current official name of the city is Halle (Saale).

The Halloren Chocolate Factory is the oldest producing chocolate factory in Germany. Its origins date back to the founding of a gingerbread bakery in 1804. The main product of Germany’s oldest chocolate factory is the “Original Halloren Kugel”, small chocolate balls filled with creams in different flavors.

The Handel Statue on the Market Square

An interesting fountain

A Backyard

Halle Zoo, which was erected around a mountain

The Market Square

The Halloren Chocolate Factory

The old trabant was filld witch chocolate

A chocolate fountain

The Halloren Chocolate Museum

Furniture made out of chocolate

No related posts.

Last weekend, I was in Leipzig to visit the Leipzig Book Fair 2010.

The Leipzig Book Fair is the most important spring meeting place for the publishing and media sector and has evolved into an attractive hallmark both in Germany and across Europe.

But after I arrived at the exhibition grounds, it was obvious that the fair isn’t only about Books anymore. Cosplayers, as far as the eye could see.

Since Animes and Mangas are becoming more and more famous in Germany, Cosplay is pretty popular among the fans and instead of taking pictures from books and their authors, I focused on capturing all the amazing costumes I saw during my time at the fair.

No related posts.

After the Narrenbaum was erected, the city was ready for the big Night Parade. Led by a couple of marching bands, thousands of different Narren (as I said yesterday, Narren are something like a jester or Joker) ran through the city. Jumping, laughing, whip lashing and tangerine throwing, it was a fascinating moment.

Every city has their own traditional costumes, first you will see the city of Rottweil with their Federhannes, Schantle and Gschell. If you can sing a well known carnival quote, you will be rewarded with a handful of candy.

* * *

The second city (hope you have umlauts enabled) is Überlingen with their Hänsele. A whip slashing and cap stealing Narr, their long noses are spayed with perfume and if you don’t watch out, they will brush you face with it.

* * *

The third city is Oberndorf, with their Hansel, Schantele and Narro. A basket full of tangerines and a rod full of pretzels and if you are a lucky one, they will throw one of these yummy things towards you.

* * *

The last city is Elzach with their Schuttig, a bunch of grimly, Soublodere swinging Narren. A Soublodere is a ballooned bladder of a pig on a stick, sounds yukky and yes it is.

Well, every one of these Schuttig has carried a torch and at the end they have sparked a big fire to celebrate the end of the first day.

Related posts:

1. Narrentag 2010 – Part 01 – The Beginning

Last weekend, I took a plane to Stuttgart , to watch an event which only takes place every 3-4 years, the Narrentag (which probably means something like “Day of the Jester”), organized by one of four famous carnival cities; Rottweil, Oberndorf, Elzach and Überlingen, all of them part of the Viererbund, a union between these four cities since 1958.

This year the parade took place in Oberndorf (Black Forest), about 1 hour away from Stuttgart.

As an opening ceremony, a decorated tree, the Narrenbaum, was erected, as a symbol that the Narrentag has officially begun.

The Event-President tries to shoot the cannon

The Guild of Craftsmen and their Narrenbaum

It requires a lot of strength to raise this tree

Done!

Some words to the crowd, "Welcome and Enjoy!"

A lonly Narr (Jester), An Überlinger Hänsele

Free beer for everyone!

Related posts:

1. Narrentag 2010 – Part 02 – The Night

On my way through the western part of Germany I discovered an abandoned British military airbase in Weeze, a village in North Rhine-Westphalia.

Part of it is now used as a civilian airport and you can see the old military buildings if you drive the road from the big “Welcome” sign to the airfield. The old British RAF Laarbruch military base, was well placed along the Netherlands border into which the Soldier could flee if something unexpected happened.

Even some old military weapons were placed as a reminder for the Cold War days, or they were just forgotten, who knows!

No related posts.

As I mentioned before on twitter, during the last 4 days I was on a trip to visit some relatives in the Netherlands/Holland. I stayed in a Hotel in a small village called Grieth, 10 minutes away from the Border to Nijmegen.

The hotel was an old restored castle and the interior decoration in some rooms was decorated like in medieval times. Here are some pictures I took during these days.

The prettiest thing I’ve seen was the Skyline of Emmerich, sadly my tripod is a piece of crap, so taking some nice pictures at night was really hard.

No related posts.

Today, I visited the GamesCom in Cologne, Europe’s leading convention for PC and console games with nearly 400 exhibitors from all over the world. In the past, the GamesCom, former GamesConvention, was held in Leipzig. Because of its raising popularity since 2001, the exhibition halls at Leipzig were too small to handle the massive amount of visitors.

My first stop was the booth of Blizzard's newest masterpiece, Diablo 3.

Today's visitors got a chance to test it on over 50 PCs.

And of course their second title, StarCraft 2.

Tony Hawk's RIDE, with its new skateboard controller.

Modern Warfare 2, had to wait for an exclusive gamplay demonstration, sadly, taking photos during the demonstration was forbidden.

The newest member of the family of DotA clones, League of Legends.

Nintendo's frosty booth,

with an Ice Queen, playing Mario and Sonic Olympic Winter Games.

All Point Bulletin, and again, no photos during presentation.

Lucas Arts' and Bioware's newest game, Star Wars: The old Republic

One of the game designers explained the story, gameplay and a couple of new and unique features.No photos during gameplay presentation, you know the drill.

Runes of Magic's newest Addon, The Elven Prophecy, some information? Ok, level cap raises to 55, 3 new zones, 3 new dungeons, 2 new classes, 1 new race, news public contest modes with over 150 players, new PvP modes and hundreds of new quests. Nooo i wasn't paid for that.

Age of Conan: Rise of the Godslayer, got an inflatable sword, funny thing.

More Information

• www.gamescom-cologne.com

Related posts:

1. IFA09 – Consumer Electronics Unlimited
2. 2009 World Championships in Athletics