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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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/Holland.
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.
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.
