We visit the World Cultural Heritage "Hercules monument"

 Today we visit the "Hercules" 

Here is a short information:

Hercules is a copper statue depicting the ancient Greek demigod Heracles. The statue is located at the top of a Pyramid, which stands on top of the Octagon. Today "Hercules" refers not only to the statue, but the whole monument, including the Octagon and Pyramid. The monument is the highest point in the Bergpark Wilhelmshöhe. On 23 June 2013 the Mountainpark and the Hercules were proclaimed as world heritage site during the UNESCO meeting in Phnom Penh.

 We start our day behind the Hercules

 We decided to climb up on the octagon and the pyramid!

Up to the top it takes 305 steps 

The views is stunning 

  And so our new home town looks from above...

 This is the view from the highest window!

 

  The Hercules is made of very soft stone so it often has to be redeveloped.

  On the way down the Cascades we found this trumpet playing Faun.

  Every Wednesday and Sunday water games take place on the cascades in the Bergpark.

 Here many goldfish lives...

 Here ist the Hercules and the cascade in its full glory

We are convinced! Kassel is a beautiful city...

We talked to the HNA

It's been a few days ago... We were interviewed by a journalist from the a newspaper HNA.
We reported about the article on our Facebook page. Now we want to write about the interview here on our blog.
The reason why the HNA reported about us was that we always looking for new hosts.
We lived no longer in Stendal. Our Frind Johannes moved to Kassel and so we went with him. That was also a reason for us to talk with the local press. Thank you Ms. Nickoll for the nice report about us... Here is the article

http://www.hna.de/kassel/kreis-kassel/fuldatal-ort83863/baunataler-schickt-playmobilfiguren-welt-berichtet-blog-davon-5338048.html 

Here Ms. Nickoll asked us a lot of questions about our journey. It was nice to talk with her. We hope to share with all of you her work...

A day in Berlin

After travelling to Finland and Russia we did some sightseeing in Berlin before going home again. 

The city is huge and the best way to go around is by bike.

Jani was driving us around and showing us the typical tourist sights. 

 We started at the famous Alexander Platz / Alex with the huge TV-Tower, it is 368m high and the highest building in Germany.

  As impressing as the TV-Tower is the Brandenburg Gate.

There were so many people doing photo stops us included. It is in between the very beautiful street "Unter den Linden" and "Straße des 17. Juni",

 both street are very nice and it was lovely doing a walk there. Jani also showed us her work place, the "Haus der Kulturen der Welt". It was build in the late fiftys as a congress hall and nowadays it is used as cultural centre with concerts, exhibitions, cinema etc.

From there you also have a great view to the workplace of Angela Merkel our chancellor.

 We also got a glimpse on the impressing Berliner Dom

and the Rotes Rathaus,

the workplace of the Mayor of Berlin. At the end of the day we drove to her most-liked place in Berlin the Rummelsburger Bucht and we saw a fantastic sunset.

 In summary we really liked the city and Jani promised us when we are back here she will show us more of her favourite city in the world.

Last day in St. Petersburg

On our last day in St. Petersburg we did a boot tour in the river Newa, the Griboyedov canal and the Moyka. This was great to get a glimpse of the city especially all this great buildings on the embankment of the river.

Not to miss when you visit St. Petersburg: The Church of the Savior on blood. The Church contains over 7500 square meters of Mosaic. The colors are great and it feels like you are in a fairytale movie. 

We also visit the oldest market of St.Petersburg where you can get everything you need, from fresh fish to pigheads (ugrr).

Another photo shooting in front of the river Newa with a close up from us to say good bye to this very interesting city. Nevertheless, we are happy to visit Berlin.

Next day in St. Petersburg

We also visited a great art space in St. Petersburg called Loft Project Etagi. There it felt a little bit like Berlin and we were surprised that they have this space in the middle of the city centre. There was also a small cinema with films in original language, just when we were there, they were showing the great German movie "Victoria"

http://www.loftprojectetagi.ru/en/about/

Hans and Paul even made new friends.

We also visited the main station of St. Petersburg, from there you can reach Moscow in 4 hours. We really liked the picture on the wall with all the destinations, there was Berlin on it :)

Here is a "making of" photo :)

Second day in St. Petersburg

On the next day we visited the famous Eremitage

  It is a very impressive museum. It is huge and the rooms are all very beautiful.

 Before you are able to visit the museum you have to stand in line, on an Sunday morning it took one hour ...

 But it is worth it! Because of the great wooden floor we had to leave our high heels at home :) (it is forbidden to enter the museum with high heels and the this is very special in Russia where we mostly saw women wearing them)

 After a couple of hours we were exhausting of walking around and left the building. If you want to see all artworks there you need more than 4 days to visit all 350 rooms.

Whats great about St. Petersburg, too? There are still some old Ladas moving around. My grandpa used to drive one when we were young...

First time in Russia

After Helsinki we went with the train to St. Petersburg. also called the "Venice of the North". It is a very beautiful city with great architecture with a huge french influence.

The first day we strolled around and were listening to great street music in front of the famous Eremitage /State Hermitage Museum.

We also went to the beach in front of the Peter and Paul Fortress. Nevertheless, it is not recommend to swim in the river Newa...

However, the view is great to other bank of the river.

We walked over two bridges of hundreds of bridges in St. Petersburg to reach the other side to do a photo stop with the Peter and Paul Fortress in the background.

Of course after all this walking we were pretty hungry and ate famous Russian food for dinner: Blinis. Yummy!

At the end of the day we went home with the famous Metro, it is the deepest Metro in the world and it takes several minutes to get down the escalator to reach the beautiful platforms.

Our second Finnish round trip

The last three days we were on the road in West Finland: First, we went to Pori, because there is the super beautiful sandy beach of Yteri at the Baltic Sea.

Then we drove south to the archipelago of Turku, there are 20,000 small islands.
We landed on Parainen and used the diving board to go swimming... Sylvia and Jani our host, also jumped into the lake.

To get from island to island, we drove by a ferry, it was a bit thrilling for us...

At the end of the day we went to Hanko and took a sunbathed on the beach before we went back to Helsinki.

Road trip to the Finnish lake district

If you visit Finland, it is essential to eat fresh Finnish strawberries.
You find the best on the countryside picked fresh from the field. It is so delicious.

We drove by car to the longest Finnish lake called Päijänne. It looks like the sea... Finland is known as the "land of a thousand lakes".

On the way we did a stop in Lahti, the 2nd home of Jens Weißflug and Janne Ahonen. 

At the end we were back in the archipelago, but this time from the eastern side of Helsinki in Porvoo and Loviisa. It is super nice here!