Neckarfest
It seems like alomst every month in Heilbronn there is some sort of festival happening in town. This month it is the Neckarfest, which takes place on the Neckar river just outside our apartment. In the last couple of days, the various kiosks have been set up, and docks have been constructed along the river, which people have been using for picnics and dips ino the water.
The picture shows one of the many mobile beer stands. I liked the saying on the side, which says "Don't bother passing us. The party won't start until we get there!". It's funny becasue it is true.
The weather this week has been extremely hot and humid. The festival starts tonight, and the weather forcast includes thunderstorms, hail and gale force winds. The perfect weather for a fest!
OK. The beer truck picture is lame. Here are a couple better ones.
This is a shipyard in the middle of Heilbronn that has always intrigued me. I really like the tracks are used to move the boat up and down the hill. And I was especially happy to see that I got the Wartberg tower and vineyard in the background (purely accidental). Of course, you can also see 'Media Markt', Germany's equivalent to Best Buy. I also laugh about the boat's name, Lauffen. It is probably named after the town just up river from here. But laufen (with one f) is the German verb for getting around by foot - it can be walking or running. (Which made it hard for me to talk to people about which parts of the marathon I ran and which parts I walked). Why does that make me laugh? Well, boats don't have feet, so they cannot laufen. It should be named fahren! Or, in keeping with the misspelling theme, fahhren.
This is a brand-spankin' new bridge over the Neckar at sunset. It opened to traffic about 2 months ago.
This is the tower acorss the river from our apartment. I think this is the first time the sky was nice and blue when I had my camera with me. I really like the sculpture on top of it. At first I thought the tower was somehow French territory, but the red, white & blue flag is Heilbronn's colors as well.
For some reason Jeannette really wanted to sit on this.
That's all folks. Keep your fingers crossed that we don't get blown away at the fest tonight.
posted by Allanimal @ 07:42
1 Comments
1 Comments:
Oops. Like Allan, I have been using the term Neckarfest (=Neckar celebration) to describe the party this weekend, even though I saw plenty of signs and brochures referring to it as the Neckarvergnügen (=Neckar pleasure), considering them to be interchangeable. Alas, we were wrong. The Neckarfest is an established festival which only takes place (due to prohibitive cost) every 4 years (last in 2003, next in 2007). The festival (I'm sorry, pleasure) this weekend, was recently invented by Heilbronn Marketing just to fill the gap, and is billed as the 1. Neckarvergnügen. Since we haven't yet seen the Neckarfest, I don't know what we are missing, but it is hard to imagine that there is much, considering that this one has dragon boat races; a flea market, beer, wurst and gebrannte mandeln stands; two floating stages; Abba, Queen and Neil Young cover bands (in addition to the bands playing original music); a light festival; fire works on the river (that are somehow eye-level, instead of up in the air - I will know more after tonight); a Kinderfest on the swimming pool grounds (with 11 tests of skill - the best get to go hang out with the Oberbürgermeister); and official beginning of the Unicef-City for Children-Heilbronn 2005/2006.
Whew. That is a lot to pack in a weekend. I hope we get a chance to see it all, but since we are having friends over to watch the races (and I will be in the races), and there is so much going on, we can only hope for the best.
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