There are so many beautiful places in the world and the cork board on my wall only confirms that I want to travel to see as many as possible. However, to date my favorite place that I have been to would be Germany. I know what you're thinking, 'But Kaitlin, that's a whole country!'. But I promise you, if you have ever had the chance to travel to Germany you will find it very difficult to pick just one city or place that is best. However, I have tried to narrow it down to three places in particular.
The first place is Cologne, which has unfortunately been in the headlines a lot lately. This beautiful city has the perfect combination of urban shopping and restaurants mixed with the history and tradition that comes with being 2,000 years old. I have traveled to Cologne twice and each time have visited the Cologne Dome, a beautiful cathedral.
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| Photo Information: personal photo of the Cologne Dome |
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Cologne also happens to house the Lindt Chocolate factory, which produces beautiful chocolates! One of the neat things when touring the factory is being able to see the different molds they use for their chocolates and the production equipment necessary to produce all of the chocolate!
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| Photo Information: personal photo of Lindt Chocolate factory molds |
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Photo Information: personal photo of Lindt Chocolate factory production
The second place I absolutely love in Germany is Heidelberg. The city has some of the kindest people and bakeries everywhere you turn. It also houses the University of Heidelberg where one of my cousins studied Journalism. We have family that lives in Otterbach, Germany and visiting them is a bonus of traveling through Germany. My favorite aspect of Heidelberg in particular though, would have to be the castle that sits in the middle of the city, which gives a spectacular view!
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| Photo Information: personal photo of Heidelberg |
The last of my favorite places in Germany is Munich. This vibrant, cultural hub is what many think of when they hear Germany. It has beautiful architecture all along its streets and several shops selling traditional lederhosens and dirndls for people to buy. The cafes lining the streets are great places to take a break from all the shopping. But that's not all! Munich also houses the wonderful football (or soccer) team F.C. Bayern Munchen. While in Munich one can also visit the Olympic Stadium from the 1972 Olympics. With so much to do it is easy to see why this is a great city to visit!
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| Photo Information: photo was taken by Nickay3111 on flickr |
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I love visiting Germany and my family that lives in Germany. I am very fortunate and have gotten to do so twice in my life and will be traveling there for the third time this summer. This year we are going to Paris and Salzburg, and perhaps Berlin! The German culture is wonderful, as are the people, so if you ever have the chance I would most certainly recommend traveling through Germany!
Oh, I love Cologne too, Kaitlin! I was a student at Oxford for two years, and I was studying Polish literature, so I often took the train from Oxford to Poland, and that was an excuse also to visit some beautiful cities in Germany, like Cologne. And what an exciting summer you will have too. Fabulous! Maybe you will want to do a German project for this class; we are reading Brothers Grimm, of course, and there are some other wonderful books online; I bet you would like this book about the German Rhineland and its legends: Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine by Lewis Spence.
ReplyDeleteOh, this is great, Kaitlin: you have worked with a rhyme that is familiar to people because it was one that Lewis Carroll included in Alice in Wonderland also. Of course that rhyme was famous on its own... but now it is even more famous because of THAT Queen of Hearts (April gets mad, but at least she doesn't shout "off with his head!"), and you found such a cute image to go with it too. Using a "prom queen" to play the role of the queen is a wonderful idea; I don't think anybody has played with the idea of prom king and queen for a story in this class ever before, and it works perfectly; it would make a fun style for this class to take fairy tales and rhymes and make all the queens and kings into prom royalty! That allows you to create these realistic characters to go with the not realistic rhyme, and you made it fit with a plot that takes the details of the rhyme while going its own way. And so modern too: emojis! I bet Lewis Carroll would have loved emojis! Fabulous! This is the first story I have read for the semester, and I am taking it as a good omen that it was such a fun one. Well done!!!
ReplyDeleteWhoops... wrong post! I am out of practice, ha ha. I will go repost this on the story page! :-)
DeleteWow, I really enjoyed your pictures of Germany! Germany is definitely on my bucket list and I hope to be able to go there in the near future. There's nothing wrong with loving a whole country!
ReplyDeleteIt must be really nice to have family that lives there. For the summer, are you going for vacation again or for a studying abroad trip?
I want to travel the world as well! If only it were common in the U.S. to take gap years to travel like it is in other countries! Germany looks so incredibly beautiful, especially the Cologne Dome. I've only ever been to London and Paris (which both are amazing) but I'm hoping I can explore further into Europe, especially Germany! I'm a huge fan of Lindt Chocolate, so going there would be amazing. I could probably spend a ton of time there! I've heard so many great things about Munich! It looks so vibrant and cultural in your picture. It's so cool that you're traveling there again this summer!
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