Around Erlangen, as promised

A dear friend recently asked me to take some pictures of where I live in Germany so she could picture it. I dutifully went around with my camera shooting those things I think are the highlights of our town, or which show its character. Perhaps my choices say more about me than they do about where I live, I'm not sure. Here is a brief description of where I live and some pictures.

I love to walk, as may be obvious from the name of this web log. When I was in college in the Pacific Northwest I spent hours walking around the college town I was in. All times of day, including the middle of the night, and throughout the year I walked. It's very relaxing to walk and you get to look at things: people's gardens and houses, the sky, the foliage, the changing seasons, the things people throw out. When we moved to Germany, we lived in a smallish city. We lived in the old town, right next to an historic castle, in the middle of things. Great for convenience and for being right where it's all happening, but terrible if your hobby is walking around looking at people's yards and houses, or at nature. All the buildings looked the same, typical old German style, or super minimalist modern. There are no yards, and window boxes, which abound in Germany, don't provide the same weird voyeuristic pleasure I get from looking at people's choice of landscaping. And the forest was too far away to walk to from my house. I felt homesick.

Then we moved to the college town where my husband's office is, because he was tired of 40 minutes each way on the bus, and also because I was tired of having nowhere interesting to walk around. I found that I just felt more comfortable in a college town (no wonder after living in various ones for the last 14 years). Erlangen is in some ways very similar to where I lived before, it is a similar size, it is relatively affluent, has many nice gardens, in part thanks to the University, tons of students, and a river running through it that has a green space along it. Everyone rides bikes, sometimes walking in town is like playing Frogger. And there are many different neighborhoods filled with detached houses with yards, as well as forest areas within walking distance of my house. It differs greatly from that other town in that it is in no way hip, alternative, or liberal. We live in the most conservative part of Germany, in a very affluent town. I just don't know how I can express its un-hipness, except to say that if Tommy Hilfiger and JC Penny's got together and made a preppy an uncool catalog with a college theme, that would start to express the style of the college kids here. I regularly see women in their thirties in light washed full length denim skirts and practical shoes.

Admittedly, most of the houses are of a style: red tiles, pitched roofs, half timbered, German, in other words. And German landscaping tends to be very much like German society, very precise and orderly, extremely well groomed, and not exuberant or showy. My taste runs more toward English cottage garden style, riotous mishmashes of plants, random rocks and statues: controlled chaos. So it is not the same experience I had walking around the hippy town I lived in. However, there is an amazing botanical garden run my the Uni, with many different areas, including an indoor jungle and an exhibit garden, which changes seasonally (I don't know how they do it, but I think they bury potted mature plants and switch them out). And there are some interesting neighborhoods and places to see the flowers coming up in spring and the leaves turning in Autumn.

Here are some pictures from around Erlangen, some of which I took recently in an attempt to showcase my town for my friend, and some of which I took on my walks over the last year. I guess I should say that Erlangen was not bombed in the war so all the historical buildings and statues were untouched.

Main market square, the building in the background is the public library. 

This is the fountain in the Schlossgarten, behind that building in the background is the main market square, to the building's left, behind the tree, you can see the side of the library pictured in the previous photo.

The Orangerie, also in the Schlossgarten, it has something to do with the University's music school and was recently refurbished.

The Botanical Garden. The exhibit garden in its current form (current being September 27th when I took this photo)

Koi pond and Water garden (one of several) at the Botanical Garden

More exhibition garden. Don't let those cacti and yucca fool you, it's cold and dreary here most of the year

One of the more charming streets near the market square. Most of the town does not look like this.

One of my favorite business signs

The Regnitz (or is it the Pegnitz here? I can never remember) river that runs through town

A working water wheel which brings up water from the river. All wood. Amazing.

Like I said, don't let the palm trees in previous picture fool you.

It was so cold this pond froze all the way through (at least 2 meters, maybe more). People were ice skating, and the old German guys had a curling area set up.

This canal connects the River Main and the Danube. It runs west of town and has miles of perfectly flat path beside it. 

More from the green space beside the river. Even the sheds look German.