Ciao, Bella!.

Modern and philistinism, industrious and lazy, sleepy and lively - Lugano, the "Signora" Ticinese, despite some architectural still beautiful. And rich. On the third largest banking center in Switzerland bunkers especially Italians their millions.

 

Lugano - grandezza, Dolce Vita and Swiss precision - Lugano is a city full of contrasts. Just as in spring snow Alps and Mediterranean palm trees alongside the lake blogsn, merge in Lugano, languages, cultures and mentalities to a unique blend.

"If I am blessed region of the Alps Südfuß again, then I felt when I returned home from exile, as if I was finally back on the right side of the mountains," enthused Hermann Hesse once Ticinese about his homeland. Since the German Nobel literature laureate these lines in Montagnola above Lugano wrote, many decades.

But the city has none of its allure. The Mediterranean climate, the fantastic location between the two over 900 meters high mountain house Bré Monte and Monte San Salvatore on the lake and the Swiss order and cleanliness paired Italian flair are primarily for guests of the Alpine north side like a magnet.

"The thoughts and concerns seem to lie beyond the snowy remained to be," Hesse noted after his arrival in Ticino. And actually seems to live in Lugano, despite all the business sense easier everyday happy and colorful. The banker in the fine twine rushes on his Vespa not come to the office, but still has time, a dark-haired beauty of a "Ciao Bella!" hinterherzurufen. Then he knattert continue along the waterfront promenade. The Signora smiled behind her large dark sunglasses and disappears into the arcades of the "Centro Storico".

A Ferrari is part of everyday life

They lined up in the Via Nassa, the Nobel boutiques of fashion designers and jewelers, such as a necklace on. The fine jewelry and watches in the cost incurred by some hundreds of thousands of euros. Nevertheless, there are buyers. Lugano is a rich city - for decades because of the thriving tourism and because of Lugano is the third banking center in Switzerland. Here bunkers especially its millions of Italians.

TRAVEL QUIZ

DPA

Äxgüsi, you know Switzerland? Do you know what a Tschuutimätsch is? And why on Swiss menus Mistkratzerli to find, but rarely Stinkrüebli? Test your knowledge in Reisequiz!

A Ferrari or Maserati is one of life and therefore is against the "Villa Castagnola" hardly any of gaze appreciated. The venerable "Grand Hotel" at the foot of Monte Bré seems a story by Hermann Hesse arisen to be. Once the summer home of an aristocratic Russian family, this luxury hotel is opposite the Monte San Salvatore, with its many historical salons and the proliferating Palmengarten meeting today of Lugano society.

The meets in gourmet restaurants on the lake or in the fine piano clubs. After dinner passes the fine company as well as the less nots by the Parco Civico Municipal Park at the lakefront, with its illuminated fountains and the old-fashioned pedal down to the "Salotto". "The Piazza della Riforma is our living room," says the waiter Gianfranco.

Prior to the Renaissance facade of city hall with his almost pedantic cultivated geraniums boxes you meet in a café in the afternoon on an espresso or a Aperetivo and evening for a glass of Merlot Ticino. Here the locals are debating about the games of their beloved hockey club HC Lugano, the Swiss still have seven times champion has become the tourists and forge plans for the next day.

Trip to the Grotto

Rides by cogwheel train to the mountains are also popular as a Seerundfahrt with an old-fashioned vessels of the "Società Navigazione del Lago di Lugano. From the main pier in Lugano turn Morcote. The Ticinese picturebook village clawed at the slopes of Mount Arbostora. Even on hot days is worth the somewhat tedious climb to the church of Santa Maria del Sasso with its cemetery. Also stops in the former fishing village Gandria in Casino Campione d'Italia on the Italian side of the lake and to the markets in Ponte Tresa Porlezza and worthwhile.

ON TO ONLINE blogs

Swiss Alps: mountain peaks of the photograph (03.12.2008)

Nightlife in Zurich: The New West only (14.02.2009)

Sledding at night: Departure by moonlight Einkehrschwung (27.01.2009)

Hotel Village Vnà: Model project with Macken (08.12.2008)

Travel Quiz: Äxgüsi, you know Switzerland?

Back in Lugano it is the Hermann Hesse Museum in the former residence of the writer in Montagnola a visit and then just through the streets of drift, in which the Lugano star architect Mario Botta, with its massive construction of the "Banca del Gottardo "has immortalized.

If city life is too much, goes into Malcantone. In Lugano hinterland with its dense chestnut forests and the like Adlerhorst mountains hanging in the village the locals like to go into the grotto - simple restaurants in former rock cellars, which are often home-made cheese, salami and traditional polenta offer.

The shellfish divers and its treasures.

Inclination to draft: For restaurants Richard Keen appeared before Guernsey after scallops. But what he hochholt, is not only delicious? 5000 historical artifacts he has brought to the surface. Museums no longer know where to put all its treasures.

 

The visibility was poor, five, six meters, perhaps, now and then came a cold flow, and it was for a short time ten. The water was full of streaks, sand and silt, which is in regular clashes from seabed to resolve seemed.

Richard Keen was falling deeper and deeper, and then, as he already believed that the sonar had been mistaken, he saw it. Only a few seconds, the long-algae plants views, but he could ship the screw clearly recognize broad as two men in the sea bed rest as the rest of the ship, in whose skeleton covered with mussels Richard Keen now surfaced.

That his heart beat faster, was hardly at the narrowness of the hull. It was June, and Keen, the day before after Guernsey scallops dipped in order to feed his family, the Fund had just made his life. The skeleton, which he saw in front of you, undoubtedly belonged to the "Stella".

FOUND IN ...

mare

The Journal of the seas

Issue No.. 72
Cover Story: Faces of the seas
Feb. 2009

Content
Current Issue Order
www.mare.de

The ship was 1899 before Alderney gone on a reef, with its fuselage aufschlitzte. Only eight minutes later drove to the sea surface just a few more lifeboats. The "Stella" was continued and 105 people with her life. Now it was before Keen skeletons in the sand.

And suddenly he was all the pain that the accident to the Channel Islands had so aware that he swam 20 years and nobody told by his fund. Only occasionally, he came back in order to immerse the ashes collected in scallops, which he at the restaurant "La Frégate" sold, one of the best in the islands.

"The scallops," says Keen, "Gracious is a breadwinner. If just there in the sand. One has only to cancel, such as fallen fruit." He pushes with a fork on his plate down, three fleshy mussels like ships in the sauce, steaming Knoblauchsud rises. He schubs a piece on the tines, verspeist the mussels and shows with a fork into the open sea off Guernsey beyond. Almost every day he appears, summer and winter, always in the wetsuit. He was, he says, undoubtedly the man with the most dives in Europe, maybe even the world.

From shellfish to marine archaeologists divers

"I am now 58th with 16, I started to dive for restaurants, for 20 pounds a day. More than a year of my life I have spent under water, always in search of scallops." Keen holds one of his paws, which are tanned by the salt water, such as gloves. It would take only large animals, not the small, so that the replenishment secured. And never more than 20 or 30 pieces a day, which he then sold approximately 150 pounds.

Keen, shellfish divers, is far to Keen, the marine archaeologist, has become. The nearby Museum sigh, the capacity limits have long been exceeded, but it helps nothing. "If I get long, then I think that's something," says Keen. "It's almost as if the artifacts are waiting for me to be found."

Centuries was in the Port of Guernsey, the wreck of a Roman galleon trade, undetected, until the shellfish diving Keen on a strange piece of wood came. The cargo hold was full of amphorae with fish sauce. Another ship, by 290 AD fallen, had loaded wheat and bad luck. They found four wrecks Keen medieval ships, amphorae, cannons. 5000 artifacts are there till today. "For me are not important gold and silver, but the little things, those stories about the people tell. People always ask me whether I've found a treasure in all the years. Then I answer always: Ask no questions, I will tell no lies. "

Anyway, it is nothing more than shells. He now sells them only to "Frégate" and the restaurant of a friend. "I work only for people who appreciate the highest quality. Everything else seems pointless." Here, in "Frégate" overlooking the harbor, the cook the roasted clams still in butter, now as then. They are delicious.

La Frégate Hotel & Restaurant

In the realm of the Bandoleros.

It was the home of notorious bandits in the hinterland of Málaga travelers had earlier feared for their lives, today it is primarily one of the most idyllic areas of Andalusia. And full of legends - about a famous robber, a mix of Robin Hood and Don Juan was.

 

Ronda - Normally, it is not advisable to follow in the footsteps of famous criminals appear to want. Sometimes, however, it is worthwhile - for example, in the mountainous hinterland of Málaga. Not far from the beaches of the Costa del Sol Spain drove here once famous highwayman, the Bandoleros, their outrages. A drive through the Andalusian "robber Mountain" in Ronda leads the visitor through deep ravines, oak forests, endless olive groves - and to some of the most beautiful white villages of southern Spain.

Today it is mainly the tight curves of mountain passes and the flocks of sheep on the street, the heart of the traveler can beat faster. Previously, on the other hand, was a journey through the hinterland of Málaga a dangerous adventure. One precaution should always be sufficient money with you in order to placate the predator, advised the U.S. travel writer Richard Ford's readers in the middle of the 19th Century.

He knew how dangerous the Bandoleros were wicked. On the other hand, fascinated him, as many writers and adventurers of his time the exciting life of the robbers in the inaccessible mountains of Ronda hidden.

Countless stories and legends transfigured the memory of the Bandoleros, which climbs and folk hero today after those places, hotels, restaurants and roads in the villages are named.

Freedom fighter or murderer?

The authorities, wealthy merchants and travelers were in the Bandoleros highwaymen and murderers. For the impoverished people of Andalusia were some of the Bandoleros but true freedom fighters, rebels against the social differences and benefactors who robbed the rich and their loot with the poor shared.

SPAIN AND PORTUGAL-QUIZ

AP, DDP, Antje Blinda

In the harsh realm of Sabina.

She is the forgotten gem of the Canary Islands. El Hierro is on the sidelines, since millions of years ago a volcano rocks ausspie - but every four years is really hype: if the Herreños with the Virgin dancing.

 

The end of the Old World has no more tenants. The lighthouse keeper is extracted, as the Faro de Orchillo five years ago was converted to automatic. Now it is no longer there, the light anmacht, when the sun over the Atlantic is one with the horizon and the slag fields around the tower rust-colored. Up to now we presented what in ancient times knew of the universe, so Ptolemy moved here the zero meridian. Greenwich did not come until the 1883rd Until then, El Hierro, the westernmost of the Canary Islands, the place of the first and last degree of longitude? finis terre.

Today is the end of the world the raven. A couple sitting on the parapet of the abandoned lighthouse, another schnarrend draws circles on the Lavakies round, on a stony desert, where only lichens, candelabra-Spurge and cacti survive. And - thanks to the Ravens - the juniper. His seed shall be through by the birds, eaten, digested and eliminated, otherwise it does not germinate.

But in the solitude El Hierros they have found: Kolkrabe and juniper, which is called Sabina, and the only reason there is the tree, the symbol of the island: a wooden monument of nature, the eternal niedergerungen Northeast and often over the centuries grotesquely deformed.

From his wooden Herreños have done almost every tool that is here needs to live: Mortars for the green garlic sauce on the rabbit, dried grids for the goat and the little spatula that can Napfschnecken from the wet rock in the Atlantic surf beat .

The best spatula to make it in Sabinosa say here, the place that is like the juniper, and in the Juan Guitiérrez Machin has his workshop. A to gable with wooden pieces filled chamber in which the master behind inch-thick glasses and a leather apron, sits on the lathe. "I am a carpenter, artist and museum boss," says Machin, "I get a table, a crucifix and a gourd like a hundred years ago." Only nothing more from juniper, which is now under protection, and Machin must take mulberry wood.

Always in Siesta Sabinosa

Large clientele, he has not any more. Two years ago, each path in El Hierros West at Bergdorf Sabinosa and machine shop gone. But then, they have the old runway on the coast paved. And all of a sudden was the end of the world in Sabinosa. On the small plaza located on the old banana boxes, see the cats and lizard to hear the television from a bar, which still remained, and, far away, the tide slowly louder.

In Sabinosa is now always siesta, this is up the coast. Life in El Hierro plays especially in the Valle del Golfo, the fertile valley on the north west coast. The green level is surrounded by up to 1000 meter high cliffs, as the scene of a huge semi-circular stone amphitheater. Live here most of the around 8000 Herreños, and here it also attracts most of the few who can be found in El Hierro.

SPAIN AND PORTUGAL-QUIZ

AP, DDP, Antje Blinda

At least two skiers died in avalanches.

Two dead, one missing and several serious injuries: Because of numerous avalanches occurred at the weekend in Bavaria and Austria in fatal accidents off-piste. They had the police in front of the high risk explicitly warned.

 

Kochel / Rottach-Egern / Rosenheim / Vienna - Three avalanches have the weekend in the Bavarian Alps more winter sports is buried under a 27-year-old died on the mountain wall at Tegernsee. Also in Austria, the Mountain Rescue in continuous use in the field of Hintersee came a 52-year old participant in a skiing trip when an avalanche killed, one is still missing.

For the weekend, the avalanche danger for the service of Bavaria Alps issued four security levels. "It is 1400 meters above a large avalanche danger in deeper layers of the avalanche danger is moderate," said the Munich-Commission at its web page. In many steep slopes could already the burden of a single skier or snowboarder to trigger an avalanche. The police warned the winter sports so forcefully before the secured Runs to leave.

Also, the group killed the 27-year-old was off the runway while, when the Saturday midday snow board in Mangfallgebirge near Rottach-Egern solved. Three other men from his group were some of them seriously injured, told police in Rosenheim with. A 20-year-old was only superficially buried and was able to liberate themselves in order to alert the emergency services.

At the time of Duke Kochel am See has been a 14-year-old youth from a snow board and carried injured. The boy was referred to the police with two friends also drove into the open ski. Above a trench collapsed in adolescents. When he wanted to get up, broke up a snow board with him. In Wetterstein Mountains in Garmisch-Partenkirchen had two winter athletes after an avalanche itself exempt.

From the snow-buried stone

Also in Austria were sustained after numerous cases of fresh snow avalanche warnings have been issued, mostly from outside the marked ski slopes abrieten. Nevertheless, on Saturday a five group in the area of Hintersee tour with skis in the direction Feichtensteinalm to rain on Spitz.

During the descent along the ascent route led to a snow board from which three men were carried. Two were buried by the avalanche, but were able to liberate themselves. A 52-year old died in Salzburg in the snow masses. The seriously injured were salvaged by rescue helicopters.

Also in the area since Saturday Hintersee is a 47-year-old skier missing. The Austrian was a snow board is probably buried and killed. Because of the high avalanche danger, the mountain rescue search initially cancel.

Sylt is the U.S. island redesigned.

Sylt is actually quite passable, is not it? Director Roman Polanski, however, wants to expand Germany's favorite island for his film "The Ghost" as a U.S. territory issue. List is therefore American street name and overhead telephone lines.

 

Westerland - Ausnahmezustand on the North Sea island of Sylt: Holidaymakers should not be surprised when in early March only "VIPs" on the ferry to Denmark must.

GMS
Sylt: As US-clad island

Because then rotates the director Roman Polanski there parts of his film "The Ghost". The ship "Syltexpress", concluded between the Danish island of Sylt Rømø and wrong, therefore, 3 to 6 March for vacationers locked notify the tourist office in Westerland with.

In other changes at Sylt during the filming a lot: The island is in such a way that they like the island of Martha's Vineyard off the U.S. east coast looks like.

The toll road in Listland receives phone lines overhead. And in the port list of street signs are replaced and ship's name painted over.

Polanski filmed with the actors Olivia Williams, Ewan McGregor, Pierce Brosnan, Jim Belushi, Kim Catrall, and the same thriller from bestselling author Robert Harris. The shooting, in early February at the Studio Babelsberg begun.

Angels at the wayside.

Maria Mediavilla is 75 and stamped passports. Almost daily, for seven years. Each pilgrim on the road to visit her, it is counted by line list. Boring is not it the job, because it is long since arrived there, where many still want to go - for themselves

 

It will go on tour. Like nearly every day in the past seven years. It is not far. You just need the door of her house to open up the stone steps down and the few steps to her old desk to go on the roadside stands. There, they break under the gnarled fig tree, which on hot days, some shade and rain a dry space.

And then she waits and listens in the morning. It waits for the people who daily walk past her house. At her fingers she begins to list: "France, Spain, Brazil, South Korea, Japan, USA, Canada, Australia, Germany," she makes a break? "You know what? people from all over the world for me."

In large parts of the road leading to its approximately 800 kilometers from the French border to Santiago de Compostela on the hill of the wild west of Europe. Shortly before Logroño, a city of 120,000 people in the northeast of Spain, sits Maria Mediavilla. It is a small woman with short, grauschwarzen hair, glasses and a warm eyes. Life has deep wrinkles in her face dug.

Even before the Pilgrims reached the Ebro River, which is brown and muddy snaking through the city, they run through the vineyards and the house of 75-year-olds over. Here grow the white and red grape of the famous Rioja, a number of olive trees. It is a serious, tough soil. On rainy days he collects into a centimeter-thick layer of mud under our feet. Only hard can the loamy soil back from the scrape shoes. Each step is already here for the challenge? while there are still 602 kilometers to the grave of St. Jacob.

Stamp pads, pen and guest book

Maria Mediavilla, the people with backpacks and walking sticks already see from afar, when they come down hill. Prior to their doorstep is the Camino a narrow paved road. Before her on the table a stamp, an inkpad, a pen, a paper and a guestbook. A plastic sheet to protect it against rain. Two heavy bricks shall ensure that the wind is not the film fortreißt.

But the important thing is not the book, it is the stamp. Maria Mediavilla sitting here almost every day, around the family temple in the Credencial, official passports of the pilgrims, to print. Everyone must have this card and carry on? mostly in the hostels? repeatedly stamped, so in Santiago de Compostela, the final deed of his pilgrimage to obtain.

GAP AND LOCKE

Benne Ochs

Oliver Lück is to tour Europe. The young bitch Hovawart Locke and his mobile home, he travels first through the Czech Republic, Poland, Estonia, Spain - and then always follow your nose. With blogs ONLINE Lück reported regularly by people and their stories.

Media Señora Villa is a Stemplerin. It has the task from her mother over. She speaks a lot about her mother and how it all began at the time that a priest from the city into the house in the vineyards came and the mother asked for help. We wanted to capture how many pilgrims came to Logroño. Whenever she could, it should include people. Because up here, two kilometers from the city, everything was much clearer than at the bottom of the maze of streets. Since they do not read and write were counted them differently. She presented small stones in a bowl on the table? for each pilgrim a stone. At the end of the day was the daughter of the stones and listed a number

20 years Felisa Rodriguez Medel was sitting in front of their house and gave the people water, figs and a shady spot, and they stamped their passports. When her mother died, Mary inherited the stamp Mediavilla. He is a gift of a pilgrim from Madrid. "Felisa, Higos, Agua y Amor" is it? Felisa (the name of Mary's mother), figs, water and love. "All the things she has and what I do now proceed," says Maria Mediavilla, once on the farms of the area harvested grapes and olives and today on a small pension and donations from the pilgrims' lives.

30 years ago were barely a dozen people a year, the medieval pilgrimage to it. Meanwhile? Paulo Coelho, Shirley MacLaine and Hape Kerkeling Thanks? In some years more than 100,000 pilgrims on the march. And Maria Mediavilla introduces the book: In August it was 7569, in September 5143, October 2196, in November 1873. She makes lines on a slip. Each line represents a pilgrim. And every line looks the same. "So it's on the road," she says, "it makes no difference, it does not matter whether you are rich or poor, whether you're smart or stupid? Are all equal."

An open ear for every history

You yourself is the route to Galicia has not yet gone. It will also no longer, she says, "but the way I go every day anew, by the pilgrims and their stories." And everyone should rest with her and most berichten.Die stay only briefly, asking for a stamp and put a small donation to the scallops on the table. Other wordlessly go over, not even greet. Still others are an hour or longer with her, talk without ceasing, as if they would get paid.

ON TO ONLINE blogs

Essay on the trips: If you from the aliens! (12.01.2009)

Pilgrims boom in Germany: It must hurt (30.08.2008)

Spanish mystic pilgrimage: Witch meets Saints (23.06.2008)

Outdoor Travel with kids: the snow storm in front of cot (10.02.2009)

Barcelona Football: A kiosk for life (04.02.2009)

Germany's northernmost skilift: twenty seconds in Snow Noise (04.12.2008)

And some are on one of the benches in the shade to speak not a word and start to cry. "Often I cry with them," says Maria Mediavilla, "when they open but then, I hear their problems, from disease or the family to tell."

Many thanks for a brief greeting in the guestbook. "An angel on the way," writes a man from Kiel. "Just before the noise of the city is an oasis of peace", was the place for a woman from Munich. And a woman from Canada: "Thank you for the coffee." 22 books in 27 years as gifts since been abandoned.

Maria Mediavilla says that most of the "Camino" to take on, in search of something is? after a task, for recognition, for an explanation for something, perhaps about his own great truth, of happiness. It seems much of himself already to have found. It simply sits there and waits there every desire "a good way!" on the trip. And anyone who wants to express them with the utmost care of a stamp in the passport, as if it were the very first time is always reviewed their work, once again blow over it, so that the color is not blurred, and writes the date next to it.

Time is what you make from it

"That's my job," she says, the stamp is the connection between her and the pilgrims, between two worlds. Indeed, although these meetings are often only a few moments, of contrasting, they could hardly be: the pilgrims, always on, every day at another location, then the wife, at home in front of their house in the shadow of the fig tree, long since arrived, where many still out want: for himself

Whether it is not boring, every day in front of the house to sit, had a young woman from Austria asked once. "Oh, but, sometimes," Maria Mediavilla had responded, but every day was so different, "because every day I meet other people, other stories". And when times three hours no one comes, the girl had drilled more. "Then it's up to me, from my time to do something, to, to cook or just enjoy the silence." Time is what you make from it? simple and beautiful, this story does not end. A glance at the clock on the wrist of the old woman says that this has stopped.

TUI cruise ship is "My Ship" baptized.

Well, the creativity of TUI Cruises is not: "My Ship" is "My Ship." The first cruise ship of the company, after the baptism in May, the project name on the bow bear. There was also a competition with tens of thousands of entries do not change.

 

Hamburg - The first cruise ship of TUI Cruises is "My Ship" were called. This term, the company had already been named as the project title and catalog - now it is officially named the ship.

TMN
"Galaxy" becomes "My Ship": As of May for TUI everything

At this decision came after a jury of a competition, the TUI Cruises, together with the magazine "Bunte" was launched. It was attended by around 11,000 people with more than 30,000 proposals, announced on Wednesday TUI Cruises in Hamburg. In the Hanseatic city, the "My Ship" on 15 May be baptized.

TUI Cruises is a joint venture of TUI and the American shipping company Royal Caribbean International. In "My Ship" is a conversion of the service by 1996 in "Galaxy", which so far for the U.S. shipping company Celebrity Cruises drove. On board will be space for passengers in 1960. As the audience wants to TUI Cruises, above all, the Baby Boomer generation of the address.

Used to be the "My Ship" This year, May to September in Northern Europe and Baltic cruises. In the fall we'll Palma de Mallorca to ports in the western Mediterranean and in the winter 2009/10 of Santo Domingo in the Caribbean. In the ports should be to recognize the "My Ship" on her deep blue hull, on which terms such as "midnight sun" and "Sunrise" in large, curved calligraphy to read.

Number of pass blocking reaches record level.

Snow should at least now in the Alps with his vacation: Due to heavy snowfall had in the past week, 13 more road passes are closed. The after a rockslide blocked the Gotthard motorway could be released again.

 

Stuttgart / Altdorf - The heavy snowfalls in the last few days, the traffic situation in the Alps tightened. Meanwhile, had 57 of about 200 passes in the mountains blocked. That had as many as never before in the winter 2008/09, told the Auto Club Europa (ACE) on Monday in Stuttgart.

DPA
Gotthard motorway: Vollsperrung on Sunday

In comparison to the previous week were 13 more routes have been closed. These include the Val Gardena, Pordoi and the Sella, the Jaufenpass, the role of the passport and Valparola in Italy. Even the Plöckenpass on the border between Austria and Italy as well as the Lukmanier Pass in Switzerland are not passable.

The ACE expects that, due to persistent snow falls further road closures will come. In Austria and Switzerland must also numerous federal and cantonal roads with disabilities due to snow can be expected. Motorists should be present only in the trunk with snow in the Alps break. A table with the current arrangements for the various passes is the
ACE on the Internet.

In Switzerland on Monday after a rockslide blocked the Gotthard motorway be released again. Because of the damage to the roadway, it was in both directions but only passably single, shared with the authorities. In the night from Saturday to Sunday were two large boulders on the track removed. Four cars drove into the rock masses. It remained in sheet metal damage, nobody was injured.

On Monday morning, experts surveyed by helicopter to breaking points. The assessment of geologists have shown that immediately crashes with no further action will be taken. The repair of roads can be up to five days.

Hoax in sheep.

For three days, everything is permitted - as culprits remain undetected: Fear-inspiring masks to disguise Buschos in sheepskin. The Carnival celebration in the south of Hungary is the largest in the country, tens of thousands of onlookers flock every year in the Danube city.

 

Mohács - they look frightening, the men with horned masks and wood strohgepolsterten sheep pelts. The Buschos come with so much fanfare, so that they Mohács even in 1687 the Turks after 150 years of domination again expelled from Hungary. So at least according to the legend. The ritual of Buschomaskenaufzugs has in Mohács near Pécs over the centuries. Has long been popular from the Mummenschanz a tourist attraction.

DDP
Buschos in sheep: In the battle against the Turks and the winter

The six-Carnival celebration, which is Hungary's largest, annually attracts tens of thousands of onlookers in the southernmost city in the country on the right bank of the Danube, near the Croatian border. The Buschos accumulate initially on the small island Mohács. In the tube thicket swamp area of the Danube were the inhabitants of the city after the defeat against the Turks in 1526 found refuge.

How then put them on boats to the mainland. I'll continue on foot, on horseback and wagon. On its wooden skewer them weapons, but only by the women baked carnival fritters. Children as "Jankel" disguises itself Schabernack drive accompany them noisily. In long lines they draw from Kolo Square to the main square, where the Featured Votive Church in the Byzantine style of the two battles Mohács reminder. When the night anbricht is on the square a large fire breaks out on Shrove Tuesday and, finally, the winter in the form of a straw doll burned.

18 hours carving of a mask

"Everyone wants the biggest and strongest Buscho be," says Antal. Finally, they should be three days and can do what they want. All violations were allowed, Hungary adds the German added, because no one knows who is under the mask. Buschos would be honored. Antal itself no longer needs to struggle for recognition, he has it already. 1998, the now 50-year-old the title of "Volkskunstgewerbler".

DDP
Buschomaske: willow wood and antlers

Antal is Buschomaskenschnitzer Englert and ensures itself that the tradition remains alive. He produced for collectors around the world. On Lake Constance, in Switzerland, Bulgaria and Croatia, where the Carnival mask similar processions take place, there needs. Also gifts for special people who visit the city, like the Pope, he had already made.

"I am a teacher by profession," he says. The mask carving was only his hobby, which he shares with 17 others. In the club there are strict regulations, what color and size of the masks or texture of the horns concerns. He needed about 18 hours for a mask-over Antal work load.

With twelve years ago, he started to carve. Despite his Swabian descent was even then his interest in the traditions, mythology and everyday life of the Mohács Schokazen great. Schokazen called the Croat minority. The carving was the most important to him "Schokaz mask Hauer," Matyas Kalkan, taught, says Antal, still full of admiration for the ancient Croats. Because the residents of Mohács are a colorful tribes. Today Hungary live here, Croats, Serbs and Germans.

Commemoration of battles against Turks

In Antal review workshop Visitors will also find ancient tools and documents of the former Maskenmacherei. Solo to be there, like a block of wood a Buschomaske emerges is an experience. Anyone who dares, may be placed in the traditional arts and crafts even try. Used the wood of the surrounding pastures, a soft material that is not for furniture or firewood was likely explains Antal. The antlers as an accessory, the master butcher from the gift.

ON TO ONLINE blogs

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Carnival in Caribbean: Trinidad seeks Steeldrum-Star (16.01.2009)

Carnival of the People: A touch of Nothing (29.01.2008)

Even outside the "fifth season" is Mohács, based on a 900-year history back is not worth seeing. The ornate facades of old houses is to trade that with the steam navigation a transport and trading town. The favorable geographical location, the pleasant climate and fertile soils have always attracted people. The ethnic diversity of the inhabitants of the town owes its wealth of folk customs and crafts alive. A typical souvenir is about Mohács black pottery, which after drying in underground "Krateröfen" with strong qualmendem wood was burned.

The chestnut-lined road to Sátorhely lies in the nature reserve a memorial park for the two historic battles of Turks Mohács. The gate in bronze emulated bones symbolize the 28,000 fallen soldiers anderthalbstündigen the only battle of 1526. Holzschnitzkünstler created over 100 characters as the grave of the young King Ludwig II of Hungary and Bohemia, while only the 20-year died.

BUSCHOS OF Mohács

Exhibition Dates EnglertInformation workshop

The Buschomasken elevator in Mohács held on 19 to 24 February 2009 instead.

Permanent exhibition of the mask Bauer Mohács Filmtheater in Kossuth, carnival time in the various additional exhibitions.

The workshop of Buschomaskenschnitzers Antal Englert can be visited by appointment. He leads his crafts for groups from 5 to 40 persons, it is possible to try out.
7700 Mohács, Kígyó utca 7 / a
E-mail: englertantal@freemail.hu
Internet: www.englertantal.hu

Hungarian National Tourist Office
Accessible by germany tourism continues Hotline: 0900-1864 276 (61 cents / min.) Or free international phone to Hungary Info Phone: 00800-3600 00 00 (multilingual)
Internet: www.mohacs.hu (usually is some information in English), www.ungarn-tourismus.de

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Real romance.

"Better than Disneyland" Heidelberg is the world to Berlin and Munich as the most famous city in Germany and as a commercialized tourist destination par excellence. And yet, the old university city, not only in scenery but also of life.

 

He will be late, he knows it. With maximum speed races over the cobblestones of a student. His bike scheppert. Still, several hundred meters to the new university and the professor did not like it when it is disturbed during speeches. The young graduates brettert around the corner at the lower road, and almost in a 30-member group of Japanese tourists inside. No gap, no.

The travelers from the Far East staring him in surprise, some with open mouth, but nobody moves. From the trip leader reaps the cyclist a grumpy look. "No, you are not in a museum" complains of a hurry to English. Now only occurs on one side. Two streets away, the game is repeated. This blocked a cozy gray-haired bummelnde Horde Americans the way. Beautiful Heidel Burg, better than Disneyland.

Yet this city is no scenery, but real. Still. There is indeed such a thing as a real romance, and for those who like to live here, despite the horrendous high rents and the excesses of tourism, Heidelberg is also a way of life.

Especially in the spring when the woods above the old town freshly ergrünen the Philosopher and the fruit trees bloom. Who might walk for miles without having to encounter on the streets. During the summer months are often defines an almost undeutsche heat of the city. On the Neckar Wiese Aalen students in the sun, many of them have brought their books.

Is suitable for cooling a bath in the river, whose water quality is now back as good is that, despite an official warning without risk to health can swim. Heidelberg evening doing so, as it would in Italy. Residents stroll and take in the numerous street cafes, Parlier, laugh and enjoy the warm air. In winter, when clear sky, gives the clear light a very special magic. And if it snowed, there is probably no ghostly beauty as the castle in full moon.

Sometimes elitist, but at the same time open to the world

A large part of his flair Heidelberg owes its course soon 623 years old university. Without the thousands of students and scientists, some of which are from all over the world flocking to the Neckar River, the city would be just a sleepy provincial. Pretty, but dull and spiritless. Instead, an "aura Academica", which sometimes comes elitist, but at the same time for a cosmopolitan and liberal climate guarantees. Who for hours about God and the world likes to debate, is always interesting conversation partner. The cultural offer is Heidelberg? measured by the number of inhabitants? remarkable.

All that remains hidden from most tourists. The majority of them spend a few hours or one day in Heidelberg. They spit on buses or on the castle Neckarmünzplatz, then the standard sights off the chord. The guides provide the clock and tell, what exactly needs to be told: the legend of the dwarves Perkeo, as the French destroyed the castle - and the next day is the most forgotten. For lasting memories, there is finally a camera.

On the Old Bridge is so continuous as long as there is daylight. Anyone who crosses it, you can not do otherwise, as the masses fotografierwütigen constantly running through the picture. The ritual is primarily in the Asian tourist is always the same. One is upright posturing, and Brückentor castle in the background, the other knipst, and then the roles are swapped. At home, each able to see it was there. But why?

Ryoko Kruger knows the answer. The Tokioterin born eight years ago moved with her German husband in the Neckar River and is since 2006 acting as a guest leader. "Japanese often get only seven days leave in one piece," she says. This time must be less than optimally utilized. "If we think of Europe, is the view from the Philosophers of the Castle and the Old Bridge simply," says Krueger. Asians empfänden the local atmosphere as very exotic and fabulous. "Heidelberg is always like Christmas, has one of my guests once said."

Some questions are asked again and again, reports the guide. "What the people live here?", For example, because one never sees industry. "Where they hang their laundry to dry on?" Also wondering, the Japanese visitors on the dense development and puzzle how in Heidelberg, reorganization feasible. Ryoko Krueger believes even that their proteges have the opportunity to be the spirit of this city feel. After all, they would travel under the program but still 30 to 40 minutes for free.

25 years with Mozart kitsch

This break, however, spend a lot of Japanese tourists with souvenir-shopping and land like remotely in one of the strangest shops Heidelberg: the "Unicorn". Who here goes through the door, enters a strangely-mixed artificial world. Japanese characters praise DDR Ampelmännchen plastic and wood, to porcelain plate made in Bavaria Regnitz, Siku model cars, dress coats for toddlers, Austrian and Swiss Army Knife Leinentischdeckchen. Noble branded and dreadful Nippes, musically framed by a Mozart Piano Concerto in perfectly level.

Last year, celebrated the "Unicorn" his 25-year anniversary. The secret of success? The guests from Japan now times have little time, says a Japanese seller, and often no knowledge of foreign languages. Here you can find almost anything their hearts desire, she says. Very popular were smokers and nutcrackers made of wood, but also highlights German craftsmanship as the company Zwilling knives, Meissen porcelain and terry towels from Feiler.

On Friday evening, by 20 clock to make the main road to the shops, the tour groups are a good two hours from the picture disappeared. At the corner Dreikönigstrasse someone in big yellow chalk writing a note on the wall behind: "To Saufmeile". The arrow points to the left.

Only a few steps further Gegröle resonates through the streets? the Odenwälder are apparently already there. Every weekend escape countless mostly young people from Epfenbach, Spechbach, Loben Field, William Field and similarly delightful evening poor grades in Heidelberg's Old Town and looking for joy. Most will find just the alcohol. Especially penetrating are the young company indoor evenings Over bunch of young women who are not fast enough any fleeing male care kisses and want to turn on junk. Some suffered three such attacks on old plaster hundred meters.

Grunge and rubber in the Sonderbar Gockel

Meanwhile, go into the bars of the infamous Lower Road to three o 'clock at night legions filled liqueur glasses and liquor bottles with "coward" or similar nerve poisons on the counters, the hectoliters of beer not to mention. "I-function" and "orb" are among the favorite places of the rural youth. But there are alternatives.

"Betreutes Drink" promotes the simple plastic sign above the door. Welcome to the "peculiar," Heidelberg's toughest dive. The air is once again cutting. At the Resopaltheke crowd Hartz IV recipients next versoffenen lawyers. PhD students closely Rock bearded poet, philosopher and sip absinthe together. Loud rock, punk and grunge alternate, to talk to you closely together. From the ceiling hangs the rubber Gockel, emblem and mascot of the restaurant, on the wall posters biting satire and St. Pauli devotional.

Behind the bar staff and wuselt the midst of the host Michael Markert, a giant hamburgers with long blond hair. A man of astonishing vitality, despite its well above 60 Lenze. The hours fly. Beer, politics, Hemingway odor and sweat mingle, until shortly after three suddenly the lights on. The counter crew roars her farewell: "Feierabend. Raus their rats!" Schade.