Usuallly the APs and self spend this week in the Alps, but this year, due to my USian obligations, we couldn't do that, so we went to the Northern sea on short notice; to be more precise, to the island Sylt, where I spent some glorious childhood holidays due to the fact a friend of my parents used to lend us her flat for six Pentecost holidays in a row when I was a kid. But we hadn't been there in autumn, so this was new, and great fun. It also means for gratitious photography.



( The sea is alwas right )

Today's pic spam brought to you by my walking through the park of Nymphenburg whereupon I found that now that it's spring, all the minor small palaces in addition to the big palace have opened their doors for the visitors. And they're just drop gorgeous excessive Rococo, and I felt like sharing. So: here's how the Princes (Elector) of Bavaria lived. (When they became Kings of Bavaria, they mostly chose other residences, for practical reasons. And that was before Ludwig II. got the building bug.) Behold the late Baroque, early Rococo beauty of a Wittelsbach residence. Here's the main building: (On the right side which you can't see on the photo, there's the Nymphenburg porcellain manufactory. In the buildings on the left side, also beyond the picture frame, the former stables, the current Wittelsbach duke has his living quarters. The palaces themselves are state property now.



( Follow me to the park beyond this main building )

For the second year, due to the pandemic conditions some of the nativity scenes we used to visit in Bamberg were closed, but as last year, people were inventive and found some alternative places in addition to the larger churches which still showed them. Thus: Merry Christmas to all who celebrate, and only good thoughts for other friends, with my annual nativitvy scenes pic spam:




( A lot of creativity beneath the cut )


In other news: Yuletide is live!

I received two beautiful gifts in the same fandom, to wit, Jo Graham's novel, Stealing Fire, post-novel fic in both cases, since I had asked for the fleshing out and future life of one of the characters who in the novel is still a child:


a wedding dress or something white (2907 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Stealing Fire - Jo Graham
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Chloe (Stealing Fire)
Additional Tags: Future Fic
Summary:

Chloe considers the future.

Daughter of a Rose (1132 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Stealing Fire - Jo Graham
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Bagoas/Lydias of Miletus (Stealing Fire), Chloe/Lydias of Miletus (Stealing Fire)
Characters: Chloe (Stealing Fire)
Additional Tags: Character Study, One Shot, Polyamory, Post-Canon, Pregnancy, Yuletide, Yuletide 2021, Yuletide Treat
Summary:

Chloe's love of roses came from her mother.

I also watched the latest Discovery episode, but it might take a while till I can review it, because: Yuletide!

The other spectacularly pretty city I came through in recent weeks was Landshut. Actually only about an hour's drive away from Munich, but somehow I'd never been there before. Hosts one of the country's most famous ren fairs, the "Landshut Wedding", every four years, a restaging of the spectacular wedding of a Bavarian duke with a Polish Princess, and certainly hardly needs any backstage decoarations for it, for:




( More Landshut splendor below the cut )

Bayreuth being a small Franconian town not withstanding, it has two big tourist attractions to offer. One, to be sure, is the annual Richard Wagner Festival (and assorted 19th century Wagnerian buildings, i.e. the Festspielhaus and the Villa Wahnfried, where he lived, plus a museum next door which yes, covers all the dark sides (the antisemitism, the later Nazi fandom) along with the positives. The other tourist attraction hails from the 18th century and came to be because Frederick the Great's favourite sister Wilhelmine got married to the Margrave of Bayreuth. Wilhelmine loved music (like her brother, she both composed and played), literature and architecture and did not let the fact that her husband was ruler of a tiny principality with assorted budget detain her from leaving Bayreuth with some of the most splendid Rokoko buildings imaginable. The most important one is the opera house which is a UNESCO classified world heritage building entirely preserved in its original state:

Audience Room:



Stage:



The other is the Bayreuth Hermitage, i.e. the summer palace and surrounding park, which she didn't start but greatly enlarged and redrafted. Like the "New Palace":



For a more extensive write up and a lot more pictures, see my post here.

As the January comes to a close, I'd like to share with you some of the beautiful impressions I had in this lockdown months, which I'm lucky enough to spend in a really picturesque part of the world (and healthy, so far, knock on wood). Because of the Covid situation, I didn't ski, but I walked a lot, and I usually had a camera at hand, so I give you: A Bavarian lake in winter.





( More beneath the cut )

I figured we could use some distraction while waiting - I know I could. So, I give you an autumnal beauties of Munich pic spam - trees and landmarks alike:




( More under the cut )

Due to the Corona virus, there are no Easter Wells this year in Franconia. Rather than abandon my annual Easter Wells pic spam, though, I decided on a „Best of“ selection through the years. After all, you might have missed a few through the years.

( Easter Wells: The Highlights Edition )

We spent our last days in Brittany mainly hiking on vaarious parts of the coast, which continued to be truly spectacular. Now we did visit some towns in between, too, but really, the landscape is where it‘s at, so I‘ll only mention a few.



( I was born under a wandering staaaar... )

I didn‘t have the chance to upload and post properly until now; the last few days have seen me on my feet most of the time. So there will be two posts in one evening. First, some prehistory and an adorable town.



( Of menhirs, boats and timber buildings... )