Adventure Germany

Hallgartener Zange is a hill situated in the mountains of Rheingau. To be precise, this is a hill situated on 580 meter hight in Rhine Valley. At the top there is a small restaurant and a tower. From this tower, you get a beautiful view to Rheinhessen. In good weather you can see not only Ingelheim, Gau-Algesheim and Mainz, but also the skyline of Frankfurt.
This hill has also a historical significance. It is thought that the Kaiser Karl der Grosse maintained here a hunting lodge. There is also a legend. It tells that a blacksmith shod a horse for the devil and received a magical pliers as a reward. These pliers transformed each object, with whom she came into contact, into gold. The tongs brought for the blacksmith only woe so he killed himself.
I live in the vicinity of Hallgarten, on the other side of the Rhine and do often walks with my bicycle through the woods, to the top. The way to the top takes in about 3 hours. It is quite tiring, but the nature there is so fascinating that despite all the difficulties I often repeat this path.
Here are some photos that I made yesterday at the increase:

I got this tip from an unknown men, during my visit of Castle in Heidelberg. He said that there is a garden near Heidelberg, it was built following the example of Versailles as a residence one of the electors. The name of the elector, as I later found out in the Internet was Carl Theodor (1724-1799).
I was not able to visit the castle itself because of time. You must plan at least half of a day for the visiting, if you want to see both the garden, as well as the castle. I did not know that and that’s why I decided to go only in the afternoon when the sun was not so strong .
The garden is enormous and it consists of actually a minimum of 2 gardens. The first part is one of its canals and meadows about English gardens.
There are large ponds with chestnut-lined avenues along, a beautiful white Chinese bridge, the temple of Mercury. Unfortunately, at the time of my visit the temple surrounded with building ladders, apparently because of the renovation works.
At the entrance of the temple you can see a table where a cow and a woman are displayed. At that time I did not know what does it mean, after the return home (better late than never), I found out that this scene is from a myth, according to the, Zeus falls in love with Io, the daughter of the river Inachos God, he wanted to kidnap her, but he was caught by his wife - goddess Hera. He turned his concubine in a cow to hide his plans. Hera prompted him to give her the cow. Finally, Io was amnestied by Hera and transformed again into human form.
There are many wild animals in the park. There are different types of ducks, swans, herons and others. In ponds and water channels swimming fish, some of them are even bigger than a duck.
During making this photo I had a big chance to obtain a knocking in a head by the swan-father, because I tried to approach to the children too close:

The second, French part has a geometrically balanced structure, instead of ponds and canals you can find here now different fountains, wild animals, such as herons or swans are missing, but you can see a blue peacock.
There is also the castle.

Ruedesheim is a little beautiful, but fairly famous touristy town, located in Rhein-Main region.

The half-timbered houses, closely streets, countless cafés, restaurants and “Niederwalddenkmal” make this town especial interesting for tourists.

But if you ready to walk 4 kilometres long distance, you will have the possibility to see the ruins of castle Ehrenfels.

It was built in 11 century and in spite of relatively small dimensions this castle has an interesting and noticeable history.

Unfortunately the gate to the ruins is closed most of the time, but if you really want to go into, you will find some way

One of the interesting historical places of Palatinate is Burg Triefels.

The first document referred to this castle was present certificate of the year 1081.

The interesting fact of the history of this castle is that in 1193-1194 Richard the Lionheart, the King of England was here as prisoner.

Unfortunately the castle was much damaged during the time and all what you can see now is the “new building”. It was rebuilt in 1935-1938, but the design of the castle was not recovered.

But I advise to visit Burg Trifels anyway. You will be able to look not only at the castle, but at fascinating landscapes and beautiful nature too.

Burg Eltz is one of the most beautiful castles in Germany. Castle Eltz and castle Buerresheim are sole castles in Eifel that were never encroached during wars.

I think I don’t need to tell about this castle, because these photos could tell you about it much more.

Best you visit it. I will go to this castle in spring or in summer too.

Laacher See is the biggest (3,3 km²) and likely most beautiful lake of Rhineland-Palatinate.

It is a perfect place to spend you holiday in summer. I was here today for the first time and I was very pleased. Here I could lie on the sun in my dinghy without to worry that the river stream will bring me to afar from the bank.