Home Again: views from Hannover and the Harz Mountains

We're back from our trip! We celebrated Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year, at reform synogogue services in Hannover. Tonight is Yom Kippur Eve.

We had a wonderful time. Hannover has a "Red Line" walking tour (with guidebook) which was perfect for keeping me busy while Dan was at the conference during the day. I really enjoy this type of walking tour-I always go into all the buildings along the way so it takes me days rather than hours to finish. Here are just a few highlights plus photos from the wonderful trip to the Harz Mountains organized by the Leibniz conference.

This simple and elegant monument in the plaza of the Opera House (right behind the monument) is the Hannover Holocaust Memorial.
It is the most powerful Holocaust Memorial I have ever seen-each person's name, age or date of birth and place and date of death is inscribed on the sloping sides. They finally have a gravestone.
I think I went to every museum in Hannover-large and small. Here are just two of the wonderful things I saw that I wanted to share: a pair of antique dolls ( taken through the glass case).
Most evenings we went out to dinner with other conference participants-it was nice to finally meet many people that I've heard Dan talk about for years. We did go to the opera one night (The Marriage of Figaro) and this is the door knob of the Opera House! Pretty cool!
Saturday, the conference organized a trip to the Harz Mountains (bird seed, anyone?). I've discovered that the Harz Mountains are really a plateau of rolling hills and
beautiful forests.
We made a friend...isn't he gorgeous!
The trip was organized around Leibniz, of course. Besides math and philosophy, he was interested in industry and general problem solving. The silver mines in the Harz Mountains had terrible problems with water in the mines...the solution was to use water wheels to run the pumps to get the water out! Leibniz thought he had a better way-windmills-or at least a closed water system that then utilized the water pumped from the mines to run the water wheels. It wasn't actually put into practice at the mine he worked with but both were later used at another mine.

We saw a model of a water wheel...
sluice and pump house.
And a real water wheel...look at the size of it!
How did they get enough water to run the water wheels? They dug channels to bring water from higher, more distant mountains-these covered miles and miles-
and they created reservoirs to collect the water from local streams and creeks-creating lastingly beautiful places.
Now that we're back, Tuesdays Tomes will resume-I definitely had no time to read on our trip!

Hannover: Gardens and Bricks

While DH was busy at his conference (this part of the trip was "part work" for him and all vacation for me :) I took a bus tour around Hannover. I had been there two years ago but there was still lots more to see. The tour took us to the Herrenhausen Gardens-Ducal Gardens that are done in the formal Baroque style.

Look at this wonderful vista and the two gorgeous fountains! Unfortunately the high spray of the back fountain blends into the sky but you can just see the spout behind the round fountain.
Here you can see one of the formal mazes-with two special Hannover differences: 1) flowers and 2) the maze is cut very low (those aren't mutant giant flowers!)
Our hotel was in the old quarter and right down the street was the Old Town Hall...the streets were too narrow for me to get a picture of the whole building so this is from the internet.
Isn't that quite an amazing brick building? I just love the crazy high frontage. This is the most southern building in Germany done in the North German Brick Gothic style. Parts of the building date from 1410.

I was able to get some fun close-ups...here you can see not only the inside of the Gothic entrance but see that round metal loop-that was for the pillory-punishment was public and right in front of the Town Hall.
Historians don't know why this was added into the brick work on the side wall...maybe this is how the townsfolk felt about the local government!

We’ve arrived in Hannover…and I love it! Everyone down south was saying how it is a boring city but to me, it is a lovely small city, very easy to get around in. We’re staying in a small hotel near the Leibniz Library and I can easily walk to several museums while Dan is busy at the archives. The picture above is the old City Hall...isn't it just a classic! Does your City Hall (new or old) look like that?! :)

There is a beautiful park right in the center of town, the weather has been wonderful and we've had a great time just walking through the park.

Yep, that's me resting on a bench with the City Hall reflected in the lake!

My favorite tree-a weeping willow! There was one growing on the lake near our house when I was growing up.

The lecture went very well…played to a full house :)…and afterwards we went to a lovely dinner.