Weekend jungle

Calliandra haematocephala - powder puff tree blossom

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Like every year at this season I'm totally fed up with German wintertime and its various collection of grey shades in nature.

It's still a bit too early for the early flowering plants and trees - except some lonely snowdrops every now and then.

I've been looking for something more colourful to light up my heart and soul.

So my way took me to the greenhouse of the botanic garden of Würzburg university.

No idea at all what kind of plant with the fragile blossom / inflorescence I captured here.

I just remember I took the photo in the greenhouse area for the temperate rainforest plants.

Bletilla striata orchid - distributed through China, Japan, Taiwan and Vietnam - in my humble opinion much more beautiful than the Phalaenopsis orchid schlock you can buy at a DIY market or garden center.

Lost in the North Sea floods...

...but this time fortunately no human life, just tens of thousands of Hilfiger Denim lady's and child's shoes.

 On December 9, 2011, the huge container vessel "Maersk Eindhoven" lost five of its containers during a hurricane in the vicinity of the island of Helgoland, German North Sea.

--> article of the incident (in German)

So a huge amount of shoes could "escape" from the iron container prison.

Most of them were washed up at the Helgoland shoreline, but still many of them took their way to the north-west in direction to the North Frisian Islands (Sylt, Amrum, Föhr).

The collection of shoes I've posted here I found at different sections of Sylt's beaches between end of year 2011 and January 2012 - three to four weeks after the incident.

Unfortunately the ballerinas I found were of different shoe size - 39 & 41.

But after three to four weeks in the North Sea floods no one would really enjoy wearing the kicks...

;-))

Würzburg

Sunday - all day long.

Sunshine - more than enough.
Sky - deep blue.
Leisure time - plenty.

Sunday stroll through Würzburg- Franconia's gem in the northern tip of Bavaria.

What more could a heart desire?

:-)

View from the Festung (fortress) Marienberg to the Old Main Bridge, finished 1488, in the front.

On my right-hand side the Käppele, a small Baroque/Rococo chapel by Balthasar Neumann on a hill opposite to the fortress.

Statuary of saints and sovereigns on the Old Main Bride with the tower of the old town hall and  one of the steeples of the Würzburg Cathedral (Würzburger Dom St. Kilian)

The "Alter Kranen" (the old crane, from the year 1773) on the right-hand riverside. 

View from the "Friedensbrücke" in direction of the old crane and the Old Main Bridge.

The river Main was not totally frozen along Würzburg city because of the weir under the Old Main Bridge accompanied by the faster stream velocity.

But in areas with lower current velocity the ice gained the upper hand.

Obviously we were not the only sun worshipper on Sunday afternoon...

Cormorant sun-curing its feathering after a dive.

Frozen...

...water.

...trout.

...branches.

...meadow creek.

...ufo.

...bear paw.

...weir.

...creek bank.