Bad Mergentheim Sakura

Already one week ago, but nonetheless still beautifully.

This year's flowering cherry in the spa gardens in my hometown.

Sorry for not having too much time to answer your appreciated comments currently!

Enjoy a great springtime!

Advent of the cherry blossom in my hometown

Hanami, "flower viewing", German style.

No more, no less.

springtime is purple

Our German winter isn't finally through, but it definitely made a break last week with a lot of sunshine and temperatures up to 18°C... ;-)

But our nature seems to be fed up with wintertide, especially the crocuses can't abstain from coming to light.

In the spa gardens of our hometown we've a sea of purple gems currently...

...composed of tens of thousands of shining floral stars.

For next week the weathermen promised us to get cold temperatures and snow showers again, but more or less the winter is on its last lap.

So let's enjoy our sea of crocuses...

...as long as their blossoms cheer our eyes with their marvelous colours.

 - Click here to view all participnts of A Waltz Party -

May impressions

Any idea why spring is my favourite season of the year???

The maypole in the little village of Auernhofen, Franconia.

Dandelion bloom versus flourishing apple trees

explosion of the apple blossoms - either in white or in red

May 1 at Rothenburg ob der Tauber. Nearly no tourists, although we had "Kaiserwetter" ( = glorious, sunny weather) all day long. Instead of the tourists from all over the world I was able to take all the "standard tourist photographs" 85% of all Japanese tourists have in their photo albums as well... ;-)

Rothenburg's most popular panorama view - remarkably without any tourists at the photo spot

Flieder - lilac - Syringa vulgaris - the flowering deciduous shrubs with the fragrant flowers

cherry bloosom of a Japanese flowering cherry / Zierkirsche...

...at the riverbank of the Tauber

Greedy for spring!

Now that sunshine, a mostly blue sky and moderate temperatures finally have arrived in our part of planet Earth after the long and monotonous winter, I was looking eagerly for the first harbingers of spring in my familiar surroundings.

What I did not expect was to find a "fellow traveller": a brimstone butterfly.

It was as greedy for the first crocus blossoms as me.

But fortunately there were more than enough crocuses for us two on the spa gardens meadow of our choice.

While I tried to pick out only the most beautiful crocus blossoms with my camera lens, the brimstone butterfly seemed to be less choosy.

...cleared for takeoff!

Red passion

Municipal park in the center of the town of Lahr, Ortenau district, in the south-west of Germany.

We have been there last weekend together with our good friends K&K on the tulip festival.

Enjoy some of my impressions I capured from the principal performers.

As you can see the weather was really great and the tulip blossoms shined brightly in the backlight of the sun.

Even the Ginkgo tree leaves already started sprouting.

Blossoming of the magnolia trees

From a distance this year's blossoming of the magnolia trees look really great, doesn't it?

But recent Sunday we had low pressure influence with cold rain and soft hail.

So let's come a little closer with the telephoto lens...

...still a lovely view, but already a notion of some disturbing brown stains.

It's not possible to hide anymore...

...the traces of the undercooled soft hail on the magnolia blossoms.

What a great pity!

Not even Photoshop seems to be a suitable solution... ;-))

Bad Mergentheim spring weekend

Bad Mergentheim market place with parish church steeple,
taken from the second floor of the old town hall.

Flourishing cherry tree in the spa gardens.

Espressobar Italia.
For the Italian style of our attitude towards life.

Conference of "the Green Party"