GermanyisWunderbar Newsletter

Want to view this email online instead? See it as a web page

March 2016

Regensburg 2016: big birthdays for monks and beer

It’s going to be a year of key anniversaries for this city on the Danube. In May, an exhibition opens in the church of St Blasius celebrating 800 years since the official founding of the Dominican Order. Slightly younger (500 years) is the Reinheitsgebot, the Bavarian edict about the allowable ingredients of beer which has maintained beer quality over the centuries. And a great deal younger than both is the 10-year anniversary of becoming a UNESCO World Heritage city, something which has partly been responsible for Regensburg's increase in UK visitors by 12.5 percent last year.

Leipzig 2016: a warm welcome for bookworms and goths

This year for the first time the Leipzig Book Fair (17-20 March), aka “Leipzig liest” (Leipzig reads), is celebrating its 25th anniversary by introducing a English language section for international visitors. Not long after, at Whitsun, the 'black catwalk' is back - the Wave Gotik Treffen (13-16 May), the largest gathering of dark subculture fans in the world, also celebrating its 25th birthday. Some 20,000 strikingly attired visitors come for all kinds of performances and exhibitions. Including a big one about the WGT itself in the City History Museum.

Kuhnle-Tours 2016: promoting a (ship)mates escape

Houseboating can have the image of a sort of caravan of the waterways, best for couples or families. But Kuhnle-Tours boats are so generously sized and well equipped they have a much wider more sophisticated appeal. So for this year, the company is reaching out to groups of friends who want to escape the daily grind with a completely refreshing, exhilarating waterways break. And they've produced a new video to show how it might look, complete with selfies (left).

Weimar 2016: discovering the dynastic Ernestines

Weimar has an extra big exhibition on the agenda this year: Almost 100 years after the abdication of Thuringia’s last monarch, “The Ernestines. A Dynasty Shapes Europe”(24 April to 28 Aug) will shed light on a fascinating dynasty of rulers who shaped the history of not only Thuringia but the whole of Germany and Europe. Members of the Ernestine line can still be found in several royal dynasties in Europe including – guess what – the UK where the Ernestine line of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha (image: Queen Victoria who married her cousin Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha) has survived in the current Royal Family. Albeit as the House of Windsor since a name change in 1917. The exhibition featuring multimedia presentations, renowned artworks and some extraordinary objects from all areas of aristo life, will take place in the Neues Museum in Weimar and in Gotha, both of them Ernestine home towns.

Picture Credits

Masthead left to right, T top, B bottom: Black Forest gone blue, Achim Mende. Brandenburger Hof hotel. Schloss Lübbenau (T). Bundesliga, GNTB (B). Ski lift at Fichtelberg, Oberwiesenthal Tourism (T). Martin Luther (B). Chilled gnome, DZT (T). Rügen cliffs, GNTB (B). Cherry cake, pa (B). Berlin S-Bahn

You are receiving this newsletter as you subscribed via our Website, or have previously expressed an interest in our content. However, If you would prefer not to receive further emails from us, you can always unsubscribe at any time.