Elsterberg

Fall is definitely here and is very colorful.  I watched the city workers remove the layers of leaves from the park next door and regretted not having a better picture. 

This lovely tree is near the Merkel's home.  Does anyone know what kind it is and if it would grow in Idaho?

This is the street in front of our house and you can see some of the colorful trees in the park.  A few days after I took the picture I noticed that about half of these trees were gone.  They thinned their forest but there were still plenty left.  We live in the turquoise colored apartment building.

We used a P-day the week of my birthday, October 26, to visit some castle ruins in a town near here called Elsterberg.  They were preparing for a Halloween event in the ruins.  I think that would have been fun.

Looking from the castle ruins over the little town, one can see how crowded medieval towns would have been and how fires could have so often decimated entire villages.

One the way back from Elsterberg we wanted to see the Glötschtalbrücke which was near there.  This is a railroad bridge going over a valley.  It is very impressive because it is huge.  Our 'Navi' did her best to get us there but unfortunately there was an umleitung (detour) which the Navi knew nothing about.  Dave does not give up so we found another way, through a farmer's field.  The bridge is made up of a aeries of arches.  Here you can only see the top two rows.

Quite an impressive bit of old engineering.  Almost as good as the bridge in Chemnitz where they build a new freeway bridge UNDER an existing old brick bridge.

Living in the Western U.S. we lack the concept of OLD and rebuilding or renovating the way they do here.