MLT Club Member Jürgen
MLT Club MemberForum Replies Created
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The “Hohenwerfen” Fortress is a medieval hilltop castle in the Salzburger Land. It was built between 1075 and 1078 and further expanded in the later centuries. The castle is very popular as a film set. The movie “Where Eagles Dare” starring Richard Burton and Clint Eatswood was filmed there in 1968.
PS: Tom, the mountain landscape in Austria is also very beautiful.
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Johann Georg Leopold Mozart, the father of Wolfgang Amadeus, was an Augsburg composer who spent most of his life in Salzburg. In December 1755 he composed “The Musical Sleigh Ride”. A relaxed Christmas journey through the snowy land of pre-classical music.
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The Neuhäuser Castle Park near the city of Paderborn was voted one of the ten most beautiful German parks.
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“Ave Maria” by Bach/Gounod is not a classic Christmas song in the true sense, but is often played on festive church occasions, including at Christmas time.
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Wanderlust 🔔🎺„Christmas Special 2023″ 🎺🔔 – Castles in Winterwonderland
„To travel is to take a journey into yourself“
– Danny Kaye –
For me, Christmas is always a time to dream, to pause. A colorful, iridescent soap bubble hanging high up on the Christmas tree of life. A little world of its own that invites you to wonder, to linger and to dream. A world and a time in which fairy tales could perhaps come true. And what goes better with fairy tales than castles? Castles in snowy magical landscapes.
There are many videos and documentation about beautiful and fascinating castles. But the selection of snow-covered castles is surprisingly small. I have made a small selection here and tried to add local Christmas music or at least music that goes well with the winter mood. Maybe you know one or two castles in a winter setting. I would like to introduce some beautiful, snowy castles for the remaining days of Advent.
Neuschwanstein Castle stands above Hohenschwangau near Füssen in the Bavarian Allgäu. The building was built in 1869 for the Bavarian King Ludwig II as an idealized idea of a knight’s castle from the Middle Ages. The king only lived in the castle for a few months. He died mysteriously before the facility was completed. He is said to have drowned in a nearby lake.
https://youtu.be/f_bnMFaXaP4?si=-TXI7Cf113rf_Y1y
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Michael Praetorius was a German composer and organist who was born in 1571. He left behind a large collection of church compositions, including some well-known Christmas carols. Such as “A rose has sprung”. A song that can often be heard in Germany at Christmas time.
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Hi Jung,
at the beginning of my „Beatles career“, many of my favorite songs were John Lennon’s songs. That changed at some point and later I focused more on the songs of George Harrison, from whom I also bought solo albums. The Beatles’ music accompanied me for so many years of my life and I think my personal development was always reflected in my preferences for the individual songs. When I was 14 or 15 years old, the cry for “Help” came from my soul. A few years later I was the “Nowhere Man” and then “The Fool on the Hill” (which brings us to Paul McCartney). Yes, I think those were songs that always really impressed me. I’ve always had a lot of fun discovering the Beatles’ music over the years and also seeing how I’ve changed. And today? “In my life” faith reflects the sentimental feelings of getting older. It is the time to let your mind wander, to seek out forgotten places and to enjoy things that were once so present and are now just a breath in the course of life. And then I feel like the Nowhere Man again.
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Hi Chris,
that sounds interesting. New York is famous for many things here, but we don’t really hear or see much about the churches and cathedrals there. I’ve now googled St. Patrick’s Cathedral. Nestled between skyscrapers. I think that’s typical for New York City.
Friends of mine live in Cologne. Not very far from here at all. The Christmas market at Cologne Cathedral and in Cologne’s old town is also very impressive. But I haven’t been there for many years. Many Christmas markets are very crowded today and there is always a lot of hustle and bustle there. I don’t like it as much as I used to.
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Yes Jung, a beautiful and enchanting building. Made for dreams, not for reality. The castle can be reached via a long winding road that leads through the forest. If you follow this path, you can see parts of the castle from different perspectives. Like walking through a fairytale forest. The interior of the castle is partly very magnificent, but construction was never completed. Once completed, the castle would have had over 200 different interior rooms, including rooms for guests and servants as well as for access and supplies. Around 15 rooms and halls were completed and equipped.
I have included a short tour of the castle. Unfortunately only in German, but the pictures speak for themselves.
PS: King Ludwig II was considered a megalomaniac. In order to build his dream castles and realize his ideas, he exploited the people and was obviously not very popular. His political opponents had him declared insane and he was deposed. The mysterious death was the end of this sad chapter. Ludwig II’s wishes and demands grew with the construction, as did the expenses. The designs and cost estimates had to be revised several times. Neuschwanstein was intended to serve as a sort of livable theater backdrop for Ludwig II. This certainly had something to do with the fact that he was enthusiastic about Richard Wagner’s music and supported him. The royal family itself was heavily in debt. Parallels with today’s politicians are purely coincidental. 😁
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Thanks Tom. I wish you all the best for Christmas too. I hope you are doing well.
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Yeah Tim and Jung, it’s always fun to have the Griswold run across the screen at Christmas. My favorite scene is the part where Clark turns on the house’s Christmas lights and the entire city loses power. I always think of this scene when I see how pompously some people light up their houses at Christmas time.
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Hi Jung,
I think it’s an old Citroen. And it’s roadworthy too. Laos isn’t that warm at this time of year. Maybe 25 degrees Celsius (77 °F). One night we even had -4 degrees Celsius (24.8°F). That was very, very unusual for the country and somehow quite cold in shorts and T-shirts. Singapore on the other hand can be warm and oppressively humid at Christmas.
The Christmas tree on the Audi must have to be very aerodynamic, otherwise it could be difficult above 300 km/h (sorry, I’m too lazy to convert to miles now). By the way, when I think of a car and a Christmas tree, I have to think of the Griswold’s 😂
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Hi Chris and Tim,
thank you for enjoying the little train ride. Yeah, the whole thing reminds me of my childhood too. I always had a small model train set under the Christmas tree.
The Christmas Canadian Pacific is part of the „Minaturwunderland“ in Hamburg. The exhibition is located in the historic Speicherstadt of Hamburg and covers 1545 square meters. There are really cool things to see there. Scandinavia with water-filled fjords and remote-controlled ships and this beautiful airport (ok, that doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with Christmas, but I’ll show it anyway…)
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Another Christmas Canadian Pacific, even only in 1:87 scale 😀
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Thanks David, the instrument sounds better than its appearance would suggest. I am always impressed by how smoothly and easily harp players let their hands glide over the strings of their instrument. But what the man in the video does looks somehow complicated.
