5 May 2009
Spring Impressions from Göttingen
Because it's raining I wanted to share some pictures of a sunny evening. Follow me on a walk through the Old Botanical Garden (Alter Botanischer Garten) in Göttingen.
The garden lies directly outside the Mediaeval town walls and has a size of 5 hectares. There are a new botanical garden and a forestry garden outside the modern town, but the old garden possesses more charm; and it provides a shortcut from the centre to the Archaeological Institute.
I should bring my camera more often, there are plenty of pretty motives hiding in the garden and elswhere in the old part of the town.
The Botanical Garden was founded by Albrecht von Haller (1708-1777), a Swiss born anatomist, physiologist, naturalist and poet. He was called to the chair of medicine, anatomy, botany and surgery in Göttingen in 1736. Yes, that was one chair - specialisation hadn't taken off back then.
Von Haller held the chair until 1753 when he returned to his native Berne. The Botanical Institute still bears his name: Albrecht-von-Haller-Institut für Pflanzenwissenschaften. Besides his duties as teacher and his research, von Haller also found time to write essays about literature and history.
More than 10.000 plant species grow in the garden and in the adjacent greenhouses (plus another 4000 in the new garden), that makes the Botanical Garden in Göttingen one of the six most important ones in Germany.
Especially well assorted are the mosses and ferns, swamp and water plants, and bromelias and other plants from South- and Middle America, plus a cactus collection.
The passage in the old town wall that leads into the garden. The wall is part of the former castle of the Welfen Dukes of Braunschweig-Göttingen. Pretty much the only remains left of than one.
It's difficult to get photos without people. :-)
The Botanical Garden not only serves as park, but also as research basis (fe. for biodiversity and evolution) and often preservation basis of rare and endangered plants. There are exchange programs of seeds and plants with other gardens world wide.
Spring evening at the Kiessee Lake
I finally got around to bringing my camera when I walk in the Kiessee area. It's very close to my flat and nice for an evening stroll. The only disadvantage is that a lot of people get the same idea when the weather is fine.
There are meadows where you can often find families and other groups complete with portable barbecue grill and lots of bottled beer that had been balanced on bicycle luggage holders.
The lake is a flooded gravel pit. Right now there are some problems with too much duckweed growing on the water. The ducks that are supposed to eat it prefer the bread they get fed. Lazy buggers.
Nature is really catching up and May is coming.
Because spring green is so pretty, here's another photo. ¶ May 05, 2009
Because it's raining I wanted to share some pictures of a sunny evening. Follow me on a walk through the Old Botanical Garden (Alter Botanischer Garten) in Göttingen.
The garden lies directly outside the Mediaeval town walls and has a size of 5 hectares. There are a new botanical garden and a forestry garden outside the modern town, but the old garden possesses more charm; and it provides a shortcut from the centre to the Archaeological Institute.
I should bring my camera more often, there are plenty of pretty motives hiding in the garden and elswhere in the old part of the town.
The Botanical Garden was founded by Albrecht von Haller (1708-1777), a Swiss born anatomist, physiologist, naturalist and poet. He was called to the chair of medicine, anatomy, botany and surgery in Göttingen in 1736. Yes, that was one chair - specialisation hadn't taken off back then.
Von Haller held the chair until 1753 when he returned to his native Berne. The Botanical Institute still bears his name: Albrecht-von-Haller-Institut für Pflanzenwissenschaften. Besides his duties as teacher and his research, von Haller also found time to write essays about literature and history.
More than 10.000 plant species grow in the garden and in the adjacent greenhouses (plus another 4000 in the new garden), that makes the Botanical Garden in Göttingen one of the six most important ones in Germany.
Especially well assorted are the mosses and ferns, swamp and water plants, and bromelias and other plants from South- and Middle America, plus a cactus collection.
The passage in the old town wall that leads into the garden. The wall is part of the former castle of the Welfen Dukes of Braunschweig-Göttingen. Pretty much the only remains left of than one.
It's difficult to get photos without people. :-)
The Botanical Garden not only serves as park, but also as research basis (fe. for biodiversity and evolution) and often preservation basis of rare and endangered plants. There are exchange programs of seeds and plants with other gardens world wide.
I finally got around to bringing my camera when I walk in the Kiessee area. It's very close to my flat and nice for an evening stroll. The only disadvantage is that a lot of people get the same idea when the weather is fine.
There are meadows where you can often find families and other groups complete with portable barbecue grill and lots of bottled beer that had been balanced on bicycle luggage holders.
The lake is a flooded gravel pit. Right now there are some problems with too much duckweed growing on the water. The ducks that are supposed to eat it prefer the bread they get fed. Lazy buggers.
Nature is really catching up and May is coming.
Because spring green is so pretty, here's another photo. ¶ May 05, 2009
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I love botanical gardens - in fact gardens of any description. Thankyou for sharing this place in pictures.
It's a very pretty place, though I'm going to bring my camera only in the evenings - during lunch time and afternoon on a sunny day, it's full of students. :)
Ohhhh, so pretty and green! What a lovely, lovely place. Good luck with dodging the students, Gabriele. :-)
It is a lovely place, Alianore. In fact, Göttingen is a town with a good amount of green sprinkled about, from the Victorian villas with large gardens in the east quarter to the old wall that today is an alley, to several parks and the meadows and hedges along the Leine river.
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