This is part 11 of 16 of a journey through my home country: Germany.

I invite everyone to take a closer look at what I call home. I will show you sides of today-Germany you didn't know of - especially when you are not German.
A lot of "foreigners" (actually I don't really like this word) connect Germany with beer, cars, lederhosen and sauerkraut. I admit these are parts of Germany and important ones too (especially the beer and the cars), but they by far are not everything!

This article serie will show you the 16 countries of Germany, some quite similar to each other, some totally different. Sure, this serie will mainly feature photography, but perhaps I will link to other styles of art like modern German music or so.

Our journey leads us through (click the ones in italic to see that article):

_{Bavaria
Saxony
Brandenburg
Berlin
Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania
Schleswig-Holstein
Hamburg
Lower Saxony
Saxony-Anhalt
Thuringia
Hesse
Baden-Wuerttemberg
Rhineland-Palatinate
Saarland
North Rhine-Westphalia
Bremen}

... or if you want to take a look at our southern neighbour, Austria, please read Exploring Austria by =Glasperlenspielerin.

Please, come and see...

Part 11 of 16 - Hesse (Hessen)

Hello and welcome back.
After last week's tour through Thuringia, we'll take a step westwards and visit the German state I'm currently living in: Hesse, or Hessen, as we call it. Hesse ranks 7th in size among the German states and 5th in population, which would be about 6 million. On the economic side, Hesse is one of the most potent German states, mainly due to the important city of Frankfurt, which I'll show you in a moment.

Frankfurt is not Hesse's capital, but it sure is it's most important city and also the biggest town in Hesse. That's why I'll begin with Frankfurt, the capital Wiesbaden will come next.
The history of Frankfurt goes back to the 1st century, when it was an unimportant Roman settlement. Then, 1260 years ago, it was mentioned first under the name "Frankonovurd", which means "ford of the Franks".
Today, Frankfurt is, despite it's rather minor size of just 670,000 inhabitants, a major center of the German economy. It's an important transportation hub, be it for cargo or passengers, via plane, ship or train. This also makes it the second most important fair town in Germany and one of the most important ones in the world. It hosts the Frankfurt Motor Show, the Frankfurt Book Fair and many others, most of which are the biggest of their kind.
Most important may be Frankfurt's financial district: Frankfurt is continental Europe's financial center, it hosts more than 300 banks, the German Stock Exchange and the European Central Bank. This also makes it very interesting for architectural photography - the town's center is sometimes called Mainhattan, connecting the Manhattan-like skyline (well, not really in my opinion!) with the river Main, that flows through the city.

After Frankfurt, cities in Hesse get smaller pretty fast!
Wiesbaden, the capital of Hesse, is not even half the size. About 275,000 people plus a notable amount of American military personnel live in this 2,000 years old town. Obviously already populated in the neolithic, Wiesbaden became a Roman fort 6 A.D. - the Romans appreciated it's thermal springs in the cold Germanic surrounding, so Wiesbaden today is one of Europe's oldes spa towns.
Wiesbaden did not suffer major bombings in WWII, so most of it's old town is still intact today. Rumor is, that the US Army Air Force spared this town due to it's beauty: they wanted it as their after war HQ in Germany. Wiesbaden still holds the US Army's 1st Armored Division today.

Now, there are several mid-size towns ranging from 50,000 to 150,000 inhabitants. It's hard to decide which one to show, so I'll take Marburg. The reason why I do so is easy: I live here! Yeah, wanted to use the opportunity to show you the city I live in.
With 80,000 people, Marburg is rather tiny. It lies snugged to some soft hills. Yet, it is not an as boring town as it might sound. 25% of the inhabitants are students. Marburg is a typical German university town. So, there are enough bars, pubs and some clubs to enjoy your study.
The area around the city has continously been populated for around 50.000 years, yet the town itself was created with it's castle around 1,100 years ago. The university was created in 1527 and is the oldest protestant university in the world. The university has ever since attracted scientists, philosophers, researchers and so on. For example, the Brothers Grimm lived here for a while and used the city as a source for inspiration. Some Noble Prize winners studied or lived here and unfortunately one of world's most lethal viruses is called after this town.

Let's come to the landscape - Hesse has pretty much of that.
Hesse is the German state with the highest rate of forest compared to the size. Due to this, outside the bigger cities it is sparely populated.
The landscape is hilly. Almost everywhere. There are several mountain ranges in Hesse or surrounding it, such as the Taunus near Frankfurt, the Odenwald, the Kellerwald, the Rhön, the Vogelsberg and some other. Some areas even were volcanic - centuries ago.

Only between Frankfurt and Giessen there is an area that is rather flat. This is called the Wetterau. It is a warm area and summer really is some days longer here. That's why it's very fertile and was already used by the Romans to produce fruits, crop and grow cattle. Unfortunaltely there are only some few shot of it here on dA:

Hesse has some larger river flowing through or bordering it. The most important ones may be the Rhine and the Main, but the Fulda, the Lahn and the Eder are well known here too and form a characteristic Hessian landscape.

Well, that's it. As always some last words about people and culture.
The Hessians are crazy after their strange drink called Ebbelwoi, which is basically a must of apple, like a cider or so. It's hard to get used to, but if you are used to it, it's not that bad, really. The Hessians have Ebbelwoi-Fests and in Frankfurt there is a quarter called Sachsenhausen which seems to consist of Ebbelwoi.
The Hessians have a very interesting dialect that splits into various sub-dialects. Making south-Hessian almost inscrutable for north-Hessians and vice versa. And now ask me, not being able to speak any dialect... what a luck that "normal" German is common in bigger towns and is understood by everyone in Hesse.
Hesse's culture contributed a lot to overall German culture, for example through the tales of the Brothers Grimm, through Goethe who was a Frankfurter or through Richard Wagner who lived in Hesse some time and wrote here his Meistersinger. Sure there are many others...
Oh, and by the way: Hesse is the sister-state of Wisconsin!

Now, this was only a very, very short trip through Hesse and I know I missed a lot (if not almost everything). But this is supposed to be a short, informative journal and not a travel guide. I hope you like the pictures - if you do, please give the artists a visit and/or a fav, they really deserve it.

If you have any questions about this station of our trip or Germany as a whole: please ask, I'll try to answer as quick as possible.
And if you have any suggestions about how to make this trip any better, please don't hesitate to write me, either.

Artists featured in this article

Looking forward for your comments - and the next station of this trip...