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Dirty? No.
Gloomy? In large parts of the country, definitely yes.
It's the weather. E.g., in 2004, the two cities of the EU that had the most rainy days were Halle and Cologne in Germany. See the following (German) link to a summary of results compiled by www.urbanaudit.org. I can't link directly to the study results themselves. You can only access them using a search form.
If you check further, you'll see that 4 of the top 10 rainiest EU cities (days of rainfall) with a population greater than 500,000 in 2004 were in Germany (Cologne, Essen, Dortmund and Duesseldorf). Just my neck of the woods, too
Last edited by NomineMalum; 07-27-2012 at 06:38 AM..
Not enough to make up for all the hours of sunshine I've missed up here. I think I'm heading back to North America (Canada or the US), as soon as I get everything wrapped up here. I want to live someplace wiith at least 2000 hours of sunshine a year again. I was once thinking of maybe moving (and retiring) to someplace on the Mediterranean. But considering this damned Euro crisis, I don't know if that's a good idea anymore.
I lived in Kaiserslautern for 3 years and I thought it was beautiful and very clean/safe. Same with Frankfurt, although I didn't explore every square inch of Frankfurt. I was actually turned off by how ugly/cluttered with billboards/dirty U.S. cities looked to me after living in Germany for so long.
Now the weather... that was my only complaint! It could be quite dreary in Germany (or any of central/norther Europe). But the summers I spent there were mostly sunny and warm to hot from June through September.
The yahoo that started this thread is not representative of most Americans, in my opinion.
Thank you for that KathrynAragon and that is absolutely spot on as most Americans who are in the least bit experienced in domestic as well as international travel have the mindset of "when in Rome..." Well said!
I lived in Germany for three years, and have gone back several times to visit since I moved back to the States. In fact, my last visit was just last summer. I don't know what you did wrong on your trip but it sounds like some very poor planning by you or whoever organized the trip. You are truly the first person I've ever heard describe Germany as gloomy, depressing and dirty (though I have heard some people say they thought the German people were rude - which was not my experience).
First of all, Frankfurt is not a typical German city. For starters, it was leveled in WW2 so it's all urban sprawl now, unlike many other beautiful German cities like Wurzburg, Nurnberg, Heidleburg, etc.
Berlin is fascinating - not sure how much time you spent there, but there is SO much history there, and so many interesting things to do, I can't imagine someone being bored or irritated by being there.
Munich is also interesting - but even more so, the countryside immediately surrounding Munich is even better. MY gosh, you are in the Alps - what's not to love?
That being said, if all you saw of Germany was big urban centers, then you really didn't see Germany at all. The glory of that beautiful country is in the countryside and the small villages, which are truly pristine and so clean and picture perfect that they almost feel like a movie set!
Nurnberg 2011:
Mespelbrunn 2011:
Aschaffenburg (30 minutes east of Frankfurt) 2011:
Berchtesgaden 2011 (near Munich):
Freiburg Wine Festival 2011:
Vender in lower Bavaria at the Zugspitze:
Hitler's Eagles Nest:
Garmisch, 2011:
Oh, the filth! Oh, the grime and the gloominess!
No one has been saying that Bavaria is grimy and gloomy. To the contrary; since the beginning of the thread, they've been saying it's delightful. It's parts of the center and north that are grimy and gloomy. Thanks for the beautiful photos.
No one has been saying that Bavaria is grimy and gloomy. To the contrary; since the beginning of the thread, they've been saying it's delightful. It's parts of the center and north that are grimy and gloomy. Thanks for the beautiful photos.
Not grimy, just drab and gloomy...most of the time. And it usually takes more than three years living here, before you fully "appreciate" how much so. As long as everything is new and exciting, you don't tend to notice as much. Here's a photo of what it looked like in my part of Germany on almost every day of the first 7 weeks of this "summer":
That picture was taken facing due south on July 1 of this year, in the early afternoon. I tried taking one facing north, but it was so dark that my flash kept going off. And no, that was not taken just prior to a storm. It really was like that for almost all of seven weeks. Since then, it has gotten a little better. We actially had 5 consecutive days of nice weather and they're actually forecasting that we might get a whole week more before this summer ends...
Last edited by NomineMalum; 07-30-2012 at 04:25 AM..
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