Returning to the Störmthaler See campgrounds for Easter weekend with a view of the floating, phantom steeple, the Vineta created to evoke the leveled settlements during the height of mining and mechanisation, we visited some neighbouring lakes and marinas reclaimed from a heavily industralised landscape like all of the Leipziger Neuseenland, the Haubitzer, Hainer and Kahnsdorfer lakes were developed in the early to mid-1990s when a large open-cast lignite coal extraction operation was flooded and slowly converted into beach-front properties with resorts and recreational boating.



The bulk of the land too polluted to be rehabilitated, the fields of Witnitz II stretching for kilometre in every direction, now forms the largest photovoltaic park in Europe—the endless array not being quite so photogenic under overcast skies and at speed but impressive nonetheless. Inland, Kahnsdorf features a manorial estate owned once by the scholarly family of theologians, the Ernestis of Leipzig, the property, suffering years of neglect and near demolition during the DDR era as a relict of feudalism, celebrated for hosting the introductory meeting of
Friedrich Schiller and jurist Christian Gottfried Körner of Dresden, of an established household of patrons of the arts and culture who entertained Goethe, Hiller and Mozart, on the first of July 1785.
Later a financial backer who saved the poet from wrack and ruin, Schiller dedicated
An der Freudschaft (“On Friendship”) to Körner and the pivotal moment marking the turn around of Schiller’s fortunes was the inspiration, according to the premises, for
Ode to Joy. The surrounding grounds are a park and a pasture for a local group of alpaca enthusiasts who sell wool products in the cafe of the main building.
synchronoptica
one year ago: a wine so nice they named it thrice (with synchronoptica) plus assorted links to revisit
seven years ago: robots assembling IKEA furniture, the Paris riots of 1968 plus springtime in Wiesbaden
eight years ago: an appreciation of edutainment, AI and implicit bias plus a profile of a North Korea day
nine years ago: a termite tent, the Sea-Monkey kingdom plus another experimental chatbot
eleven years ago: a light installation in Oberhausen, an arctic henge in Iceland plus EU lend-lease policy for Ukraine