Karlsruhe Favorites

Favorite thing: Karlsruhe is VERY international:

- it has an international school
- it has VT members
- it has an internationally known soccer club
- it used to have an American Army base
- it can be found on international maps!!!!

Favorite thing: Karlsruhe has a university and a number of colleges, and most of them are right in the city center. The University of Karlsruhe, formerly called "Fredericiana" after Archduke Friedrich, is now an elite university and has changed its name to KIT - Karlsruhe Institute of Technology. You need to be REALLY good if accepted at the University

Should you be interested in studying here,
more information can be obtained at:

University of Karlsruhe

Favorite thing: Karlsruhe is home of the two highest courts of the Federal Republic of Germany: the Federal Supreme Court and the Federal Constitutional Court.

The Federal Constitutional Court was built between 1965 and 1969 right next to the palace, where - until 1944 - the Court Theater used to be.

In 1990, right after the reunification of Germany, however, Karlsruhe's tradition as Germany's "seat of justice" was called into question. The state of Saxony wanted the Federal Supreme Court to be in Leipzig while Thuringia felt the Federal Constitutional Court belonged to Weimar. In 1992, however, the Bundestag rejected the motion from Saxony by a big majority - which was quite a relief for Karlsruhe!

For those interested and capable of reading German, here is the official website of the Bundesverfassungsgericht

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Favorite thing: Karlsruhe is called the Fan City because of its architecture:

the palace is the center of Karlsruhe and from there the streets leave like rays - or like a fan! This means that you will be able to see the palace from every side street off Kaiserstraße!

When Karlsruhe was first founded in 1715, the tower of the Palace was the highest building all around, so everybody acknowledged the new palace there!

Fondest memory: When returning from Ireland we had the best of weather and flew over Karlsruhe, thus being able to see the fan-like shape of the city. Truly awesome!

Favorite thing: When preparing a trip to Karlsruhe, the following links might be helpful:

- http://www.karlsruhe.de

- http://karlsruhe.city-tiger.de (German only)

- http://www.ka-news.de (German only)

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Favorite thing: You can easily do some day trips from Karlsruhe by tram or by train.

You could visit Ettlingen; a beautiful small town only some kilometers from Karlsruhe (see my Ettlingen page...) and Baden Baden. This spa town is not far from Karlsruhe. It has a couple of spa estabilishments; a building where you can taste the medicinal water (Trinkhalle) and a nice old core.

Another beautiful town worth a visit is Heidelberg. It is home of the oldest university in Germany. Its highlight is the castle.

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Favorite thing: The highlight of Rastatt is a Baroque castle. It is a huge building constructed between 1700 and 1707 by the Italian architect Domenico Egidio Rossi. on order by margrave Ludwig Wilhelm von Baden.

The palace was built after the residence of margrave Ludwig Wilhelm in Baden Baden had been burnt by French troops during the Palatine war of succession.

Several rooms are opened to visitors. These include the private apartments of the margrave ah his wife; Sybilla Augusta. One of the wings of the palace houses a military history museum.

Visits are permitted only by guided tours.

I went to Rastatt by train from Karlsruhe main station.

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Favorite thing:

Photos:
1. Natalie (nhcram) and Mariel (marielexoteria)
2. Bernd (Bernd_L) drinking Glühwein
3. Sonja (yumyum), Mariel and Christine (tini58de)
4. Margaret (margaretvn) and Koos (kovani)
5. Natalie talking to Isa (Belsaita), with Karl (Roadquill) in the background

Although I attended the first, second and third VT Glühwein meetings in Karlsruhe, I missed the fourth and fifth because of teaching commitments in Frankfurt am Main. So I was happy to see that the sixth annual meeting was on a weekend when I was free, namely December 4-5, 2009.

There were fifteen present this time, thirteen VT members and two guests, which is just the right size group so you can get to chat with everyone. (This is not counting Kathrin_E, who arrived on Saturday afternoon just a few minutes after I had to leave -- sorry, Kathrin!)

We met as usual on Friday evening on the steps of the big church at the Market Square, went and had some Glühwein or coffee or whatever at the Christmas Market (which was dry this year -- no slush on the ground!) and then went for supper and conversation to a restaurant called Alte Bank.

The next day Bernd took us to a place called Bretten, which I had never heard of up to then.

Thanks again to Christine for organizing the meeting.