Sometimes you miss something or the weather is not good for taking pictures, so I am always glad to get some support. Many places in Thuringia helped me, but others such as in Jena, Masserberg, Oberhof and a few others did not. I think their philosophy is: "If you do nothing, you cannot do anything wrong".

We all went to visit point Alpha where during the cold war the Nato and the Warsaw pact were facing each other.
We believe that you should visit that place to get an impression about the situation at this time. We created a web site with a link to the official English site.
On our trip to this "Memorial Place" we stopped at many interesting spots. One of them was Hotel "Katzenstein" which is located on a mountain top.
This hotel was originally built by the Nazi regime and served to provide low priced accommodation for party members and also for workers.
After the war Americans used briefly the hotel. Later the Russians too over and after that the East German police. after extensive renovations the Est German secret service, called "Stasi" took over and used in a similar way as the Nazis.
After the unification the ownership changed a few times and today it seems the hotel seems to do well.
We arrived very early and did not have coffee or lunch, but we enjoyed the gorgeous surroundings.

As you can see, we had beautiful sunshine in June. Actually it was some kind of a heat wave. We were glad that the car had air conditioning. Due to the global warming most cars seem to be equipped now in Germany with this almost mandatory accessory.

Wetlands are not used as garbage dumps or to drain them to built houses on them. Some communities even include little natural looking ponds as an essential attraction into the public parks.

The prices of the hotel are very reasonable. Much cheaper that a B & B in Ontario. Hiking and biking in the surrounding area, called "Natural Park Rhön" is certainly very relaxing. Many attractions are close by.