When I went to look on Google for Franconia, I realized that my great grandfather came from what appears to be in the East Franconian German language area in Thuringia -- the town of Stadtlengsfeld.
Which river is that? Thank you for this series of photos.
This is the river Main. The name used to be confusing to the US troops stationed there during the cold war. In one of the pictures you are looking across it at the small town of Kitzingen where two large army bases were stationed until 2006. In fact, there were US army bases in many of the Franconian towns and cities (a few are still there, Obama mentioned during his visit to Germany earlier in the year that almost all will go by 2014) and I grew up with the familiar sights of barracks along the road when we drove home from my grandmother's house. There have always been rumours that the exceptionally beautiful cities of Heidelberg, Wiesbaden (which are further West) and Bamberg (see the picture with the blue building) were not bombed to pieces during the last months of WWII because the US generals wanted to have their bases stationed there. I must say that I never appreciated the beauty of Franconia as a child or teenager. To me it was just boring and much much too rural.
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When I went to look on Google for Franconia, I realized that my great grandfather came from what appears to be in the East Franconian German language area in Thuringia -- the town of Stadtlengsfeld.
Which river is that? Thank you for this series of photos.
This is the river Main. The name used to be confusing to the US troops stationed there during the cold war. In one of the pictures you are looking across it at the small town of Kitzingen where two large army bases were stationed until 2006.
In fact, there were US army bases in many of the Franconian towns and cities (a few are still there, Obama mentioned during his visit to Germany earlier in the year that almost all will go by 2014) and I grew up with the familiar sights of barracks along the road when we drove home from my grandmother's house. There have always been rumours that the exceptionally beautiful cities of Heidelberg, Wiesbaden (which are further West) and Bamberg (see the picture with the blue building) were not bombed to pieces during the last months of WWII because the US generals wanted to have their bases stationed there.
I must say that I never appreciated the beauty of Franconia as a child or teenager. To me it was just boring and much much too rural.
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