Street Furniture

Street Sculpture Abounds

It's clear that there has been a lot of investment in the town, and striking that you can make stuff like this and it does t get immediately misused, ruined or stolen, as we would expect in the UK.

Marktplatz

Decorated fountains are found in most towns of the region.

Modern Architecture can be seen too. The town was home to architect Paul Parler, and this may be why they are architecturally aware.

Fruity street sculpture

Some fantastic blooms on display

Sculpture made of recycled circuit boards

One of the stations of the cross in a local park

Another station of the cross

The church of Saint Salvator

Art in the woods

Gartenschau architectural exhibit

Inside, the three floors built around a tree

View from the top

There are some beautiful homes here.

A banana Weissbier with lunch

Gschwend was a favourite holiday destination of my father's, and he brought me here as a child at least three times. The town is not highly developed, but had a decent guest house (run by the Riecke family) and a swimming lake, which meant that as children we could be easily and cheaply entertained without any driving being required.

The former Gasthaus Zum Waldhorn is now an Italian restaurant.

Circa 1974

My sister Kathy and I spent hours swimming here. Aged around 8, I went on holiday having struggled with swimming lessons, and came home a strong swimmer. Here was where my dad was wont to swim across the lake complete with straw hat and cigar.

One side of the lake has been developed to provide lane swimming and a shallow end for non-swimmers.

There were no changing facilities back in the day. Now they're state of the art.

With my mum, early 70s.

More sculpture, this time brightening up a traffic roundabout. I presume these are monks, inspired by the local Lorch Kloster.

I don’t think I’d be alone in saying that this kind of project isn’t seen in the UK because someone would immediately wreck it. I’ve observed this elsewhere in Europe, and don’t understand it at all.

Lunch was Rot Wurstchen with lentils and local speciality, fried noodles:

It was interesting to see red brick combined with half-timbering.

The local railway station

Part of Remstal’s Gartenschau 2019, this is one of 16 architectural projects, a building covered in lace panels made by locals and stitched together.

Great views from the tower of the Kloster

In 2002 the artist Hans Kloss decorated a circular chamber in the Kloster with a detailed pictorial history of the Staufer dynasty, patrons of the Kloster from its foundation.

Walking in the woods

The first sign of the Ritter Sport chocolate connection in Waldenbuch is this facsimile of a stack of bars on a roundabout.

The theme extends to public seating.

The Ritter visitor centre

Exhibits in the chocolate museum allow you to sniff the materials at various stages of production.

Rolls of wrappers

The shop

The street where the factory stands has been named after its founder.

Old Waldenbuch is interesting in its own right.