One of the popular attractions for visitors to Bad Harzburg, in Germany’s Lower Saxony region is the Burgberg Aerial Tramway.
This cable car service travels from the upper end of Bad Harzburg’s promenade up to the Bergstation on the Castle Mountain. The tramway was built in 1929, and has a length of some 500m. The elevation of the Bergstation is about 480m, and from the nearby Cafe, you can enjoy magnificent vistas of Lower Saxony.
The service operates for most of the year, but closes for maintenance from about the end of November until mid-December each year.
Amongst the offerings of the tramway is a wedding package! The ability to take your marriage vows suspended in mid air may well appeal to many couples (but unfortunately not to this writer!). The descriptive material tells the lucky pair that they undertake the ceremony in their “festively decorated car”, accompanied by the marriage registrar and witnesses (a limit of 6 people in this special car).
Eighteen of the wedding guests can “near-float” in an 18 person second car! Unfortunately, the other guests will need to wait at the Bergstation for the arrival of the bridal car.
I think that I’ll stick to more mundane locations for any wedding ceremonies that I elect to attend, but it is good to know that all tastes are catered for in Bad Harzburg!
Submitted by John Kumm www.onlinetravelconsultant.com
Bad Harzburg is a city in the state of Lower Saxony which is located on the northern slopes of the Upper Harz mountains. It is located about 40km south of Braunschweig close to the Harz National Park.
The reserve occupies large portions of the western Harz mountains with a total area of about 250 square km,and extends from Bad Harzburg in the north to Herzberg at the southern edge of the range.
At this festival, Mephistopheles draws Faust from the plane of love to the sexual plane, to distract him from Gretchen’s fate. Mephistopheles is costumed here as a Junker and with cloven hooves. Mephistopheles lures Faust into the arms of a naked young witch, but he is distracted by the sight of Medusa, who appears to him in “his lov’d one’s image”: a “lone child, pale and fair”, resembling “sweet Gretchen”.
Naturally, local tourist authorities do their utmost to evoke this sense of otherworldliness as a way or encouraging visitors to the region. In the days leading up to Walpurgisnacht there is a brisk trade in Harzhexen, souvenir representations of witches riding broomsticks. Postcards, beer steins, and wooden carvings also celebrate the season of the witch.
The Harz Mountains comprise the northernmost mountain chain of Germany. They straddle the border between the states of Lower Saxony, Thuringia and Saxony-Anhalt.
On Sunday June 14th 1919, the first non-stop transatlantic flight ended about two miles from Ballyconneely Village. Capt. John Alcock and Arthur Whitten Brown had flown their twin-engined Vickers Vimy plane from Newfoundland, Canada, in just over sixteen hours.