Icy trash

For the first time in 12 years, the dutch polders are frozen....

Skates are sold out, skating parties are taking place averywhere...

The nice thing is, that you can go to places and take pictures, which are protected by a moat the rest of the year

The old canal.... Annals of transportation (3)

Already Charlemagne tried to built a canal connecting the Danube and Main rivers. Its remainder, the fossa Carolina, is still visible in Bavaria. In 1836, his Epigone, the bavarian king Ludwig I, who always was fond of big prestige projects, started to get a canal built to connect the North and the black sea via Main (Rhein) and Donau rivers
Aptly, the canal was called the Ludwigs Donau Main Kanal. In the 1970th, a modern canal was built by another Bavarian principe, which partly uses the bed of the old waterway
Transport was done by horses dragging the ships from the pathways on the side

The multitude of locks was the end of the canal.... when it was finished in 1846, the first railroads were already faster and more convenient

The big bridge where the canal crossed the scenic Schwarzach river gorge already collapsed in the first year. Today the scenic Beer garden nextdoor is the meeting point of all visitors.

Today the canal is used by cyclists, fishermen and hikers.... also a kind of recycling

Human traces

The plant shut down... the workers did not need their workmens' clothes any more

Huetten, Germany, december 2008

Annals of industrial archeology.... asphalt recycling

Recycling the recycler....  Rust never sleeps

Abandoned asphalt recycling plant, Huetten, Germany, december 2008

The commander's bridge:

fuse board.... watch out for the birds....

Fishing for ships.... Annals of transportation (2)

On the north bank of the mouth of the Schelde river, the ships seem to move right up to the beach

Koudekerke, January 2009