We had an interesting three-hour walk around the city of Koblenz this morning.
Here, where the Moselle and Rhine rivers meet, Koblenz juts into the water like the prow of a ship.
In addition to flags for each of the 16 republics of Germany at the river confluence, there is also a U.S. flag. It was placed here after 9/11 as a sign of the solidarity and support offered by Germany and the European Union to their ally, the United States.
This popular statue of Emperor Wilhelm I stands at the confluence of the Moselle and Rhine rivers.
This clock is dedicated to a man who was accused of a crime. Although he insisted he was innocent, he was convicted of the crime and beheaded. Over 200 years later, researchers proved the charges were fake news and the man was innocent. The man’s eyes roll with each tick of the clock and he sticks out his tongue on the hour–still proclaiming his innocence. (You can see his tongue sticking out–it’s red.)
This is the Schangelbrunnen fountain, usually referred to as the “spitting boy” fountain. During the French occupation of Germany from 1794-1814, many illegitimate children were born to French soldiers and German women. The children were disparagingly referred to as jeangles, which means an unattended child who is mischievous. The word evolved to the German Schangel–street urchins known for their mischievous pranks. The base of the fountain shows little boys engaged in pranks and the boy in the center intermittently spits water at passersby. Koblenzers are proud to be known as fun-loving, quick, and clever.
The Schangel can also be found on the city’s manhole covers.
There is also a story in Koblenz about the Peppermint Lady, but my picture of her statue didn’t turn out. It was well known that she liked her schnapps; however, she couldn’t always afford to pay for both her schnapps and her rent, so she started selling peppermint in the bars. Men would stop at the bars for a beer after work, then buy the Peppermint Lady’s candies to cover the smell of beer on their breath before going home. This made it possible for the Peppermint Lady to pay her rent and to also keep buying her schnapps.
The pink building in this picture is Medieval and is protected so, even though it is leaning, it cannot be structurally changed. To work around that problem and save the building, the yellow building was built beside the pink one and attached to it to hold the pink building up. The pink building may not have air conditioning or elevators, but those things are OK in the yellow building, so the residents enter through the cool, yellow building and use its elevators to access the upper floors in the pink building. Problem solved.
The main street in downtown Koblenz used to be the moat of the city’s castle. The street has images of ducks to remind people that this area used to be under water.
