Tag Archives: Thaya

Treasures of the Thaya valley in Niederösterreich – Burgruine Kollmitz

20 Friday Sep 2024

Posted by in Austria, Nieder-Österreich, River Thaya

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As I promised a few days ago, I’ll be posting photos of nature and historic places on this site from now on. The first area I went to was the Thaya valley on the Austrian side, in Lower Austria (i.e. Niederösterreich in German), to which an earlier university co-student and friend of mine, Prof. Dr. Dénes Lóczy from Hungary, drew my attention. When we studied Geography together, we never ever heard of the river or the area but now I can assure everyone that it’s worth visiting for a wide range of reasons. See below some of what I’ve seen in the area on my first journey – I’m sure I won’t stop short at this stage, health permitting.

You could see the river in my previous post, now I’m starting out with a view of the sight of the castle of Kollmitz and will lead you inside.

A little view of the rocks of the surroundings as we look back from the bridge:

The Thaya in August, and below the dam, looked little more than a stream – I’m feeling deeply for the locals during the difficult times of the heavy rains in the middle of September, when I’m writing this post.

Now, on into the ruins.

Here we can have a good look-around towards the South-South-West:

Climbing the towers, though one feels really high, is worth the effort:

That was it. Great pleasure, so much so that I felt I had to let the guards know how much I appreciated my visit – so I told them in my brand-new German. Learning with Duolingo for hundreds of hours wasn’t a complete waste after all…

But not enough for me – I’d seen that the ruins can be seen from across the river after it has taken a sharp left turn. So I set out to find such a place. Again, I had to ask local help in German – no English, please.

Well, I couldn’t really get to a point where the ruins were visible together with the river but perhaps you can try it with a drone next time. Until then, hope you’ve enjoyed these photos. Other places are coming later.

By P.S.

Changing direction

16 Monday Sep 2024

Posted by in Austria, Austria, nature photos, Nieder-Österreich, River Thaya

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My dear readers,

Although I don’t teach English any more as I retired a few years back, I’m still learning languages in the Netherlands. Teaching is basically about learning – from our notions of what we can do to help our students to learn to the notions of other people concerning how teachers are notoriously assessed based on what their learners have achieved – and learning is basically about teaching – at least that’s what bad students think: they blame the teacher so I need not change much about the title in these respects.

Besides, all the space on my three related WordPress photo websites has run out and, to be honest, I find it a drag to set up yet another one when there’s still loads of space on this one, consequently, I’ve decided to temper with the name of this site a bit and add some of my latest photos here. If you liked my posts on my other sites, I can promise you’ll like these as well.

Part of the reason is also that I’m convinced that referring only to English is rather limited and limiting. I’ve realised having wasted decades of my life by exclusively sticking to it whereas for people living in large parts of Europe and Asia, other languages are at least equally important for everyday life, not to mention Latin-America, where it is far from being the most important language. As a result of my new-found passion in languages, I’d like to encourage my open-minded readers to learn other languages by showing you the beauty, like above, of sceneries and historic relics of where I happen to pass on my occasional journeys.

That said, I’d like to whip up your interest at my soon-to-come next posts, which will be about the north of Niederösterreich, more specifically, the region of the river Thaya, seen above and here below, from above, looking down from Burgruine Kollmitz:

Hope you’ll like what is coming soon. Otherwise, if you haven’t read my age-old, earlier posts on this site, you may still find something worth reading. Enjoy!

By P.S.