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Fredrik

Where Germany is at its most German

In the Alpine thread we have firmly established that Germany hardly is an Alpine country (in spite of Bavarian propaganda trying to prove the opposite) and we have thoroughly discussed the different "ambiences" of France.
Perhaps not all of you are are aware of that Germany also has some rather different ambiences and that some parts of Germany certainly feel more German than others. Most of you will probably agree with me that the real Germany is the Germany of the Brothers Grimm, i.e. the deep woods of Northern Hessen, as here in Reinhardswald:


In the Reinhardswald you'll even find Sababurg, the alleged setting for the fairytale of Sleeping Beauty:


And in the surrounding area you'll find a faitytale landscape of peaceful villages inbedded between wooded hills and meandering river valleys: a landscape that more or less goes on all the they way southwards to the Alps:




Fredrik

But if you look on a map of Germany, you'll see that this typically German landscape, the Mittelgebirge = Central Highlands, only starts right to the north of the land of the Brothers Grimm, on the Lower Saxon-Hessian border. To the north of that line, roughly the border between Saxon and Franconian dialects, lie the the flat, flat, flat lands of Northern Germany:








Akoni

heh, the last couple of pics could've been made in the Netherlands
Fredrik

And the North German plain is not exactly ugly, it has its own charm, which, because of the flat, closed landscape often manifests itself more in details than what is the case further south: (Notice the storch!):


But it doesn't feel very German. The interplay between Plön's lake, beech forests and white castle, for example has a very Danish feel:


The architecture also has a Nordic feel to it, in addition to a quintessential Low German spirit, that often seems a bit lost in a North Germany which to a large extent has abandoned its linguistical roots:

(Husum in Schleswig-Holstein)

Apart from Schleswig-Holstein, you have to go eastwards to Mecklenburg-Vorpommern to find a kind of complete Low German Germany, like here in Greifswald:


Because Lower Saxony is often just too flat, boring and downright ugly:
Shouga

I love all of those photos, especially those in your first post, Fredrik. I must visit that little town sometime, it looks beautiful!
Fredrik

And trust me, I know my Lower Saxony, which i have passed through a lot of times en route from Norway to "Europe".
Coming from the North, either on the Autobahn or by train, you have to pass through Lower Saxony on your way southwards, staring out onto the flat monotonous plain or into the godforsaken pine woods on the Luneburg Moor between Hamburg and Hannover. It is then that you realize, that in order to create "England's green and pleasant land" the Saxons who hail from this melancholic landscape had to mix with the Celts and borrow some of their lyrical genius. Otherwise they would just have gone on constructing the depressing, scary small villages and farms you find in Lower Saxony today, with depressing names like Eimke, Uelzen and Borstel.


But before you loose yourself totally in Saxon melancholy, somewhere around Hildesheim south of Hannover, you get a glimpse of a wooded hill, you sense you are going upwards:


Or, if you follow the Weser river and enter the real Germany further west through the Porta Westfalica (Westphalian Gate), you can actually see exactly where the North German lowland ends and the hills begin:


As soon as leave the lowlands landscape starts to roll, small, picturesque villages with tall church towers appear in the valleys between the lush uplands, rivers meander through the hills, opening up vistas of bucolic delight, rolling cornfields against the background of pleasant beech forests, the whole thing dotted with small villages and the occasional castle on a hilltop. It could have been Shropshire, but it is the Weserbergland, the Weser Hills Region, the land of the Brothers Grimm. Here, just before the divide between the Saxon and Frankish tribes, Germany calms the visitor, scared by the Saxon monotony, with a glimpse of its true beauty, of its real treasures, of the land of Sleeping Beauty.....


And then the fairytale land just goes on and on untill the Alps:


(Mosel valley)
Fredrik

Even a big city like Frankfurt am Main rests between wooded hills:



(Rothenburg ob der Tauber)


(Rothenburg ob der Tauber)


(Hohenzollern Castle)


(Tübingen)
Akoni

Fredrik wrote:
And on and on.....

(Rothenburg ob der Tauber)


This pic is amazing!
Fredrik

Glad you liked the pics! I just wanted to show that there are some very different ambiences in Germany. Unfortunately, I couldn't find ugly enough pictures of Northern Germany, so you all could see how depressing Lower Saxony often looks. I guess the Low Saxons don't like it very much themselves, when they put so few pictures of their Heimat on the web!

(I know that Lower Saxony looks rather similar to the Netherlands, but in the Netherlands (and Denmark) you often find an attention to detail and small-scale beauty that is often very much lacking in Lower Saxony. Pluss the Netherlands feels "right", because the Dutch ambience is Dutch, but in Lower Saxony you often feel something is wrong. Everything is German, but it doesn't look German!)
fab

I don't really associate Germany with the South/Germany/Grimm brothers fairy tails imaginary only.

When I think Germany I think also (and maybe at first place) to northern Germany, the capital Berlin... Prussia. When the unity of German-speaking lands had bagan. And big cities like Hamburg, Berlin, Dortmund, Kolhn, Hannover, etc/

To me the "southern German ambiance" has more to do with the former Austo-hungarese empire and Central Europe in its fell. It is not what I imidiatly would associate with a German stereotype, even it I consider part of it.
Fredrik

Aha! Prussia is the German phenomena that has taken a strong hold on the imagination of you French guys....
The funny thing about Prussia was that there really wasn't very much typically concretely Prussian. It was more a diverse collection of lands united by an army and a philosophy than a nation. And since a very large part of what was Prussia lies east of the Oder on non-German territory today, Prussia isn't the first thing that springs to mind in Northern Germany, in my experience.
I agree with you that there is a certain Central European, Austrian-Hungarian ambience south of the river Main (even though Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg never were part of Austria-Hungary), but also Central Germany north of the Main feels more similar to the South than the North in many ways, i.e. there is a rather uniform typically German ambience stretching from Northern Hessen to the Alps. The divide actually corresponds rather neatly with the Benrather Line dividing Low German from High German:
greg in noord-frankrijk

J'aimerais bien visiter l'île de Sylt, dans le nord de l'Allemagne.

Benjamin [inactive]

Oh Fredrik, you're making me miss Germany even more!

I have to say that I've only ever really been to Southern Germany — Baden-Württemburg and Bavaria, which was when I spent three weeks there last summer when I did an intensive German language course in Heidelberg. I've also been to Hessen when I visited Frankfurt for the day, and to Rheinland-Pfalz when I went to Speyer for the day (and also when I went to a conference at a place called Oberwesel last October). I've also driven through Thüringen, Saxony and possibly Saxony-Anhalt when I went to Poland by coach in 2005.

However, I have never been to 'proper' Northern Germany. From those pictures, it would appear that the physical landscape of that area is perhaps more similar to England/Netherlands/Denmark than to the very south of Germany. I think that this house especially looks like one of those idillic English farmhouses:


I don't think that the pictures of Low Saxony look that bad though. To me, they just look kind of 'normal'.
Fredrik

Yes, the house does look idyllic, Benjamin, but if you look more closely you'll see that it has not the same warm glow that a similar house in England or Central Germany would have. Lower Saxony is a kind of harsh place, sometimes even a bit scary in its dreary monotony, especially when you see pagan decorations like this, on the houses.

Remants of that pagan old Saxon voice that was violently subdued by Charlemagne, but still lives on in silent defiance...
(A similar voice in Northern Germany is that of the all the expelled Pomeranians and East Prussians who settled in the area after WWII and bear a similar silent grudge in their hearts. The influx of all the expelled refugees further endangered Low Saxon and added to Northern Germany's brooding identity crisis. In Schleswig-Holstein it also destroyed the fine balance between Danes, Germans and Frisians many places.)

Sylt is indeed a very beautiful place, except for its capital Westerland, which is a concrete monster, the Frisian version of Benidorm!
Benjamin [inactive]

Fredrik wrote:
Yes, the house does look idyllic, Benjamin, but if you look more closely you'll see that it has not the same warm glow that a similar house in England or Central Germany would have.

Well, I'm sure it would still have a warmer glow than farmhouse in Scotland:



I'm being unkind — it's not usually that bad really. Actually, maybe I should start a thread like this about Scotland, in attempt to dispel the myths of it being an amazingly wonderful and holistically beautiful place that's all lakes and mountains. But maybe I should wait until October, by which time I would probably have moved there.
Uriel

Quote:
I don't really associate Germany with the South/Germany/Grimm brothers fairy tails imaginary only.


Really? I suppose that's one of the things that usually lurks in the back of my mind when I think of Germany -- dense fairytale forests. Probably because when I was a child in Germany, the house we rented in the last place I lived (Staffort, outside of Karlsruhe) was at the edge of a field with a dark forest just beyond it.

Of course, along with half-timbered houses and cuckoo clocks, I also associate Germany with sleek modernity, such as Porsches and stainless steel cookware. My dad's house in the Eifel was far more spacious and contemporary and Ikea-esque than his place in England, which had a much more stuck-in-the-fifties feel.
Loic

I've not been to Germany before and to tell you the truth, this country seldom looms large in my imagination. I have to concur with Monsieur Fab that the northern urban landscape springs to mind when I think of Germany. Images of soldiers in Prussian helmuts goose-stepping down the broad boulevards while German Madchen in their aprons wave their handkerchiefs at their brave combatants.

However, the marketing campaigns of the local German Tourism Office here has given us a very Bavarian impression of Germany with Oktoberfest being celebrated with mock beer gardens as well as waitors dressed up in lederhosen. I once attended a poor Oktoberfest imitation thought up by a rather unimaginative pub owner - he served us Beck's in mugs.

Anyway, dreamy pictures, Fab. How long have you been residing in Germany already?
Icke

really nice description and pics of Germany, Fredrik!
You seem to be a true connoisseur of my country, even more so than some of my own Landsmänner
Have you already been to all of those places?

The place where I live in Central Germany is rather less spectacular considering the landscape!







The forest is still the most important feature in German landscape, as a recreation area highly appreciated - maybe less so in some parts of Northern Germany. That was one thing I REALLY missed when i've lived for several weeks in Ireland, lol

Porthos

When I think of Germany, one of the first landscapes that comes to mind is the Black Forest. I have this picture of a wooded highlands in the south, and a more clear, flat, agricultural, plain landscape in the north, that is very snowy and cold in the winter months.
Icke

Porthos wrote:
landscape in the north, that is very snowy and cold in the winter months.


It's the other way around, actually. The south of Germany has a continental climate, i.e. cold snowy winters but hot summers, compared to North Germany with an oceanic climate, where the winters are rather mild and the summers are cool!
fab

This thread fits well with my plans...
I'm planning to make a little trip to Germany next weekend. I wanted togo to Francfort and heildelberg, passing thru Strasbourg, which one I don't know.
If you know well the place, what are would would suggest me to visit ?



Quote:
I have this picture of a wooded highlands in the south, and a more clear, flat, agricultural, plain landscape in the north, that is very snowy and cold in the winter months.


Actually, for the climate I tend to imagine the inverse. I think southern Germany to have colder compared to the more oceanic climate of northern and western Germany. As well as Austria. My former co-locataire was austrian, she told us a lot about the Austrian winters.
fab

continuing this idea, we saw in this forum that it seemed that most of the time a specific narrow part of each European country was representing the tipical image that people have in their mind.

It seemed that the image of France was seen almost only thru the stereotypes of its northernmost side.

For Germany it seems that it is the inverse. Germany seem to be confused with a Alpine country, or at least to a central European one, when it lies also along the Baltic and North seas, where are hosted its capital and most of its biggest cities.

For Spain and Italy, it seems also that the whole countries are associated with the stereotypes of their southernmost parts. Italy's image would be associated more with Naples's image than with Milan or Turin one's.
Or the whole Spain with the dry, hot and semi-desertic Andalucia.

On the other side I think concerning England, that the differences of ambiances between north and south are not enouth important to see real very different images forming between London and Manchester for exemple.
Benjamin [inactive]

fab wrote:
This thread fits well with my plans...
I'm planning to make a little trip to Germany next weekend. I wanted togo to Francfort and heildelberg, passing thru Strasbourg, which one I don't know.
If you know well the place, what are would would suggest me to visit ?

Frankfurt am Main (also known as 'Bankfurt', 'Chicago am Main' and 'Mainhatten') is quite similar to Birmingham and other large cities in England, except that it's richer, cleaner, and has more skyscrapers. It's nice, but it's very much a modern business city, rather than an historical or touristy city. When I go there, I leave the station, walk down to the river, cross over the river and walk along the other side towards the Lutheran church, visit the Lutheran church, cross back over the river, have lunch in the reconstructed medieval square, visit the Catholic and Lutheran churches, walk down the main shopping street, walk through the area with the skyscrapers, and then walk back to the station.

I lived in Heidelberg for two weeks last summer. It's very beautiful, but I'd say that it's more 'Central European', rather than what you might normally associate with Germany. In Heidelberg, there is a castle and a number of churches, both Catholic and Lutheran. Whilst you're there, I suggest that you cross over the river and walk up Philosophensweg, where you will see views of the town.

Whilst you're in Heidelberg, you might like to go on the train to one of the smaller nearby towns, like Weinheim.
Benjamin [inactive]

fab wrote:
On the other side I think concerning England, that the differences of ambiances between north and south are not enouth important to see real very different images forming between London and Manchester for exemple.

England on its own is a relatively small area (perhaps about a quarter of the size of France), but if you compare southern England with northern Scotland, then it is quite different.
Fredrik

loic wrote:
Anyway, dreamy pictures, Fab. How long have you been residing in Germany already?

You mean me? I live in Norway now, but in 2005/2006 I was an exchange student for almost a year in Freiburg im Breisgau.

Icke:
Nice pics! From Pfalz, are they?
I'm glad you can confirm the importance of der deutsche Wald to the German psyche! (BTW, does the nominative strike you as a German as wrong here? I mean, it should have been genitive or dative, if you decline the phrase by its function in the English sentence!)

fab wrote:
Quote:
For Germany it seems that it is the inverse. Germany seem to be confused with a Alpine country, or at least to a central European one, when it lies also along the Baltic and North seas, where are hosted its capital and most of its biggest cities.

I allow myself to disagree with you. In this thread I have tried to prove that the stereotype of Germany as a fairytale landscape of forests and hills is surprisingly fitting, considering that most of Germany is covered by the hills and vales of the Mittelgebirge, the Central Highlands. The big cities do of course not lie deep in the forests or on lonely hilltops, but when you travel through Germany it's amazing to discover all the towns, cities and industries that lie hidden between the different ranges of the Mittelgebirge.
Although Germany's biggest urban sprawl, the Ruhrgebiet of Nordrhein-Westfalen mostly lies on a flat plain, the forests and hills of the Mittelgebirge are surprisingly close.
But you are right in pointing out that there is a northern, flat, coastal part of Germany that is rather anonymous, even if it's home to some of Germany's largest cities: Berlin, Hamburg Bremen, Hannover etc. I think the anonymity of this Lower German area is not just due to its inherit dreariness and economic stagnation (the further south you go in Germany, the richer it gets), but also because it was somewhat raped of its distinct cultural heritage when the originally "foreign" High German superseded the native Low German following the decline of the Hanseatic League and the Protestant Reformation, which made Luther's "gut Meißnisches Deutsch" (= Upper Saxon German) the official norm "von der Maas bis an die Memel, von der Etsch bis an den Belt", as an infamous song puts it.
fab

Quote:
I allow myself to disagree with you. In this thread I have tried to prove that the stereotype of Germany as a fairytale landscape of forests and hills is surprisingly fitting,


Yes, true, but I won't neceserally associate the southern German stereoptypes only with forestlands. Actually I don't know well Germany (I've been there only one time veveral years ago), but I don't think that woolands are a southern german characteristic. I remember having crossed some forestal areas just before to reach Berlin.

I'll go searching for some maps to give me a more precise idea of the German geography.


This geological/relief division give us more or less three ensembles.



It is intersting to see that the most densely parts are in the rhine valley, especially around the rurh region, along ntherlands.

The former eastern Germany is much less populated.



concerning dialects it seems to be also three (or four) main zones.

Forests in Europe :

it seems that, on this point German territory is quite homogenous, not in the most forestal areas of Europe like Scandinavia of the Mountainous areas of south/central Europe, but quite much more forestal than some other regions like netherlands, England or Ukraine.



[img]But you are right in pointing out that there is a northern, flat, coastal part of Germany that is rather anonymous[/img]

I don't consider northern Germany to be "anonymous".
I always heard that the baltic and north sea costs hosted beutiful lanscapes. and that some German islands in the Baltic are worth seing. To me Germany is also that : a baltic and north sea country.
Pauline

fab, your map tell that ducth is german and frisian is germanic language like german or danish, so we can conclude that there don't exist the ducth language ?
Deborah

Since I've only seen southern Germany, I have a slanted view of what is typically German.
To me, Heidelberg is quintessentially German:

Akoni

Pauline wrote:
fab, your map tell that ducth is german and frisian is germanic language like german or danish, so we can conclude that there don't exist the ducth language ?


Frisian is also spoken in Groningen and parts of Drenthe which is also not on the map.
Benjamin [inactive]

Pauline wrote:
fab, your map tell that ducth is german and frisian is germanic language like german or danish, so we can conclude that there don't exist the ducth language ?

I think that that map intends to show the German dialect distribution in 1871 — at time when the Dutch language, rightly or wrongly, was generally considered to be a form of 'Low German', at least from a 'German' point of view. That's why it shows large parts of Poland etc. as German-speaking.
fab

this map of population density of Germany :


It shows that the north of the former eastern germany is not much populated, but the main density stay along Benelux, and especially close to Netherlands. two dense branchs are starting from there, one along Rhine and the other in the direction of the former eastern germany.
Deborah

I told my roommate about the beautiful photo of Sylt that greg posted on page 1 of this thread, and she said that she had never thought of beaches in connection with Germany. In truth, neither had I. I mean, I knew it had a coastline, but I suppose I had pictured it as one busy port after another.
Fredrik

Icke:
Yes, I've visited all the German Bundesländer except Saarland.

fab:
The dialect map with the four zones can give a somewhat wrong impression of German dialects. The middle and upper zones are not as distinct as they might appear, but are defined by which degree they have participated in the Second German Consonant Shift, which spread northwards during the Middle Ages:


As you see there is a very distinct border where the consonant shifts stop. North of this border you find Low German, which is a surprisingly uniform and different compared to the middle and upper German dialects. The border between Low German and Middle German is traditionally also the border between the Saxon and Frankish tribes and today roughly the border between Niedersachsen and Hessen (just north of Kassel). Interestingly this is also the border between the northern lowlands and the central highlands. So where the landscape is platt (= flat), so is the language. Or at least it used to be, before Standard Hochdeutsch was introduced, as an almost foreign language. That the best Hochdeutsch reportedly is spoken around Hannover is a testimony to that: People learned correct Hochdeutsch as a foreign language, with little of the dialectal interference they mixed it with further south.
(But the area where the actual dialect most closely resembles Hochdeutsch is present eastern Thüringen and western Sachsen, where they speak East Middle German, which Luther based his Bible language on.)

The area where the Brothers Grimm collected their fairy tales, northern Hessen and the Weserbergland, is very close to the Low German lowlands, but still a part of Middle Germany, both geographically and linguistically. The beautiful little town of Hann. Münden (= Hannoversch Münden) in the extreme south of Lower Saxony is where the confluence of the Werra and Fulda rivers forms the Weser. It looks more like Heidelberg than northern Germany, so even if you've only seen southern Germany, Deborah, you've seen what's quintessential German:

"Where Werra and Fulda kiss and give birth to Weser", as the poet said about Hann. Münden:

(Speaking of the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm, it's interesting to note that several of their most famous fairy tales were told to them by the Hessian descendants of French Huguenots, who had settled in the Calvinist state of Hessen-Kassel. Thus they told originally French fairytales, like Little Red Riding Hood = Rotkäppchen = Le Petit Chaperon rouge, which had been collected by Charles Perrault in France in the 17th century.)

I don't really trust the forest map of Europe. According to it eastern Norway is covered with forest and central Germany hardly has any forest. That's simply not true. My guess is that it shows which areas of Europe that have large forests, not which areas that are very wooded.

fab wrote:
Quote:
I remember having crossed some forestal areas just before to reach Berlin
.
Indeed, there are big pine woods on the sandy soils of Brandenburg. Extremely depressing (but therefore also fascinating), I'd say. (BTW Brandenburg was once nicknamed "the Holy Roman Empire's sandpit :-)
But there are some very beautiful beech forests in Brandeburg, but especially in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. The interplay between the beech woods, the lakes and the still very rural and undeveloped landscape is gorgeous:

(I couldn't find any good, big overview pics from that area. Rather poor area and as Bismarck said: The place to go if the world collapses tomorrow, because they are 100 years behind the rest of us!)
Fredrik

Deborah wrote:
I told my roommate about the beautiful photo of Sylt that greg posted on page 1 of this thread, and she said that she had never thought of beaches in connection with Germany. In truth, neither had I. I mean, I knew it had a coastline, but I suppose I had pictured it as one busy port after another.


The North Sea coast of Germany consists of ports and dykes (pluss the water disappears for hours due to the tide!), but the offshore North Frisian and East Frisian islands have nice beaches. The Baltic coast is another story, it has lots of nice beaches (and the weather is better and the water level constant).

Ebb in Husum on the west coast of Schleswig-Holstein:
fab

Frederick,


The picture you showed about northern Germany seem to me very German, as much as the southern or central German ones.

I'm from France, so from my point of view Germany is a nordic European country (ps: not scandinavian), more than a central European one. I see its southern part as having a more central "European feel", that we can feel in the architecture and in some of the landscapes, which seem to me intermediary beetween the north German ambiance and the Austrian one.

Also Germany is a country whose capital is situated in its northern part, not far from the Baltic sea, and its biggest urban area (the Ruhr) situated close to Netherlands.

The other reason why I see the "tipical German region" as more the northern one is historic. the formation of the German empire has been made starting from Prussia, then an empire centred around Berlin and only then it finally annexed the southern German-speaking land (Bavaria, Bade-wurtembeg, Alsace-Lorraine...). Those region would have been as weel been anexed to Austria if the annexion was made upon geographical, inguisctic and cultural reasons.


http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Noord-Duitse_Bond.png




A third reason ias I see Germany as a county with as a homeland of protestantism. On this point of view I tend to associated southern German landers more with the other catholic Germa-speaking lands of Austria than those of northern Germany.

In terms of territory, the southern Germany is less wide than the northern one, so it gives me the impression that this part is more important.
It is only in the northern Germany that the country host big European ports and opens to two different seas; the Baltic and the north sea.

But, to me the southern Germany imaginary is also integrally part of the image I have of that country, even if I would relate this ambiance more with Austrian imaginary than with German one.
Fredrik

I see your pints, fab! I guess one's nationality plays a part of how one views Germany. Coming from Scandinavia, I'm used to cross the Danish-German border and go: "What? This is supposed to be the Germany of the Brothers Grimm? It looks like HC Andersen's Denmark! Why the hell was it so important for Prussia to conquer it from Denmark in the 19th century if it wasn't any more German this!?"

Speaking of Prussia, one should remember that although the Rhineland and the Ruhr became Prussian already at the Congress of Vienna, modern Hessen, Niedersachsen and Schleswig-Holstein didn't become Prussian untill 1866, so their Prussian history is not as old as that of the Ur-Prussian land of Brandenburg.

I guess the ambience in Bavaria can feel rather Austrian, but I would say that mainly applies to the Bavarian plain south of the Danube. Bavarian Franconia and Bavarian Swabia feel just like German, I would say, partially because I associate Austria either with an Alpine ambience or an Austrian-Hungarian Habsburg ambience.
So I think it's funny that you associate southern Germany more with Austrianness than Germanness.

But one thing is clear: Everybody should go to Germany, as Germany, unlike some other famous tourist spots, is a lovely country that never fails to delight the visitor, who often arrives with a large baggage of negative prejudices that always turn out to be obsolete.
And my Geheimtipp is Hessen....At least the Mittelgebirge....
Pauline

fredrik

I think that you need a german girl/boy- friend !!! Then you can live in germany with him/her.
Deborah

I agree with Fredrik -- German is a great tourist destination. One of my favorite memories was spending the day at the museum of technology in Munich.
fab

Frederik,

I'm just wondering something. With the discussions we had on this forum I noticed that what you would associate with Germany is more specificly the southern part, while you seemed to though northern Germany to be "less German", because in fact it has a nordic feel, so is less "exotic" to your eyes.

It is more or less the conclusion to what I had arrived (which I think is quite logical): each European country tend to see in the other countries more what is different from theirs than what is more similar. Said diferently, we all base our image of other countries on the most distant and different thing. At least that was what I tended to think.

So logically, as a Norwegian you feel southern Germany quintessencially German because it express a "central europeaness" that you don't find in the same extend in your country.
On the other side I feel the tipical "germaness" to be what I don't think to find in my own country : that is to say the "nordicness", (so, logically, when I've been to stokholm last month I found it as having what I would have percived a very "Germaness"); since the "central europeaness feel" I can feel it in the French north-east regions, I won't associate it with something specifically German, since other neighbouring countries other than Germany have some of these traits.

What I don't understand is that for France it seems to be the reverse (so it seem my theory doesn't work). With the discussions I had on this board since a few times I realised that most people from northern Europe thought the closest french regions from their countries to be the most tipically french in their minds.

It is strange, because concerning Germany, Italy or Spain it is each time the most distant and "exotic" regions upon which ones are based the common images (such as Sicily=tipical Italy; Andalucia=tipical Spain; Bavaria= tipical Germany... and rarely Galicia=tipical Spain; south Tyrol= tipical Italy, or shelwig-Hostlein(not sure about the spelling)=tipical Germany.

But it seems that to most people here the French imaginary is always associated with regions such as Britanny, Normandy or Alsace-Lorraine... while if it was made upon the most farther, the most exotic image as it is done for Germany, Spain or Italy, it should be based on the imaginary of Corsica, Languadoc, Provence, Cote d'Azur, Pays Basque, etc..). Strange, isn't it ?
Fredrik

Pauline:
LOL, yes, perhaps I should settle in Germany. The problem is: Coming from a very small country, I feel a little bit lost in Germany. There are so many people there, it's a bit scary for me!

fab:
I totally agree that we tend to overlook parts of other countries that are very similar to our own, seeking out the "exotic" parts instead.
Though I have to say that I tend to base my view of other countries of their centres. Just as I consider Hessen + Thüringen +Rheinland + Franken to be the quintessential Germany, I tend to associate the typical France with Bourgogne + Centre, the typical Italy with Toscana + Umbria + Lazio, the typical Spain with Castilla etc.
Though I am aware that this might not always be correct. Viewing the typical Norway as central (southern) Norway, would be a bit misleading, as very few people live there.
But it might be more correct if the centre of the country also is the cultural heartland of the country. Following that line of thought, I tend to consider Lower Germany and Occitan France to be somewhat separate areas which to some degress have been "raped" of their cultural heritage and lost important links to their past, first and foremost their language.
fab

I just come back from a week end in southern Germany. I should admit I decided the destination after this topic. I had never been there in the past and I knew only northern Germany and Berlin region before.



I went to Heidelberg and Frankfurt.
My impressions of Heidelberg were something like we could define as "central Europeaness". It actually looked like very like the image I have of Austria - and, cherry on the cake, it was covered by snow !
Although the cold, it was a very nice visit - and the occasion to taste real good saukrout and German beer - much better than the one we find in the French supermarkets...










Actually Heidelberg is a charming student city. It has a quite small historic center situated between two woody hills and surounded by a fortress. It has have what we could call a "Central European feel" surrounded by dark hilly forests, and a more modern side in the Rhein valley. The contrasts between both is sharp, since the rhein plain is very flat, industrial a quite much populated big cities (such as Mannheim only a few kilometers from there).

Frankfort, about 80km more at north is in what we could call central Germany. It is a very clean and modern city, with a skyscrappered city center. Quite nice, liverly and rich. It was about the image I had of the financial center of Germany, worth seen it, although we hadn't much time to see it more deeply.
fab

Quote:
I totally agree that we tend to overlook parts of other countries that are very similar to our own, seeking out the "exotic" parts instead.
Though I have to say that I tend to base my view of other countries of their centres. Just as I consider Hessen + Thüringen +Rheinland + Franken to be the quintessential Germany, I tend to associate the typical France with Bourgogne + Centre, the typical Italy with Toscana + Umbria + Lazio, the typical Spain with Castilla etc.



Hello Frederik,

I think this vision is quite good. But concerning France, Centre+Bourgogne are to me quite clearly regions of northern france, I think me they represent the center of the northern half of France only, since the ambiance change quite rapidly at about Macon region (north of Lyon).



Also, what images do you associate with those regions? I should recognise Bourgogne doesn't have really big cities internationally widely known nor only one ambiance. I'm intrigued to see what would a Norwegian would see as tipically Burgondian... ;)

If you want we could play a game: you post me photos of landscapes, villages, towns or architecture that you would identify as tipically French, could you ?



Quote:
But it might be more correct if the centre of the country also is the cultural heartland of the country.



This is interesting, and I think correct in the case of countries where there is one central part where is concentred the population. but it is very difficult to define in other cases.

In the case of Germany, I think southern and central Germany can hardly being considered as the "heartland", Germany is historically a very decentralized country, with big cities in all parts of it... And its capital city, in the northern of it, from where the unity of the country was made starting from Prussian empire.

I recognise that southern Germany is a cultural hartland, but to me it is the cultural hartland of German-speaking countries, not especially of Germany, because at that time Germany didn't existed - Those regions could have been (and maybe would have fit better) with Austria than within German state.



Quote:
Following that line of thought, I tend to consider Lower Germany and Occitan France to be somewhat separate areas which to some degress have been "raped" of their cultural heritage and lost important links to their past, first and foremost their language.


"Lower Germany" means northern Germany right ? To me I think it was, at least politically, northern Germany which had integrated southern Germany later.

Concerning France I don't agree with the term "Occitan France", since it has not any signification, and never had any signification nor unity - Occitan wasn't a kingdom, a nation, nor any unified cultural area. It is just a neologism used to define a group of dialects of southern France spoken in very different (and sometimes rivals) regions, by opposition of the groups of dialects of the northern half. Basically the oil forms and oc forms are still very similar.
on another hand all southern France has not been of Oc dialects; Corsica, Pays Basque, Region Lyonnaise, Savoie are not.
And most of the most linguittically distinct regions of France (and culturally in general) are/were in northern France; such as Britanny, Alsace-Moselle or Flanders.
Benjamin [inactive]

I really miss Heidelberg, but I don't imagine that I'll be able to go back there for a few years. I must've walked down that street about 20 times whilst I was there.

So, Fab, were did you stay in Heidelberg?

fab wrote:
"Lower Germany" means northern Germany right ? To me I think it was, at least politically, northern Germany which had integrated southern Germany later.

Yes, Lower Germany means Northern Germany. That may have been the case politically, although Standard German, which was imposed on Low Germany, was/is based on High German.
Benjamin [inactive]

Here are some more pictures of Germany. I've found these pictures of Aurich, in the northwestern part of Lower Saxony:









It all looks rather aristocratical, lol.
Uriel

You know, fab, I've been to various parts of Germany and never noticed any of them being particularly different from the others!

Perhaps that is because as an American,

A) it was all a foreign country to me, and I lacked the familiarity with it to detect the different nuances, and

B) it's a small enough country that I certainly didn't notice the kinds of major changes that I associate with different parts of North America, i.e., going from desert to subtropical to temperate to subarctic regions (or even jungle down in central Mexico, although I have never been that far south).
Fredrik


The light is very nordic! Together with the architecture it could have been in Denmark or southern Norway. Anywhere where-ever you, according to Thomas Mann's Tonio Kröger "eat those salty, heavy meals which you can only digest in a northern climate" and where people are blond, friendly and stupid.


Quote:
It all looks rather aristocratical, lol.

Indeed, twas not for nothing that Aurich was the location of the Upstalsboom, the tree where the medieval Frisians would assemble from their seven sealands to debate and decide upon common matters, upholding their Frisian freedom and the old Germanic þing. In Frisia, every man was a noble.

fab wrote:
Quote:
I'm intrigued to see what would a Norwegian would see as tipically Burgondian... ;)

The typical Norwegian wouldn't associate very much with Bourgogne, except wine, food and a red colour. I just mention it because I once went there and thought it looked very French. But I will try to find pictures of what I consider typical French.
But I have to say I have a bit different pictures of the hexagon Republic of France and the Toute ma vie je me suis fait une certaine idée de la France. ...- France. The last case doesn't include many pictures from southern France, because I've never been there + my impression is that it lacks a bit of that gentle, dewy, fresh softness (= perfume! ) that I associate France with. Which is rather odd, as the perfume capital of Grasse indeed lies in Provence!
But the other day I watched a TV programme about Cézanne and I just don't feel his strong, southern colours are very French. I tend to associate France much more with Monet and his colours.

I guess my impressions of southern France are rather wrong. Thus it's good you enlightened me on "Occiatn France". Are there no notions of a denied legacy, of a cultural rape down there then?
fab

Quote:
So, Fab, were did you stay in Heidelberg?


Actually I was in a motel between Heidelberg and Mannheim, I had a car so it wasn't easy to stay in the city center, and a bit late to find it.





Quote:
The light is very nordic! Together with the architecture it could have been in Denmark or southern Norway. Anywhere where-ever you, according to Thomas Mann's Tonio Kröger "eat those salty, heavy meals which you can only digest in a northern climate" and where people are blond, friendly and stupid.


Why did you say "stupid" ? the stereotype I have of scandinavians tend I tend draw them as smart, modern, clean, tall, blond, respectfull of the laws and of others.
These stereotypes apply to Germans also, which are seen as about the same - and are considered to be nordics -
Germany doesn't have a much different image than Denmark or Sweden, excepted that it is seen as more populated, industrial and powerfull.




Quote:
it was all a foreign country to me, and I lacked the familiarity with it to detect the different nuances


Generally, viewed from France most people are not aware of those differences either. Germany is mostly seen just as being a (the?) tipical northern European country most of the time, with not more nuances.



Quote:
it's a small enough country that I certainly didn't notice the kinds of major changes that I associate with different parts of North America, i.e., going from desert to subtropical to temperate to subarctic regions (or even jungle down in central Mexico, although I have never been that far south).


In Europe the differences between the countries are not that much linked with climate as it does in America, because Europe is much smaller, and so the climates, even between Sicily and Scandinavia are still considered to be temperate ones in both cases. The main differences are cultural - included linguistical - and also sometimes geographic, since we can change very quickly of relief, have peninsulas, inside sea, etc... and so have a lot of microclimates which can change the ambiance at only a few kilometers away.

What is incredible in Europe is that you can make only 100kms and cross changed three times the language and ambiance.


Quote:
The last case doesn't include many pictures from southern France, because I've never been there + my impression is that it lacks a bit of that gentle, dewy, fresh softness (= perfume! ) that I associate France with. Which is rather odd, as the perfume capital of Grasse indeed lies in Provence!


You're right, most perfumes are made from flower and aromatic plants, which is a tipical production of côte d'Azur, and especially Grasse region.
Grasse is often called the capital of perfumes, but actually is not a big city, but more like a big village up an hill a few kilometers in the inside land.




Quote:
But the other day I watched a TV programme about Cézanne and I just don't feel his strong, southern colours are very French. I tend to associate France much more with Monet and his colours.


Really? that's interesting. Actually southern France light has inspired most of te artists at that time, and suring the 20th century. A lot of artists were form there or had lived there - including Cezanne, Matisse, Derain, Braque, Picasso, Van Gogh, Gauguin, Matisse, Yves Klein, etc.

Of course the most known: Cézanne (to me the most important french painter of recent history, the one who had construct a bridge that would led to modern painting and abstraction)


but also Braque :


And more than this the "fauves", derain, Dufy, and of course Matisse with the oversaturated light by hard use of saturated colors are quite emblematic of transcription of summer light of Colioure.






and of course also the foreign painters such as picasso or Van Gogh get some of their most famous subjects in southern France.



Quote:
I guess my impressions of southern France are rather wrong. Thus it's good you enlightened me on "Occiatn France". Are there no notions of a denied legacy, of a cultural rape down there then?


No, excepted for very small minorities. Actually there is quite a big difference between the mediterranean side and the south-west regions which were part of the former languedoc region (more or less around Toulouse region). For some region it exist, especially in small towns of "midi-pyrennes" a tradition of refering to "occitania" there for some people for some historic/religious reasons (the opposition to the French kingdom during the Cathare times).

This is very different in other places of the so called "occitania". The Atlantic regions, Landes and Bordeaux regions doesn't generally link with it, and actually a big part of Bordeaux region has always being langue d'oil-speaking.

And concerning the south-east; the regions that surround the mediterranean I say that almost nobody would refer as being part of "occitania"- especially east of the Rhone - most people would have even absolutly no idea of what "occitan" would mean - The local traditional dialects are considered to be provençal (which is only one specific form of langue d'oc). Some parts such as Nice region also have its specific variants (Nissart). those dialect are almost not spoken anymore.
The mediterranean regions are among the most nationalists and french-proud, it has unfortunally traditionally among the highest rate of FN votes, while in Paris they are among the lowest.

By the way we shouldn't forget that the foundator of modern France was a Corsican...

The regions were the feeling of "cultural rape" may does exist in Corsica or Pays Basque - and more than this in northern France: especially in Britanny.
Benjamin [inactive]

Fab wrote:
Why did you say "stupid" ? the stereotype I have of scandinavians tend I tend draw them as smart, modern, clean, tall, blond, respectfull of the laws and of others.
These stereotypes apply to Germans also, which are seen as about the same - and are considered to be nordics -
Germany doesn't have a much different image than Denmark or Sweden, excepted that it is seen as more populated, industrial and powerfull.

There is a difference between the traditional use of the word 'Nordic', and the idea of the 'Nordic Countries', which is essentially a modern geopolitical construct that does not include Germany. The second is how most people from within the 'Nordic Countries' tend to use the term, whilst many outsiders use it differently. For example, I was looking at the discussion page of the Wikipedia article about the Nordic Countries — some people from places like England and Germany (etc.) were upset that their countries weren't included, because they considered themselves to be ethnically 'Nordic' or something like that.

And as Fredrik will tell you — most Scandinavians would probably be horrified if you were to tell them that you thought that they were basically almost the same as the Germans.
fab

Quote:
And as Fredrik will tell you — most Scandinavians would probably be horrified if you were to tell them that you thought that they were basically almost the same as the Germans.


Yes, I know, but that is not my personal opinion (although after having visiting both recently the relation was clear - despite geographical differences), but generally how most people who don't know the question would think at first - even if some stereotypes that concern scandinavians are not put over Germans, such as design/zen spirit, calmness, wild nature, etc.
Icke

Benjamin wrote:

And as Fredrik will tell you — most Scandinavians would probably be horrified if you were to tell them that you thought that they were basically almost the same as the Germans.


...and if you go and tell the Scots that they are actually almost the same as the English, they will probably knock your teeth out without much hesitation
Fredrik

Benjamin wrote:
And as Fredrik will tell you — most Scandinavians would probably be horrified if you were to tell them that you thought that they were basically almost the same as the Germans.

Exactly!

Actually, the problem is that the term which is the basis of that concept is very hard to translate. The socio-cultural bloc formed by Iceland, Norway, Denmark, Sweden and Finland is called Norden in Norwegian, Danish and Swedish. And "Norden" simply means "the North". Finnish also uses Pohjola = the North for this area. But the Icelandic term corresponds better with the English term: Norðurlöndin = the North lands. So although I can agree that many countries can be northern, only five countries are the Nordic countries, in my mind.

fab wrote:
Quote:
Why did you say "stupid" ? the stereotype I have of scandinavians tend I tend draw them as smart, modern, clean, tall, blond, respectfull of the laws and of others.


I said "stupid" because that's what Thomas Mann writes in Tonio Kröger, where he equates northernness with life and stupidity and southernness with death and genius. Anybody who is intrigued by the conflict between north and south and life and art should read Thomas Mann's Tonio Kröger, it's a masterwork!

Quote:
Germany is mostly seen just as being a (the?) tipical northern European country most of the time, with not more nuances.

Nice pics, fab, but this shocks me! This is your neighbour country, after all!
Benjamin [inactive]

Icke wrote:
Benjamin wrote:

And as Fredrik will tell you — most Scandinavians would probably be horrified if you were to tell them that you thought that they were basically almost the same as the Germans.


...and if you go and tell the Scots that they are actually almost the same as the English, they will probably knock your teeth out without much hesitation

LOL — yes! It seems to be the same with Canadians and Americans, and with New Zealanders and Australians. It almost seems as though the more similar you are to your more powerful neighbour, the more aggressively you will emphasise the differences.

Fredrik wrote:
Actually, the problem is that the term which is the basis of that concept is very hard to translate. The socio-cultural bloc formed by Iceland, Norway, Denmark, Sweden and Finland is called Norden in Norwegian, Danish and Swedish. And "Norden" simply means "the North". Finnish also uses Pohjola = the North for this area. But the Icelandic term corresponds better with the English term: Norðurlöndin = the North lands. So although I can agree that many countries can be northern, only five countries are the Nordic countries, in my mind

That's right. For example, Scotland is definitely 'northern', but it is not a part of the Nordic Countries.

Fredrik wrote:
I said "stupid" because that's what Thomas Mann writes in Tonio Kröger, where he equates northernness with life and stupidity and southernness with death and genius. Anybody who is intrigued by the conflict between north and south and life and art should read Thomas Mann's Tonio Kröger, it's a masterwork!

Lol — there does seem to be a decline in high culture the further north you go in Europe generally, whilst Central Europe almost has the monopoly. I'm interested in classical music, but I'm afraid that I cannot immediately think of any famous Scandinavian, Finnish or Scottish composers (Gustav Holst doesn't count). And there are basically only two famous Scottish authors associated with the Romantic period — such a rarity that they have monuments and celebrations in honour of them all the time! I suppose it was all a bit isolated and out of the way up there, lol.
fab

Quote:
Nice pics, fab, but this shocks me! This is your neighbour country, after all!
Benjamin [inactive]

fab wrote:
our borders are also with :
- Spain - 650km of border
- Belgium - 620km
- Switzerland - 572km
- Italy - 515km
- Germany - 450km
- Luxembourg - 73km
- Andorra - 57km
- Monaco - 2km

and even...
- Brazil - 700km
- Surinam - 520km

And also 43m with England.

fab wrote:
its language seem for us very similar to yours...

Do you associate the German language more with English or more with Norwegian? Or about the same?
fab

Quote:
Do you associate the German language more with English or more with Norwegian? Or about the same?


good question, actually I don't know enough Norwegian (and German either) to make a clear idea.
I'd say about the same.
I know that linguists put scandinavian languages is their own sub-category, so I think it might have some reason - so it would mean that German has more links with English... but I'm not sure.


Quote:
And also 43m with England.


I forgot that one !! I don't know about the juridic status of a border situated below a sea !... it is a quite unusual situation !
Deborah

Benjamin wrote:
I'm interested in classical music, but I'm afraid that I cannot immediately think of any famous Scandinavian, Finnish or Scottish composers (Gustav Holst doesn't count).

Edvard Grieg (Norway) and Jan Sibelius (Finland) are pretty famous. Or by "classical" did you mean the specifically classical era (Mozart, Haydn, etc.) of the vast amount of music that's commonly referred to as classical?
Benjamin [inactive]

Deborah wrote:
Benjamin wrote:
I'm interested in classical music, but I'm afraid that I cannot immediately think of any famous Scandinavian, Finnish or Scottish composers (Gustav Holst doesn't count).

Edvard Grieg (Norway) and Jan Sibelius (Finland) are pretty famous. Or by "classical" did you mean the specifically classical era (Mozart, Haydn, etc.) of the vast amount of music that's commonly referred to as classical?

I'd forgotten about Sibelius. Or rather, I knew about him, but didn't immediately remember that he was from Finland.
Icke

fab wrote:

Among these, Germany is far to be the most similar... and its territory is in average much more northerner, it opens to the Baltic sea - its language seem for us very similar to yours... etc.

Everything is a question of point of view... What is funny is that for your point of view Germany seemed be seen as a almost southern country. That is hard to imagine for me.


I don't think that Fredrik or Benjamin intended to imply that. But most Germans probably wish that would be the case, since I bet there is a hidden longing for those exotic, sun-pampered and adventure-promising lands down in the south, no matter if it is in Southern Europe, South America, Africa or Asia... these are the places most people here are talking about when they are planning their next travel.

The Nordic countries are maybe just to similar to Germany to sense this longing
Uriel

Quote:
...and if you go and tell the Scots that they are actually almost the same as the English, they will probably knock your teeth out without much hesitation


What? I've always just thought of Scots as English people who talk funny ... well, funnier....

(Oh, where's Damian when I need him?! )



Quote:
LOL — yes! It seems to be the same with Canadians and Americans, and with New Zealanders and Australians. It almost seems as though the more similar you are to your more powerful neighbour, the more aggressively you will emphasise the differences.


It's true -- and deep down a Canadian's worst fear is that someone will find out that they're really just American Lite -- chilly little Yanks with a hockey obsession -- tears 'em up!
Benjamin [inactive]

Icke wrote:
I don't think that Fredrik or Benjamin intended to imply that. But most Germans probably wish that would be the case, since I bet there is a hidden longing for those exotic, sun-pampered and adventure-promising lands down in the south, no matter if it is in Southern Europe, South America, Africa or Asia... these are the places most people here are talking about when they are planning their next travel.

The Nordic countries are maybe just to similar to Germany to sense this longing

That's right — here as well, most people go on holiday either to Southern Europe or further afield. I'm eccentric, so I'm going to Iceland for my 18th birthday, but that's not common. Germany seems to have become the new 'cool' place to go over the past year since the World Cup, and there were admittedly a lot of German tourists when I went to Scotland, but really, very few people here would say, 'hey, I'm going to Germany for my summer holiday this year!'

Having said that, I don't think of Germany as being particularly 'northern' really. Where currently I live, in the Southwest Midlands of England, is about level with Hamburg — that means that almost the whole of Germany is further south than me. And when I (probably) move to Scotland next year, I'll be level with Norway; the whole of Germany will be significantly to the south of where I live. When I was in München (Munich), I did not think, 'I'm in a Northern European city', although I did when I was in Frankfurt and Nürnberg.
Icke

Benjamin wrote:
Germany seems to have become the new 'cool' place to go over the past year since the World Cup, and there were admittedly a lot of German tourists when I went to Scotland, but really, very few people here would say, 'hey, I'm going to Germany for my summer holiday this year!'


Lol, so did the image of Germany finally changed a bit in England just because of the World Cup?
I remember a school trip to England, and we visited a school there but we weren't allowed to attend History classes. I wonder why...

Benjamin wrote:

Having said that, I don't think of Germany as being particularly 'northern' really. Where currently I live, in the Southwest Midlands of England, is about level with Hamburg - that means that almost the whole of Germany is further south than me. And when I (probably) move to Scotland next year, I'll be level with Norway; the whole of Germany will be significantly to the south of where I live. When I was in München (Munich), I did not think, 'I'm in a Northern European city', although I did when I was in Frankfurt and Nürnberg.


Well, England is about the same height as about two third of the land mass of Germany, and where it is the ('at'?) most densly populated. And remember, England is comparatively narrow, espacially in the North, so the one third of Germany that stretches southwards makes no great difference, does it?

Benjamin wrote:

When I was in München (Munich), I did not think, 'I'm in a Northern European city', although I did when I was in Frankfurt and Nürnberg.


See, it's rather the culture that matters, not the degree of latitude you live in, if it only concerns few degrees.
fab

Quote:
When I was in München (Munich), I did not think, 'I'm in a Northern European city', although I did when I was in Frankfurt and Nürnberg.



For me neither, I'll consider Munich to be a central European city in terms of geography : climate, architectural ambiance, etc. but since it's part of Germany I'll consider it northern european in a cultural point of view.

Actually my former colocataire was Austrian, I once asked her if she consider her country as northern European one she clearly said that "of course" she did, for cultural reasons even if she recognised that on a purely geographical point of view Austria is not Northern.
Icke

Benjamin wrote:
And when I (probably) move to Scotland next year, I'll be level with Norway


I believe you meant to say Sweden, since Scotland doesn't seem to be on the same latitude as Norway according to this map:
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bild:Europe_location_NOR.png
Benjamin [inactive]

Icke wrote:
Lol, so did the image of Germany finally changed a bit in England just because of the World Cup?

Yes, actually. There was definitely a lot of Germanomania going on here over Christmas, especially in Birmingham, where a huge Christmas market came over from Frankfurt and occupied the whole of the main central square and more for almost the whole of December. I'd never seen so many people in that square before, but there were thousands and thousands of people crowding around eating Bratwurst and Sauerkraut, drinking German bear, buying lots of 'German' gifts and listening to German folk music. And in September, I remember arriving in the same square and finding hundreds of people sitting at tables drinking German beer and wine and eating pretzels, accompanied by German band music. If you'd told me that all that would be happening five years ago, I wouldn't have believed it.

Benjamin wrote:
Well, England is about the same height as about two third of the land mass of Germany, and where it is the ('at'?) most densly populated. And remember, England is comparatively narrow, espacially in the North, so the one third of Germany that stretches southwards makes no great difference, does it?

I'll just add that I don't consider where I live to be particularly 'northern' either. But I've just realised something — my mental map of Europe looks like this:

That's why I think of Scotland as level with southern Norway, and England being more level with Denmark. But it seems that the lines of latitude would not be horizontal on that map.

Icke wrote:
See, it's rather the culture that matters, not the degree of latitude you live in, if it only concerns few degrees.

Yes, that's almost definitely right.
fab

Quote:
But it seems that the lines of latitude would not be horizontal on that map.


The type of projections with curves latitude lines tend to give us wrong ideas about the positions of places. If comparing with a corrected projection we see that Scotland lies more or less at the level of Denmark and southern Sweden, but Norway still quite northerner.

As a whole the latitudes of England and Germany quite comparable, Germany being a bit more at south.


Benjamin [inactive]

Fab — let us thank the Lord that there are no Welsh people on this forum!
Uriel

And I always think of Iceland as being more North American than European, since it lies off the coast of Greenland, which is definitely North American territory!
Icke

Benjamin wrote:
Fab — let us thank the Lord that there are no Welsh people on this forum!


why? I didn't get that joke...
Once an Irish friend told me that a Welshman is actually an Irishman who cannot swim, lol
Benjamin [inactive]

Icke wrote:
Benjamin wrote:
Fab — let us thank the Lord that there are no Welsh people on this forum!


why? I didn't get that joke...
Once an Irish friend told me that a Welshman is actually an Irishman who cannot swim, lol

When Fab first posted his map, England and Wales together were shaded and just labeled as 'England'. He's now changed it, so that only England is shaded.

Uriel wrote:
And I always think of Iceland as being more North American than European, since it lies off the coast of Greenland, which is definitely North American territory!

I must admit that I can never quite accept Iceland as part of Europe either. It's essentially a large volcanic island created by the constructive plate margin between the North American Plate and the Eurasian Plate.
Fredrik

And according to an Icelandic lecturer at my university, Iceland is quite Americanized too. In 1941 the Americans "occupied" Iceland and stationed 40.000 men in a country with a population of only 120.000! (The "occupation" lasted untill 2006). It was the Americans who built the modern Icelandic infrastructure (most notably Keflavik airport) and threw the backward saga island into the modern world. My lecturer said in his childhood in the 1960s they had American TV, but no Icelandic channels!
fab

Quote:
Nice pics, fab, but this shocks me! This is your neighbour country, after all!



Yes, we have borders with Germany in Alsace/Lorraine at the north-east border, but Germany is one neighbour among 8 others...


our borders are also with :
- Spain - 650km of border
- Belgium - 620km
- Switzerland - 572km
- Italy - 515km
- Germany - 450km
- Luxembourg - 73km
- Andorra - 57km
- Monaco - 2km

and even...
- Brazil - 700km
- Surinam - 520km


Among these, Germany is far to be the most similar... and its territory is in average much more northerner, it opens to the Baltic sea - its language seem for us very similar to yours... etc.
Everything is a question of point of view... What is funny is that for your point of view Germany seemed be seen as a almost southern country. That is hard to imagine for me.

PS: don't forget my pictures !



Quote:
There is a difference between the traditional use of the word 'Nordic', and the idea of the 'Nordic Countries', which is essentially a modern geopolitical construct that does not include Germany


Usually, "Nordique" in french can means either:
- Scandinavian countries only
- All western European countries situated at north of France.


Quote:
For example, I was looking at the discussion page of the Wikipedia article about the Nordic Countries — some people from places like England and Germany (etc.) were upset that their countries weren't included, because they considered themselves to be ethnically 'Nordic' or something like that.


For what I've read on the net, it seems generally that it is the inverse, a lot of British people seem to reject deeply the idea that they might part of northern Europe (what they obviosly are on all points of view-even if not scandinavians).
Fredrik

fab, here are finally my idée de la France in pictures:

Toute ma vie, je me suis fait une certaine idée de la France. ...:


Cultured, nice stone villages with mossy houses and a very old smell, a little hilly, some forest, but lighter than the German forest, more deciduous, blossoming fruit orchards, not as deep colours as in Germany, more fresh and a Celtic legacy of slow-moving water:



And an urban ambience that is very urban, yet more medieval-feudal than mediterranean-antique:
Shouga

Those pictures are beautiful
fab

Thank you Frederik for your exemples. As it I can see more clearly the image you have in your mind. A quite tipical Northern French image.

Actually that's very interesting - I have understood that you've been only in Burgondy, so that the images you have seem to be fitting in that tipically north-eastern France image/landscapes. Those photos look also like the rural region that surround Paris (maybe the second picture is from there?)

What is interesting is that for most French people Burgondy is not a very important region because it is VERY rural - has few cities - quite few population, and we tend to know it very bad. Dijon, the most important city of Burgondy is seen as very "provincial" by big cities dewelers.
Usually (probably unfortunally, but maybe you know it better than me ) it is a region of transit more than a destination.




Quote:
a Celtic legacy of slow-moving water:

I'm not sure to see the link between slow water and Celts ? ... taht's curious !...



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And an urban ambience that is very urban, yet more medieval-feudal than mediterranean-antique


It is curious that you seem to consider dissociate mediterranean and "medevial" ambiances.
The tipically mediterranean villages are actually generally tipically of "medival" vernacular urban structure, and not the well-organised antic one.

that's interesting, I understand that you seem to imagine "medieval ambiance" as a tipical non-mediterranean thing... Benjamin once said a similar thing. (And half timbered housed are often associated with medival ambiance) - actually we can as much mediaval thing in southern/mediteranean regions.


Quite a tipical "medieval" ambiance of southern Europe in south-west france


Actually I alway found Spain, and especially Castilla (which means "land of castles!) as a quintessential medival ambiance land:




Deborah

I love the Alcazar in Segovia! It looks so dramatic. (It's the second picture in fab's post, above.)
Uriel

Fredrik wrote:
And according to an Icelandic lecturer at my university, Iceland is quite Americanized too. In 1941 the Americans "occupied" Iceland and stationed 40.000 men in a country with a population of only 120.000! (The "occupation" lasted untill 2006). It was the Americans who built the modern Icelandic infrastructure (most notably Keflavik airport) and threw the backward saga island into the modern world. My lecturer said in his childhood in the 1960s they had American TV, but no Icelandic channels!


I knew a kid who was stationed in Iceland for a year as a teenager. Then stationed in Kodiak, Alaska. And twice in New York (where I knew him -- both times). I had no idea they had shut down that base. but I often met kids who had been stationed in odd places -- Taiwan (that base is no longer there), Saudi Arabia (although American children are not allowed there after a certain age), Australia, England, Guam, Belgium (where one of my cousins was born), and even Turkey (my dad was almost stationed in Izmir once).
Loic

I think Europe has the lion's share of the most breathtaking scenery in the world. What a lucky continent!
Fredrik

fab wrote:

Quote:
a Celtic legacy of slow-moving water:

I'm not sure to see the link between slow water and Celts ? ... taht's curious !...

Of course this is highly subjective, but as you might know the Celts were rather pantheïstic and honoured various features of nature. As many European river names are of Celtic origin, I tend to associate rivers with Celts, not at least because of the can-you-wade-across-the-same-river-twice? paradox, which I feel is typically Celtic. I tend to associate Greco-Roman and Germanic culture with solid features, but Celtic culture with more flowing features. Thus I feel the French rivers to be a link to France's Gaulish past.

Quote:
Quote:
And an urban ambience that is very urban, yet more medieval-feudal than mediterranean-antique

It is curious that you seem to consider dissociate mediterranean and "medevial" ambiances.
The tipically mediterranean villages are actually generally tipically of "medival" vernacular urban structure, and not the well-organised antic one.
that's interesting, I understand that you seem to imagine "medieval ambiance" as a tipical non-mediterranean thing... Benjamin once said a similar thing. (And half timbered housed are often associated with medival ambiance) - actually we can as much mediaval thing in southern/mediteranean regions.

I guess this must seem strange to you as a southern European. But I presume we northern Europeans tend to associate the Middle Ages with northern and central Europe. Not because there wasn't a Middle Age in southern Europe, but because southern Europe has a more unbroken antique tradition, i.e. people continued to live as they always had, whereas the Middle Ages represented something new in northern Europe, namely urbanism.

loic:
I think the European landscape is beautiful because it's so cultured, it just breathes tradition. But surely there must be lots of that in Asia, whose cultures are so ancient compared to Europe's?
fab

Quote:
think Europe has the lion's share of the most breathtaking scenery in the world. What a lucky continent!



I don't think that Europe is necessary more beautiful than other continents. There are plenty of places quite ugly too.

The nature is less exhuberant than in bigger continents, less extreme in one sense. if compared to the Scenery in the Americas, Europe could amost seem quite disappointing.

But what is really incredible, compared to other places of the world is the variety in a quite small and reduced place: variety of natural conditions, landscapes, and above all this an incerdible variety of cultures, found at only a few hundred (or dozen in some cases) of kilometers only.

The human and cultural legcy of the long history made it a lucky continent. But I think East Asia, the middle east or India, the Americas, (and other places) also have this kind of legacy of a long a varieted history.




Quote:
I tend to associate Greco-Roman and Germanic culture with solid features, but Celtic culture with more flowing features. Thus I feel the French rivers to be a link to France's Gaulish past


wao... very esoteric thinking !
Actually, what about German, Italian, English, Spanish rivers ? do you associate them also with the celtic past of those countries ?





Quote:
but because southern Europe has a more unbroken antique tradition, i.e. people continued to live as they always had,


Mmm... some change had occured since then...
greg in noord-frankrijk

Fredrik wrote:
I guess this must seem strange to you as a southern European. But I presume we northern Europeans tend to associate the Middle Ages with northern and central Europe. Not because there wasn't a Middle Age in southern Europe, but because southern Europe has a more unbroken antique tradition, i.e. people continued to live as they always had, whereas the Middle Ages represented something new in northern Europe, namely urbanism.


Well it is certainly true that Late Antiquity and Early Middle-Age blended everywhere in Southern Europe. The thin line is hard to tell, if there was one at all. But Middle-Ages was a very long period of dramatic changes in Southern Europe. Rome fell and only much later did new cities mushroom, as did Montpellier (Montpelhièr) from 986 on. Sicily, which was spared the heavy Romanisation process that Μεγάλη Ελλάς (Grande-Grèce, Magna Græcia) endured, ended as an Arab emirate before Roger de Hauteville (Ruggero D'Altavilla) & Robert Guiscard (Roberto D'Altavilla - il Guiscardo) took both regions, from the Arabs and the Byzantines respectively. Roman Northern-Africa (from Mauretania Tingitana up to Egypt through Africa Proconsularis), which obviously wasn't in Southern Europe geographically, was nonetheless lost to Roman Europe. Most of Iberia was taken by the Arabs and France's kings gradually invaded all Meridional principalities. New forms of urbanism emerged in the Duchy of Aquitaine around the 13th century : those new cities were called bastides and they swarmed across northern Aquitaine. Basically, the history of medieval Southern Europe is so complex that grouping together all regions from the Atlantic to the Black Sea is une vue de l'esprit. The Southern World was imposed so profound tranformations during the Middle-Ages that even an ad hoc forum would not suffice to discuss that topic !
Uriel

Code:
The nature is less exhuberant than in bigger continents, less extreme in one sense. if compared to the Scenery in the Americas, Europe could amost seem quite disappointing.


Hmm. I think it may be that we are simply conditioned to different tastes. Fredrik says that he likes European scenery because it is so "cultured". My thought upon seeing the scenery in western Europe was that it was charming and quaint, but not overwhelming, precisely because it was so "cultured" -- it seemed so tamed and so shaped by milennia of human hands and feet and plows and axes. So it was pretty and bucolic, but not majestic or stirring, like the wild, empty vistas of Alaska or Canada or the Rockies that I usually think of as stirring. Had I gone to a different part of Europe, I would probably have seen scenery that did match my tastes -- it's not that Europe doesn't have wilderness and mountains, just as North America has its long-settled, quaint rolling farmland -- but I bet Fredrik and I would view them very differently.

Of course , all tastes are individual -- there are plenty of Americans who hate the scenery where I live because they can't stand the starkness or the lack of greenery. So it's all relative to what you're used to.
fab

I agree, the real beauty of European sceneries are its human history - the way the rural landscapes were formed and transformed together with the architecture of the cities and town over the centuries had created a diversity in a small area found no where else I think.

The European nature alone is less impressive maybe that the one of the Americas, but most of the time is not "alone" and has a specific human historic presence which has given to the landscape a specific taste.

What really would bother me in the Americas, is that there are really impressive sceneries, but they are generally VERY far to each other for European scale. In Europe you can pass from a flat continental plain to a cool high snowy montain area to a mediterranean region of palm trees in only two hours of driving - And you are accompagnied by the change of architecture and language in the same time.
In that sence the Americas would seem quite boring, unless to have its own plane !
Loic

What is good in the European countries which we have talked about so far is the people's acute sense of history and the responsibility they have towards the preservation of their cultural legacy.

We hardly see it in rapidly changing Asia where the authorities have no qualms about tearing down ancient buildings for the sake of progress. I am very disappointed with China, for example. They could have planned Beijing where they would have retained the bulk of the old buildings in the centre while erecting skyscrappers only in the outer periphery.

Unfortunately, it was not to be. At the height of of the Cultural Revolution, destructive change was on the top of their agenda. Anything 'old' was deemed to be anti-revolutionary. Many temples were ransacked and burnt; imposing edifices owned and built by the landlord class were vandalised and neglected. It was a sorry thing to have happened and this is a gargantuan blotch on the already defiled record of the Chinese Communist Party. I am a bit of a sentimentalist and I think modern buildings are ugly and do not have a character. Anybody can build a modern skyscrapper if they have enough capital; not anyone can lay claim to a structure that is genuinely old and worthy of veneration.

But oh well, the prevailing mantra of all contemporary architects: function over form.

PS: I like to mention that China is a place where money can make a person sell his soul. When I first visited the Forbidden Palace in 1999, it was already commercialised. When I paid a second visit two years ago, it was commoditised. Starbucks has a franchise in the Palace. I am a huge supporter of globalisation, but I can make a rare exception in this instance and support any Jose Bove-like figure in ransacking that outlet.
Deborah

fab wrote:
I agree, the real beauty of European sceneries are its human history - the way the rural landscapes were formed and transformed together with the architecture of the cities and town over the centuries had created a diversity in a small area found no where else I think.

The European nature alone is less impressive maybe that the one of the Americas, but most of the time is not "alone" and has a specific human historic presence which has given to the landscape a specific taste.

Yes, I love the somewhat "manicured" look of a lot of the European countryside. In so much of the US, the wild outdoors looks very wild (which I also love).

Quote:
What really would bother me in the Americas, is that there are really impressive sceneries, but they are generally VERY far to each other for European scale. In Europe you can pass from a flat continental plain to a cool high snowy montain area to a mediterranean region of palm trees in only two hours of driving...

I think you can do that in southern California.

Quote:
- And you are accompagnied by the change of architecture and language in the same time.

You can probably find places in southern California where everyone speaks Spanish...
Uriel

I have heard in Washington state you can go skiing in the mountains and lie on the beach, all in the same day. It depends on where you are -- there are vast tracts of one type of landscape in some parts of the country, and places where there are lots of different environments rubbing shoulders. A trip up the west coast would take you from dry, sunswept Mediterranean/desert climates in Southern California to rolling farmland and then to the cool, wet, heavily forested temperate rainforest of the Pacific Northwest.

And if you are well-attuned to a landscape, you can see the variations in similar environments as you drive -- on the way from here to Tucson, Arizona -- only a four-hour drive -- you can see the vegetation change from spiky yuccas to tall, otherworldly saguaros, even though both are desert states, because you are dropping some 3000 ft (1000 m) in altitude and going from the Chihuahuan Desert to the much hotter Sonoran Desert.
fab

Quote:
I have heard in Washington state you can go skiing in the mountains and lie on the beach, all in the same day. It depends on where you are -- there are vast tracts of one type of landscape in some parts of the country, and places where there are lots of different environments rubbing shoulders.



I tend to think that geographically the western coast of the USA are more similar to Europe:

- first climatically - western Europe and western USA have similar climates(due to the fact that the dominant winds are from west to east).
In western Europe and west coast the climates are either oceanic or mediterranean when you go at south, while on the est coast it variates from Continental-types to "chinese-types" in th "old south" (subtrpical but with inversed dry/wet seasons compared with mediterranean)

-second; the presence of relief along these coast creates more microclimates and different landscapes in different altitudes.

But Europe has more (a lot of) peninsulas and island that creates again more climatic diversity in small area.
Uriel

I would think the East Coast of the US would look more like western Europe, at least --


upstate New York


more upstate New York -- what can I say -- I used to live there! Gotta represent.


Pennsylvania farmland


Massachusetts's Berkshires in the fall
Uriel

I suppose on the West Coast, Oregon might look a bit like Europe:



And California's chaparral regions might look pretty Mediterranean:



But I can't picture too many European counterparts to the rainforests of Washington and southeast Alaska







Well, Scandinavia might look like this part of Alaska.
Deborah

I first went to Europe when I was in college in North Carolina, and the land and weather in France (not the southern part) reminded me of North Carolina.
fab

I did not spoke about the kind of lanscapes created by humans. In that case the east coast having been Europeanized since longer time has more similarities - Especially with England. Nor really the vegetation which is tipical to North America.


But the corespondance of types of climates. The climates of the east coast of the USA are actually very different from the Western European ones ; continental on one side and oceanic on the other; and chinese-type for the south US, while mediterranean on the other.

[/img]
Deborah

fab wrote:
I did not spoke about the kind of lanscapes created by humans. In that case the east coast having been Europeanized since longer time has more similarities - Especially with England. Nor really the vegetation which is tipical to North America.


But the corespondance of types of climates. The climates of the east coast of the USA are actually very different from the Western European ones ; continental on one side and oceanic on the other; and chinese-type for the south US, while mediterranean on the other.

I wasn't talking about landscapes created by humans either. I was talking about how the weather & climate feel, regardless of how the climate has been officially labeled.

On your map, there's a line connecting what appears to be Seattle and Paris. I can assure you, they do not feel the same.
Uriel

Well, I was talking more about how the landscapes look -- the American East Coast looks much like Western Europe.

Quote:
But the corespondance of types of climates. The climates of the east coast of the USA are actually very different from the Western European ones ; continental on one side and oceanic on the other; and chinese-type for the south US, while mediterranean on the other.


Perhaps we are defining our terms differently, but I associate a continental climate (drier, with hot summers and extremely cold winters, unmitigated by ocean currents) with the inland Midwest -- not with the East Coast, which has an Atlantic climate (milder in both summer and winter and more humid, due to its proximity to the ocean).
fab

Quote:
Perhaps we are defining our terms differently, but I associate a continental climate (drier, with hot summers and extremely cold winters, unmitigated by ocean currents) with the inland Midwest -- not with the East Coast, which has an Atlantic climate (milder in both summer and winter and more humid, due to its proximity to the ocean).


Yes, I agree that there are levels of "continentalness" in climates. And it seems that the east coast of the US are much less continental than the north-central states. There are of course some oceanic influences - But on the east US coast the dominant wind and sea currents make that the climates of the coast still have quite strong contiental characterisitc in comparision with the climates of the same latitudes in Europe: that is to say such as big temperature variations between summer and winter.

We can compare with Lisbon for exemple - and its counterparts at about same latitude on the east and west coast of the US:

Average of winter maximum daily temperartures:
LISBON 14°C / 60F
SAN FRANCISCO 18°C / 68F
WASHINGTON 5°C / 42F

Average of winter minimum daily temperatures:
LISBON 7°C / 46F
SAN FRANCISCO 7°C / 46F
WASHINGTON -4°C / 24F

Average of summer maximum daily temperatures:
LISBON 28°C / 88F
SAN FRANCISCO 24°C / 80F
WASHINGTON 30°C / 92F

Lisbon defenitly has a more similar climate to San Francisco's than to washington's.
Uriel

The problem with using San Franciso as a point of reference is that its position on a peninsula in a bay puts it in a unique microclimate -- the rest of California isn't that much like it. It tends to be much colder, foggier, and wetter than the surrounding areas -- as the saying goes, "The coldest winter I ever knew was the summer I spent in San Francisco."
Porthos

"The coldest winter I ever knew was the summer I spent in San Francisco."
-- Mark Twain
fab

Quote:
The problem with using San Franciso as a point of reference is that its position on a peninsula in a bay puts it in a unique microclimate -- the rest of California isn't that much like it.


it seems that San Francisco is about at the transition between oceanic and mediterranean cliamtes. It seems that the interior of San Fransciso as a more mediterranean climate, much less wet - But actually that more or less the case of Lisboa, which is also a sort of intermediary between mediterranean and oceanis climates on the European façade. The summers can be surprisingly cool in Liboa, while a few kilometers in the inland it is much drier and hot.

But we can take an other exemple, more tipically oceanic. For exemple Nantes, in north-west France, known for its timical oceanic climate.
The equivalent of Nantes in terms of latitude on the west coast would be
Seattle, while the equivalent on the east coast would be Newfoundland, Canada (US don't go as much north on east coast).


Average of winter maximum daily temperartures:
NANTES 8°C / 48F
SEATTLE 8°C / 48F
NEWFOUNDLAND 0°C / 32F

Average of winter minimum daily temperatures:
NANTES 2°C / 36F
SEATTLE 2°C / 36F
NEWFOUNDLAND -6°C / 20F

Average of summer maximum daily temperatures:
NANTES 24°C / 80F
SEATTLE 26°C / 84F
NEWFOUNDLAND 18°C / 68F

It seems also clear that the temperature of Nantes are much more similar to Seattle's than to the same latitude on the east coast, which is much colder and do not provide the warm influences of the oceanic climates.

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