This website is using a security service to protect itself from online attacks The action you just performed triggered the security solution There are several actions that could trigger this block including submitting a certain word or phrase You can email the site owner to let them know you were blocked Please include what you were doing when this page came up and the Cloudflare Ray ID found at the bottom of this page Please do consider purchasing the first volume of the Century of Chess series from Amazon Your purchase helps to keep the series going!  The Capablanca tournaments at the end of the 1920s have exactly the aspect of a wine-soaked party after a divorce where everybody is determined to assure the embittered jilted party that they are in the right about everything and that everything will be sorted out soon.  scoring +14-1=17 between the three tournaments Capablanca issued a challenge for a rematch and offering better financial terms than Bogoljubow could provide.  But Alekhine simply wasn’t interested He hadn’t spent 14 years planning his challenge to Capablanca only to hand the title back to him and — after 34 games in the 1927 match — the players must have been sick to death of the sight of each other At this time the title of world champion was the property of its owner and Alekhine made use of his rights to accept the challenge of Bogoljubow — who had earned a shot through his tournament record was a bit snippy about Capablanca’s abilities Annotating a game of his from Bad Kissingen "This draw proved that Capablanca in no way played better in Kissingen than he did in Buenos Aires I am deeply convinced that he could not (or no longer could)."  Against a field of mainly Hungarian players in Budapest who reprised the role of second fiddle to Capablanca that he had played back in the 1910s.  The elite field at Berlin produced the same result with Capablanca drawing all his games against the top four finishers and then scoring +5-0=1 against the bottom half of the cross table plus a bonus win against Tarrasch.  The tournament was somewhat important for Aron Nimzowitsch who was staking his claim for a world championship match and had another good result passing a streaky Spielmann to take clear second.  was goodbye to a whole generation of players This was the last tournament of Richard Réti who would die the next year of scarlet fever It was the last significant tournament also of Siegbert Tarrasch who indulged a difficult side of his personality and withdrew from the tournament after the third round citing illness thus negating the hard work of the three players who had scored points against him Weak play in the tournament indicated also that both Frank Marshall and Akiba Rubinstein were entering into terminal decline in their chess-playing strength.  Sources: The tournaments are covered from Capablanca's perspective in Miguel Sánchez's José Rául Capablanca: A Chess Biography and from Nimzowitsch's in Rudolf Reinhardt's Aron Nimzowitsch.  Join us at the Akustika Fair at the Nuremberg Exhibition Centre from April 4-6 Meet The Strad team at stand F08 and pick up a free copy of the magazine The Strad Directory Jobs A stay in northern Bavaria’s spa town of Bad Kissingen for the Kissinger Sommer festival proved to be a balm for the soul for Laurence Vittes Discover more Featured Stories like this in The Strad Playing Hub Read more premium content for subscribers here Amid a summer of wonderful European music festivals Kissinger Sommer 2023 (16 June to 16 July) stood out for the depth and diversity of its programming the excellence of its artists and the sheer beauty and elegance of the surroundings The German spa town of Bad Kissingen is situated in northern Bavaria it reached the height of its popularity as a summer wellness retreat – a magnet for tourists seeking the healing properties of its mineral springs the streets around the neo-Baroque Regentenbau which houses several concert halls including the Max-Littmann-Saal On approaching the Regentenbau from the rose garden across the street – with its thousands of bushes and more than 150 varieties of blooms and its multimedia fountain with colourful water choreography – you are struck by the full grandeur of the building’s impact You can take a relaxing stroll along the many paths that meander through the town that are interconnected by the walkway alongside the Franconian Saale river; and if you’re just looking for a bite to eat there are pathways leading to the restaurants along Kurhausstrasse healing and wellness comforts of the KissSalis Thermal Spa are to be found just up the hill Bad Kissingen is perfectly paced for the pleasures and romance of classical music The festival has taken place every year since 1986 apart from 2020 when it was cancelled owing to the pandemic Over the past ten years it has featured such string playing stars as violinists Ning Feng and Patricia Kopatchinskaja and cellist Sol Gabetta as artists-in-residence The overall theme for this year’s festival was ‘La dolce vita’ who spent four weeks in Bad Kissingen in the summer of 1856 on the advice of his doctor The whole event was further divided into five subthemes and I attended during the ‘Mi lagnerò tacendo’ (I will suffer in silence) one which took place from Wednesday 28 June to Sunday 2 July and began with mezzo-soprano Giuseppina Bridelli giving a recital with pianist Matteo Pais in the Rossini-Saal which fans of Cecilia Bartoli would have adored and during which the enthusiastic audience took the opportunity to connect with friends improvisatorial style had the Venetians on their toes Maximilian Hornung played Haydn’s Cello Concerto no.2 in D major at the Max-Littmann-Saal He was accompanied by the Bamberg Symphony which had reduced its string section somewhat but still included three double basses and was conducted very enthusiastically (in two where possible) by Manfred Honeck It is Haydn’s D major and not the First Concerto in C major that every cellist is asked to play in auditions and Hornung and Honeck together challenged the notion that the first movement could be played too fast under the pressure of a live concert Hornung revealed a glimpse of the music’s softer heart in his short cadenzas in contrast to the passages he had so boldly tried to conquer open-hearted reading of Rossini’s overture to La gazza ladra which pushed the music The orchestra was equal to every challenge even more after the interval in an exhilarating performance of Schubert’s ‘Great’ Symphony in C major Honeck had provided the bowings from his own set of parts and this ensured a strong unified string force which the orchestra’s woodwind adorned and infused with exuberant pastel colours was amplified by the enveloping acoustic warmth of the horseshoe-shaped hall another cellist – of a considerably different stripe – came to town It was Sergey Malov playing two concertos each on the violin and the violoncello da spalla (an instrument of griffin-like provenance for which Bach may have written his Cello Suite no.6) replacing violinist Chouchane Siranossian at late notice with Andrea Marcon’s Venice Baroque Orchestra The concert they played in the responsive acoustics of the nearby Erlöserkirche could have been the soundtrack to an audiophile’s Baroque music dream The programme was called ‘Duello di archi’ (String Duel) especially when Malov switched over to the violin in a hair-raising Tartini Concerto in B flat major; his freely expressive even more freely improvisatorial style had the Venetians constantly on their toes The Vivaldi Concerto in G minor for two cellos RV531 (with Irene Liebau the orchestra’s principal cellist) was a sumptuous delight Malov bowing gracefully across his chest on the ‘da spalla’ About 30 inches long and hanging from a strap around his neck the instrument – built by Dmitry Badiarov – gave him the look of a troubadour and spoke with casual virtuosity and a seductive voice reminiscent at times of Bridelli’s mezzo-soprano No wonder Malov styles himself ‘Spallenmann’ all over his social media There were many string-related riches I wished I could have stayed on for I would have been able to feast on concerts featuring a trio of violinist Francesca Dego violist Milena Simović and cellist Laura van der Heijden; the Modigliani Quartet with violist Lise Berthaud and cellist Julian Steckel in Tchaikovsky’s Souvenir de Florence; and Anne-Sophie Mutter’s Virtuosi Cellist Daniel Müller-Schott and pianist Annika Treutler played together on the day I left (Saturday 1 July) and later in July the Academy of St Martin in the Fields performed Tippett’s Fantasia concertante on a Theme by Corelli the young star violinist María Dueñas and pianist Evgeny Sinaiski performed a recital. Although the streets and hotels of Bad Kissingen have many fine and friendly restaurants it could be a challenge to find a place to eat after the concerts One of the best for almost any time was the Ristorante da Vito am Rosengarten It is ideal for people-watching with its view of the Regentenbau and the rose garden was the Weinstube Rebstock opposite the Hotel Weisses Haus reached through a discreetly hidden passageway and open for only a few days each week It was there that I met the town’s music critic and Kissinger Sommer’s cultural editor Thomas Ahnert who warmly recalled the halcyon days when the festival first took flight A friend from Los Angeles told me he had attended all but the first two editions During my stay at Bad Kissingen for Kissinger Sommer Read: Postcard from Kerteminde: Chamber Music at Lundsgaard Read: ‘Keeping the accompanist on his toes’ - Postcard from Santander In The Best of Technique you’ll discover the top playing tips of the world’s leading string players and teachers It’s packed full of exercises for students plus examples from the standard repertoire to show you how to integrate the technique into your playing The Strad’s Masterclass series brings together the finest string players with some of the greatest string works ever written Masterclass has been an invaluable aid to aspiring soloists chamber musicians and string teachers since the 1990s Fulton amassed one of the 20th century’s finest collections of stringed instruments This year’s calendar pays tribute to some of these priceless treasures including Yehudi Menuhin’s celebrated ‘Lord Wilton’ Guarneri the Carlo Bergonzi once played by Fritz Kreisler and four instruments by Antonio Stradivari Tully Potter attended the 2025 editions of the Tertis and Aronowitz International Viola Competitions – held for the first time under one roof in the north-east of England – and he couldn’t fault the results Carlos María Solare joined the loyal audience at Heidelberg’s String Quartet Festival which celebrated both its 20th anniversary and the upcoming 90th birthday of composer Helmut Lachenmann At the 2024 edition of the Joseph Joachim Violin Competition Charlotte Gardner was treated to a masterclass in how a music contest can give its candidates a wholly positive experience  Schumann’s Violin Sonata no.2 may be exhausting but rewards listeners with a profound insight into the composer’s deepest soul US cellist Zlatomir Fung has delved into the world of the operatic fantasy – a relative rarity on the instrument He speaks to Peter Quantrill about how making the recording has revealed new aspects of his musical personality Site powered by Webvision Cloud Just a two-hour drive from Frankfurt or Nuremberg, or a half-hour’s ride from Würzburg, the regal spa town of Bad Kissingen beckons with splendid scenery, a rich history peopled with famed personalities and healing mineral waters. In a town offering ample space to roam, three parks, in particular, stand out: the Spa Garden, the Rose Garden and the Luitpold Park. Bad Kissingen, a spa town in Bavaria’s Lower Franconia region, enjoys an enviable location. Framed by the Rhön Mountains and Saale River, its rich mineral waters have attracted guests for centuries. By the 19th century, the town was already a fashionable resort, attracting royalty and the who’s who of the day, including Empress Elisabeth of Austria, Tsar Alexander II of Russia, King Ludwig II of Bavaria, Otto von Bismarck, Leo Tolstoy and numerous others. When the Austro-Prussian War raged, Kissingen saw fierce battle between Bavarian and Prussian troops. On the fateful day of July 10, 1866, the Prussians emerged victorious. Today, the spiffy city that’s home to some 22,500 residents attracts a stream of visitors year-round. Those suffering from medical ailments come for rehabilitation, vacationers seek tranquility and day-trippers eagerly soak up its regal atmosphere. Its seductive spa culture of swimming pools, saunas and Jacuzzis is a major draw, and for fans of warm water fun, a visit to the KissSalis thermal baths should not be missed. But there’s no need to disrobe to enjoy this city at the crossroads of history. Graceful parks, green spaces and blossoming beauty make this the place for leisurely strolls or sitting on a bench and watching the world go by. The Kurgarten, or spa garden, is five refined acres of palms and statuary, spectacularly offset by a handsome arcaded building. Inside the Max Temple, cure-takers sip mineral-rich waters rising from a natural spring. The garden, which was commissioned by King Ludwig I in 1834, is replanted three times yearly to ensure blooms match the seasons. The Kurgarten Café offers a cup of tea before continuing explorations. A stone’s throw away is the Rosengarten, in which 125 varieties of the fragrant flower flaunt their exquisiteness. The park’s so-called multimedia fountain is one-of-a-kind in Germany. Jets of water dance to musical compositions at set hours of the day, and when darkness falls, images are projected onto a screen made of millions of water particles. A trio of Luitpoldpark’s best features fosters harmony between body and soul. Vigorous treading through a pool in the Mediterranean Kneipp area purports to strengthen one’s cardiovascular system. The barefoot labyrinth, a winding path through grass, sand, bark and other textures, stimulates the soles of one’s feet. In the sound garden, harmonious clanging music plays. For more natural beauty, stroll alongside the Saale or conquer “der Hochrhöner,” a six-mile trail that passes by stately villas, over babbling brooks, uphill to a scenic viewpoint and back to town. Following in the footsteps of illustrious visitors of times past, you’ll be pleased to return to Bad Kissingen. Sign up to receive travel tips, local event details, restaurant reviews, recipes, community news, and more every week from Stripes Europe. A small town in Germany wants to change that Volker Rauch / ShutterstockFebruary 5, 2014 ShareSave Bad Kissingen is a spa town. According to the town’s website Bavarian King Ludwig II bestowed the “Bad” part of its name on it in 1883 but not because he didn’t enjoy his stay—“bad” means “bath” or “spa” in German Just south of the Rhön Mountains in Germany it’s quaintly charming in the way of small European towns (it has a population of about 20,000) Apparently there’s a bit of a competition among European spa towns—“medical tourism” brings people who want special or the cheapest possible version of a treatment of the University of Groningen in the Netherlands is the official business developer of Bad Kissingen “He joined with me to think—if we want to pimp this town if we want to make it more sexy and attractive Wieden sought Kantermann out for his particular expertise—Kantermann is a chronobiologist meaning he studies the differences in people’s circadian rhythms and sleep patterns A person’s preferred sleep pattern is his or her “chronotype.” This is what we’re talking about when we say someone is a morning person or a night owl Research has shown that living outside your chronotype which most of us do—waking ourselves up early with an alarm clock for school or work or staying out too late at the bars—can lead to all kinds of problems other than just being tired: poor memory even a greater risk for some kinds of cancer Sleep is mysterious, and we don’t totally understand why we need it—just that we do, and bad things happen if we don’t get enough of it. On average, we spend around 30 percent of our lives asleep, but as a review of the literature on circadian rhythms from 2005 notes “The introduction of artificial lighting and the restructuring of working hours has progressively detached our species from the 24-hour cycle of light and dark … At best we tolerate the fact that we need to sleep and at worst we think of sleep as an illness that needs a cure.” Though the initiative’s sexiness is perhaps debatable in an effort to stand out from the pack and improve the lives of its citizens and visitors Bad Kissingen has committed itself to finding ways to implement chronobiology into the fabric of the town’s society “The history of Bad Kissingen has [always] been linked to curation and health,” Wieden says tourism and health treatment are closely linked in Bad Kissingen Bad Kissingen is the best place in the world to start a ‘whole city project’ like this.” Russell Foster, a professor of neuroscience at Oxford University, studies chronobiology but is not involved in the Bad Kissingen project. “Changing behavior in any area is really difficult,” he says, and notes a classic study in which researchers observed a population of monkeys slowly learning to wash their food in the ocean to get the sand off “The ones that were slowest to adopt [the washing behavior] were at the top of the social hierarchy.” Similarly if those in charge of scheduling our lives—school boards it’s next to impossible to truly sleep like yourself But there Bad Kissingen has the advantage of buy-in from the top Kantermann is the project’s scientific manager and other researchers from the University of Groningen and the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich signed a letter of intent they pledged to promote chronobiology research in the town to “gather results that are directly applicable to living and sleep.” It goes on to claim that “the city of Bad Kissingen will be the first in the world realizing scientific field studies in a wider context.” Those involved often refer to Bad Kissingen as “ChronoCity.” Though it was first conceived more than a year ago the project is still in its infancy—it takes time and careful planning to do anything on this scale The goal is to get all of the town’s citizens’ chronotypes in an online database. Right now, individuals have to go to this website and input their own data; the hope is that one day schools and hospitals will take down this information as regularly as someone’s height or weight making it much easier to determine and work with the town’s needs The roots of the field of chronobiology are actually leaves when astronomer Jean-Jacques d'Ortous de Mairan noticed that the leaves of his heliotrope plant closed and opened at the same time every day and found that the leaves continued their punctual dance as German biologist Jürgen Aschoff discovered in the 1950’s so they would have no way to tell what time of day it was before experimenting on others.) Most people still kept pretty close to a 24-hour day This confirmed Aschoff’s earlier research (which he also did on himself) that found that that humans lose body heat in regular Aschoff is considered a co-founder of the field of chronobiology that a German town should be the first to try to take chronobiology mainstream especially the human part,” Kantermann says Now we have more sophisticated sleep labs where we do it Kantermann explains that the way we measure someone’s chronotype now uses a metric called “mid-sleep.” This is the halfway point between when you fall asleep have some of the latest chronotypes around Their mid-sleep is often as late as 6 or 7 a.m. “We have school starting at that time in Germany which means these students are sitting [in class] in the middle of their biological night,” he says Considering teens’ reliably late chronotypes the one concrete step that Bad Kissingen has taken so far was to do a couple of studies this past summer at the local high school looking at how light exposure affects students’ chronotypes how their chronotypes affect their academic performance so Kantermann can’t discuss the results yet but he is hopeful that the experiments will yield a way to help shift students’ chronotype using light It would seem that the easiest solution would be to just start school later, and studies have shown this to have real results. For example, in 1997, the Minneapolis Public School District changed its start time from 7:15 a.m. to 8:40 a.m., and a four-year longitudinal study found that students were notably less tardy and less sleepy during class with the later start time The data showed the students still went to bed at around the same time as they had before—they weren’t using the later start time as an excuse to stay up late But changing the school schedule presents a whole host of logistical issues—after school activities may run later or parents may have trouble dropping kids off especially if you don’t also shift the start time for elementary and middle-schoolers Kantermann notes that many students bus in from neighboring villages and sometimes have commutes that are an hour or two long So they’d still have to wake up pretty early If changing school start time isn’t possible Kantermann suggests moving things around within the existing school structure—pushing tests to the afternoon when students are more alert or having outside physical activity in the morning to expose them to more natural light These logistical issues apply to work as well. “Your employer should ideally capture the time of day when you’re going to be most productive,” Foster says. Adult chronotypes, though, can’t be as easily lumped together as late-sleeping teens. In fact, a 2004 study (on which Till Roenneberg who is also involved in the Bad Kissingen project the disappearance of this extra-late chronotype is a sign that adolescence is over “Children are early chronotypes and become progressively later (delaying) during development reaching a maximum in their ‘lateness’ at around the age of 20,” the study reads they become earlier again (advancing) with increasing age.” late-sleeping skin of your youth won’t make you into a morning person you’ll still be a night owl—just less extremely “An individual is likely to retain his/her chronotype—in relationship to others of the same age and sex—throughout life,” the researchers write Other studies corroborate this assertion that one’s chronotype is at least partly genetic Another Roenneberg study asserts that despite our morning-oriented society This is largely to do with our dissociation from natural light is the major zeitgeber for our internal clocks that means “time giver” or “synchronizer.” Chronobiologists use it to refer to cues in the environment that synchronize our internal clocks with the Earth’s 24-hour cycle due to the absence of a strong zeitgeber in modern society,” the study reads Our bodies don’t react as strongly to artificial light as to natural light (although we’ll eventually respond to mankind’s bulbs) so a society built on electrical light results in more late chronotypes than one reliant on sunshine And yet our fluorescent office culture is still geared toward early chronotypes On the other side of the coin are shift workers may have a sleep pattern that’s completely opposite of the cycle of natural light Though late chronotypes may have an easier time with this work schedule night shift workers have been shown to be at greater risk for certain kinds of cancer because disrupted sleep can impair the immune system shift workers are mostly health care professionals—doctors etc.—people you generally want to be well-rested If this sounds like a lot of problems with not a lot of solutions Even with the abundance of research available attempting to accommodate individuals yet maintain a societal framework,” Mary Carskadon director of chronobiology and sleep research at Bradley Hospital and psychiatry professor at Brown University “I can think of a number of barriers that might arise or unavailability of resources that might be required.” Foster also expressed concern that enthusiasm for sleep-improving projects tends to peter out over time that people just don’t take the importance of sleep seriously But he praised the questionnaire Kantermann et saying they already have the data of “tens of thousands of people all across Europe,” enough data to be able to analyze it and make generalizations about populations The signers of the letter of intent pledged to meet five times a year to talk about how things are progressing—Kantermann says their next meeting will probably be in March and he’s just glad people keep coming back; that interest hasn’t petered out on a project that is to experiment with the lighting in local clinics The ChronoCity project is partnering with lighting companies to help make that possible “We have to just manipulate a bit here and there,” he says but then it’s hard to determine what happened so we have to be careful that we don’t change too much.” Though they’re currently taking small bites out of this whale of a project “My great aim for this town is to make Bad Kissingen the first town in Germany that abolishes Daylight Savings Time,” he says “So the people can decide for themselves to change their clocks or not… To make this really a place where your internal time is acknowledged.” In a hypothetical future world where Bad Kissingen succeeds in letting all of its citizens and visitors live out their chronotypes The town as a whole would be more creative as would the population’s ability to problem-solve Chronically tired people often struggle with obesity so the town’s overall health—both mental and physical—would improve “Maybe this village will ultimately change its behavior,” Foster says so they’ll learn the best way of keeping the town on board Thomas [Kantermann] is very good at interacting with people Perhaps Bad Kissingen will be the sleep equivalent of the first monkey to wash its food—a harbinger of societal change to come We have the address for the funeral home & the family on file If you're not happy with your card we'll send a replacement or refund your money Gabriele "Gabbie" Mason, 57, of Thebes, Illinois passed away Monday, October 6, 2014 at her home. She was born Sunday, November 25, 1956 in Bad Kissingen, Germany to the late Frederick and Rita Boettcher. Gabbie married Joe Mason on May 18,... View Obituary & Service Information The family of Gabriele "Gabbie" Mason created this Life Tributes page to make it easy to share your memories Made with love by funeralOne Thus the existing urban grain and building massing become key references for the new building. The facades, made of exposed concrete with sandstone (and limestone aggregates), are also evocative of the surrounding sandstone buildings. The base and wall recesses of the administrative district office have chiseled vertical grooves that clearly differentiate between facade, recessed panel, and base – fully in the style of the historical neighbors. © Brigida GonzálezAs an elegant and simply designed building interweaves with the diversity of the existing structures and nevertheless reveals itself to be a decidedly contemporary building with its modern architectural language and floor-to-ceiling windows set within deep recesses You'll now receive updates based on what you follow Personalize your stream and start following your favorite authors If you have done all of this and still can't find the email The World Heritage Centre is at the forefront of the international community’s efforts to protect and preserve World Heritage partnerships for conservation Ensuring that World Heritage sites sustain their outstanding universal value is an increasingly challenging mission in today’s complex world where sites are vulnerable to the effects of uncontrolled urban development Our Partners Donate Take advantage of the search to browse through the World Heritage Centre information This transnational serial property comprises eleven spa towns located in seven European countries: Baden bei Wien (Austria); Spa (Belgium); Františkovy Lázně; Karlovy Vary; Mariánské Lázně (Czechia); Vichy (France); Bad Ems; Baden-Baden; Bad Kissingen (Germany); Montecatini Terme (Italy); and City of Bath (United Kingdom) All of these towns developed around natural mineral water springs They bear witness to the international European spa culture that developed from the early 18th century to the 1930s leading to the emergence of grand international resorts that impacted urban typology around ensembles of spa buildings such as baths kurhaus and kursaal (buildings and rooms dedicated to therapy) colonnades and galleries designed to harness the natural mineral water resources and to allow their practical use for bathing and drinking as well as spa-specific support infrastructure These ensembles are all integrated into an overall urban context that includes a carefully managed recreational and therapeutic environment in a picturesque landscape these sites embody the significant interchange of human values and developments in medicine Ce bien en série transnational comprend onze villes d’eaux situées dans sept pays européens : Bad Ems ; Baden-Baden ; Bad Kissingen (Allemagne) ; Baden bei Wien (Autriche) ; Spa (Belgique) ; Vichy (France) ; Montecatini Terme (Italie) ; Ville de Bath (Royaume-Uni) ; Františkovy Lázně ; Karlovy Vary ; et Mariânské Lâznë (Tchéquie) Toutes ces villes se sont développées autour de sources d’eau minérale naturelles Elles témoignent de la culture thermale européenne internationale qui s’est développée du début du XVIIIe siècle aux années 1930 conduisant à l’émergence de grandes stations internationales qui ont influencé la typologie urbaine autour d’ensembles de bâtiments thermaux tels que des bains des kurhaus et des kursaal (bâtiments et salles dédiés à la cure) conçues pour exploiter les ressources naturelles en eau minérale et les utiliser pour les bains et les cures d’eau thermale ainsi que des infrastructures de soutien spécifiques aux stations thermales Ces ensembles sont tous intégrés dans un contexte urbain global caractérisé par un environnement thérapeutique et récréatif soigneusement géré dans un paysage pittoresque Ces sites témoignent collectivement de l’échange d’idées et d’influences dans le cadre du développement de la médecine Este sitio serial transnacional abarca los célebres balnearios situados en once ciudades de siete países europeos: Baden bei Wien (Austria); Spa (Bélgica); Františkovy Lázně Karlovy Vary y Mariánské Lázně (Chequia); Vichy (Francia); Bad Ems Baden-Baden y Bad Kissingen (Alemania); Montecatini Terme (Italia) y City of Bath (Reino Unido) El desarrollo de todas estas localidades se debió a la existencia de manantiales de aguas minerales en sus territorios Dan testimonio de la cultura termal europea internacional que se desarrolló desde principios del siglo XVIII hasta el tercer decenio del siglo XX Esto condujo a la emergencia de grandes balnearios internacionales que influyeron en su estructura urbana que se organizó en torno a los edificios y estancias (“kurhaus” y “kursaal” en alemán) dedicados a las terapias termales columnatas y galerías concebidas para explotar los recursos naturales de agua mineral y utilizarlos para baños y curas de aguas termales Las ciudades balnearias crearon también numerosos jardines mansiones residenciales e infraestructuras específicamente destinadas a la conducción de las aguas termales Todas esas construcciones se integraron en conjuntos urbanos de gran belleza paisajística celosamente organizados para la administración de terapias y la realización de actividades recreativas El conjunto de estos balnearios es representativo de la importancia del intercambio de ideas e influencias en el marco del desarrollo de la medicina The Great Spas of Europe bear an exceptional testimony to the European spa phenomenon which gained its highest expression from around 1700 to the 1930s This transnational serial property comprises eleven spa towns located in seven countries: Baden bei Wien (Austria); Spa (Belgium); Karlovy Vary Františkovy Lázně and Mariánské Lázně (Czechia); Vichy (France); Bad Ems Baden-Baden and Bad Kissingen (Germany); Montecatini Terme (Italy); and City of Bath (United Kingdom) dynamic and international spa towns among the many hundreds that contributed to the European spa phenomenon all the towns developed around mineral water sources which were the catalyst for a model of spatial organisation dedicated to curative treatment facilities and colonnades designed to harness the water resources and to allow its practical use for bathing and drinking was complemented by exercise and social activities requiring visitor facilities such as assembly rooms villas and related infrastructures (from water piping systems and salts production to railways and funiculars) All are integrated into an overall urban context that includes a carefully managed recreational and therapeutic environment of parks Buildings and spaces connect visually and physically with their surrounding landscapes which are used regularly for exercise as a contribution to the therapy of the cure Criterion (ii): The Great Spas of Europe exhibits an important interchange of innovative ideas that influenced the development of medicine balneology and leisure activities from around 1700 to the 1930s This interchange is tangibly expressed through an urban typology centred on natural mineral springs and devoted to health and leisure Those ideas influenced the popularity and development of spa towns and balneology throughout Europe and in other parts of the world The Great Spas of Europe became centres of experimentation which stayed abreast of their competitors by adapting to the changing tastes sensitivities and requirements of visitors the principal agents of transmission were the architects designers and gardeners who created the built and ‘natural’ environments framing spa life the property displays important examples of spa architecture such as the ‘kurhaus’ and ‘kursaal’ colonnades and galleries designed to harness the natural mineral water resource and to allow its practical use for bathing and drinking Criterion (iii): The Great Spas of Europe bears exceptional testimony to the European spa phenomenon but gained its highest expression from around 1700 to the 1930s either externally (by bathing) or internally (by drinking and inhaling) involved a highly structured and timed daily regime and a combination of medical aspects and leisure including entertainment and social activities (e.g dancing) as well as taking physical exercise within an outdoor therapeutic spa landscape These parameters directly influenced the spatial layout of spa towns and the form and function of spa buildings or ‘spa architecture’ Urban parks and promenades allowed people taking the cure “to see and be seen” by others The eleven component parts that comprise the serial property represent the most exceptional examples of European spa towns All component parts share a set of determining characteristics formed during the most significant “culture-creating” phase of their history and development the heyday period from around 1700 to the 1930s Each and every one continues to function for the purpose for which it was originally developed The series illustrates the main stages of the development of the spa phenomenon starting with the most influential spa towns in the 18th century to the development of model spa towns in the 19th century to towns that are testimony to the last stages of the phenomenon in the early 20th century Boundaries are determined in relation to the mapping of the attributes that convey Outstanding Universal Value namely: the most important spa structures and buildings used for thermal-related activities; the social facilities and buildings for leisure and pleasure; accommodation facilities; related spa infrastructure; and the surrounding therapeutic and recreational spa landscape Buffer zones are drawn both for the protection of spring catchments and important setting All component parts and their constituent elements are generally in good condition Elements requiring conservation either have works already planned with their current state of conservation maintained Upgrades and redevelopments made to keep pace with standards of services can create tensions with their conservation as historic buildings Challenges in the adaptive reuse and technical upgrading of industrial structures pose similar challenges The property meets the conditions of authenticity in terms of form and design All component parts express the Outstanding Universal Value of the property through a variety of common and highly authentic attributes: mineral springs which maintain their natural physical qualities location and setting; a distinct and highly legible spatial layout and a well-maintained location and setting that combine to retain an enduring spirit and feeling; spa architecture even though some buildings have experienced change of use; the spa therapeutic landscape and continues to be used for the purpose for which it was designed; spa infrastructure much of which is either original or evolved on original principles and remains in use; continuing spa use and function despite the need to meet today’s standards The veracity and credible expression of attributes embodied in structures that date from around 1700 to the 1930s the principal period of contribution to Outstanding Universal Value is further evidenced during substantial and sustained conservation works that are informed by expansive archival collections of plans publications and photographs held at each component part Responsibility for the protection and management of each of the eleven component parts of the property rests with the national/regional government (in the case of Germany and local authorities of that State Party) Each component is protected through legislation and spatial planning regulations applicable in its State Party or individual province as well as by a significant degree of public/charitable ownership of key buildings and landscapes Each component part has a property manager or coordinator and a Local Management Plan in place conforming to the overall Property Management Plan An overall management system for the whole property has been established with a Property Management Plan and Action Plan agreed by all stakeholders made up of national World Heritage Focal Points and/or a representative of the highest monument or heritage protection authority keeps track of matters relating to the property made up of the Mayors of the eleven components is responsible for the operational coordination and overall management of the property in close consultation with the Inter-Governmental Committee The Board sets and manages the budget for the overall management functions and directs other activities for the property as a whole The Site Managers Group includes site managers for each component part The Site Managers Group is essentially an expert group for debate and exchanges of experience and to advise the GSMB on relevant management issues The international structure is supported and serviced by a Secretariat jointly funded by all the component parts An important concern will be to continue to develop cooperation and collaboration between the individual component parts and to ensure that the property as a whole is effectively managed and the overall management system is adequately resourced Development pressures may be an issue since these are living cities which will need to continue to adapt and change to maintain their role as spa towns Managing tourism so that it is truly sustainable may also become a challenge A management approach at the landscape level which considers the relationship between each component part and the broader setting is also needed to maintain views to Between daylight saving and obligatory early starts we live at the mercy of ‘official’ time – and many of us feel permanently out of sync The tourism brochure for the German spa town of Bad Kissingen features a photograph of a young woman on its cover the woman is perched peacefully on a sunny rock overlooking a river Emblazoned on the top left of the page is the slogan Entdecke die Zeit – Discover Time Most of us are not free to choose our work or school hours; we have little control over the lighting in our public spaces and external environment; and we are even forced to reprogramme our internal clock twice a year because of daylight saving time The question that the idea of the “ChronoCity” raises is what changes could society make to better accommodate our body clocks came up with the ChronoCity concept in 2013 Having followed scientific developments in the field of chronobiology with interest Wieden realised that not only could weaving these principles into the town’s fabric benefit its residents it would also make Bad Kissingen stand out from rival spa towns Bad Kissingen has always been about healing and health he reasoned; so what better way to heal our modern society than by bringing it back into contact with natural light and sleep Tourists could come and learn about the importance of internal time then return home and implement the lessons in their everyday lives Wieden contacted a chronobiologist called Thomas Kantermann who was similarly enthused by the idea of launching a revolution in the way that society prioritises sleep the two men began drawing up a manifesto of the things they’d like to change: schools should start later children be educated outdoors where possible and examinations not conducted in the mornings; businesses should be encouraged to offer flexitime allowing people to work and study when they felt at their best; health clinics could pioneer chronotherapies tailoring drug treatments to patients’ internal time; hotels might offer guests variable meal- and check-out times; and buildings should be modified to let in more daylight together with Bad Kissingen’s mayor and town council signed a letter of intent in which they pledged to promote chronobiology research in the town and to make Bad Kissingen the first place in the world to “realise scientific field studies in a wider context” Most controversial of all was their suggestion that Bad Kissingen should split from the rest of Germany and do away with daylight saving time (DST) – the practice of advancing clocks during summer months in order to make the evening daylight last longer the world has been subdivided into 24 time zones all referring to the longitudinal meridian that crosses the Greenwich observatory in London Roughly a quarter of the world’s population – including most of the inhabitants of western Europe most of the US and parts of Australia – also change their clocks twice a year The original idea of DST is attributed to Benjamin Franklin who voiced concerns about energy consumption during dark autumn and winter evenings as early as 1784 lighting accounts for 19% of global electricity consumption and approximately 6% of worldwide carbon dioxide emissions However, it wasn’t until 1907 that an Englishman called William Willett self-published a pamphlet, The Waste of Daylight Willett believed that aligning work hours closer to sunrise (at least in cities) might encourage people to participate in more outdoor recreation reduce industrial energy consumption and facilitate military training in the evenings Willett died of influenza a year before his dream was realised: the UK adopted DST in 1916 Willett “has the monument he would have wished in the thousands of playing-fields crowded with eager young people every fine evening throughout the summer and one of the finest epitaphs that any man could win: He gave more light to his countrymen” as grasped by a fierce opponent of the change the efficiency of the worker will be somewhat dampened” By moving the clocks forwards each spring and backwards each autumn to use the term coined by the German chronobiologist Till Roenneberg to describe the gap between our individual body clock and the external clocks and timings that rule our lives One study of US high-school students – a population that is already sleep-deprived – suggested that their sleep was curtailed by 32 minutes per night during the week following the spring clock change Maths and science test scores fall in the week following the start of DST among young adolescents while another study found lower annual scores for the SAT tests which are used to decide university admissions the transition to summer time and the sleep deprivation it causes has been associated with an increase in accidental deaths and injuries US judges have even been found to dole out heftier sentences for the same crimes in the week after the transition clock changes have been tied to an elevated risk of heart attacks suicide attempts and psychiatric admissions as Kantermann and Wieden campaigned for it to do Bad Kissingen would have become the DST-free town in Europe: “Every individual and business would have got a big publicity boost from doing that,” says Roenneberg who also supports the scrapping of the biannual changeover Deliberately putting oneself in such temporal isolation may sound extreme the US state of Arizona has declined to join the rest of the country in its annual spring leap forward to DST – although the Navajo Nation follows the rest of Arizona in remaining on winter time.) in southern England many would like to see the entire country shifted permanently forward into Central European Time the annual changing of clocks back to winter time means that it gets dark as early as 4pm in December and early January This all goes to highlight a central point: our biology is tethered to the sun yet the clocks society uses to keep time are influenced by a tangled web of political and historical factors the country extends across nine degrees of longitude and the sun takes four minutes to pass over each of them which means that the sun rises 36 minutes earlier at its eastern border than at its western one In a country with the same time zone – and the same TV and radio shows and work culture – you might expect that everyone would rise at more or less the same time but Roenneberg has demonstrated that people’s chronotype – their innate propensity to sleep at a particular time – is shackled to sunrise Germans wake up four minutes later for every degree of longitude you travel west meaning that those in the extreme east rise 36 minutes earlier than those living in the extreme west of the country A similar pattern has been documented in the US where those living on the eastern edge of its time zones get up earlier than those on the western edge this discrepancy between external and internal time is enormous A key reason why the Spaniards eat dinner so late is because – positioned as they are at the extreme west of the Central European time zone – 10pm is in fact 7.30pm according to their internal time meaning that the standard nine-to-five worker who didn’t go outdoors at lunchtime would spend several months of winter seeing practically no daylight at all which switched to permanent summer time in 2011 performed an abrupt U-turn just three years later citing the ill health and accidents it caused the chair of the State Duma health committee claimed that the switch condemned Russians to increased stress and worsening health because of having to travel to work or to school in pitch darkness It was also blamed for an increase in morning road accidents at least some parts of Russia have switched to living on permanent winter time Muscovites now complain of the insomnia brought about by early sunrises during summer which just goes to illustrate the complexity of the issue and how hard it is to get right Illustration: Dennis VernooijThere are few members of society who more obviously find it hard to conform to its early-bird demands than teenagers that one of Bad Kissingen’s most enthusiastic early adopters of the ChronoCity idea was the local secondary school which caters for around 900 pupils aged 10 to 18 a group of older students created a questionnaire and canvassed their fellow pupils about whether it would be desirable to start school at 9am rather than 8am: the majority said it would They also chronotyped the entire school and calculated the amount of social jetlag its pupils were suffering from each week Approximately 40% were experiencing two to four hours of social jetlag while a further 10% were contending with four to six hours – equivalent to flying from Berlin to Bangkok and back – each week Teenagers are at greater risk of social jetlag than adults because their biological rhythms are naturally shifted later This makes it harder for them to fall asleep at night and yet they still must get up in the morning to go to school To compensate for the sleep deprivation this causes Teenagers’ later chronotype also means that their natural peaks in logical reasoning and alertness occur later than they do in adults. In one study Canadian researchers compared the cognitive performance of teenagers and adults during the mid-morning The teens’ scores improved by 10% in the afternoon whereas the adults’ scores deteriorated by 7% When researchers from the University of Minnesota investigated the impact of the change they were surprised to find almost unanimous support for it among students Students said that they felt less tired during the day while teachers reported that the children seemed more engaged and focused other schools started changing their hours as well but no one had done a proper before-and-after study confirming that it made a real difference a paediatrician with a particular interest in sleep medicine was called in by her daughter’s high school to talk to staff about the potential benefits of starting school 30 minutes later she decided to see if they could produce some more robust evidence “Many felt that half an hour wasn’t going to do anything – it would just disrupt the school schedule,” Owens recalls She suggested that they collect data on the students’ sleep and mood before and after a three-month trial of the later start Owens was pleasantly surprised by the results Just a 30-minute delay in starting school resulted in pupils getting an extra 45 minutes of sleep per night The percentage of students getting less than seven hours of sleep decreased from 34% to just 7% The kids also rated themselves as more motivated to participate in a variety of activities But the thing that really swung it for Owens was the change in her own daughter “She was like a different person,” she says “It was no longer a battle to get her up in the morning; she would be able to eat breakfast; and the start of the day was just pleasant Owens changed her research focus and became involved in drawing up policy on school start times for the American Academy of Pediatrics they issued a policy statement: starting school before 8.30am is a key modifiable contributor to insufficient sleep But if school should start later in the day Most British students don’t start school until around 8.50am but one recent study concluded that most 18- and 19-year-olds don’t feel mentally sharp until much later and therefore possibly shouldn’t start their studies until after 11am the same researchers tested whether moving the start time of an English comprehensive school from 8.50am to 10am made any difference to its 13- to 16-year-old pupils Rates of absence due to illness fell dramatically following the change: whereas before they had been slightly above the national average two years after the change they were down to half the national rate Even a 10am start would be difficult to impose in countries such as the US where most adults also start work earlier than in Britain It would require a change of mindset among parents – as well as a more flexible attitude by employers – but the data suggests that it would make a difference to many pupils An individual’s chronotype is based on their sleep behaviour on free days and a simple way to define it is to look at when the mid-point of sleep occurs: if you fall asleep at midnight at weekends and wake up at 8am Roenneberg has discovered that for 60% of people the mid-sleep time on free days is between 3.30am and 5.30am Expecting people to wake at 6.30am and then to be mentally sharp when they arrive at work at 8am or 9am involves something of a fight against nature your mental skills peak and trough at various times throughout the day Logical reasoning tends to peak between 10am and noon; problem-solving between noon and 2pm; while mathematical calculations tend to be fastest around 9pm We also experience a post-lunch dip in alertness and concentration between about 2pm and 3pm so an early riser’s peak in problem-solving may arrive several hours earlier than a night owl’s Research into this area is only just beginning but managers with early-bird tendencies have been found to judge employees who start work later as less conscientious compared to those who share such managers’ sleep preferences Not only would a greater appreciation of these individual differences and employees’ health and happiness: “If you are forcing an evening person to show up at 7am all you have is a grumpy employee who sits there and drinks coffee procrastinating until 9am because he simply can’t focus,” says Stefan Volk a management researcher at the University of Sydney Business School “they said: ‘You have to change the clocks back.’” People are always watching the clock.” For the ChronoCity initiative to work it requires a more flexible mindset: one that says it doesn’t matter when you start work Adapted from Chasing the Sun by Linda Geddes, published by Wellcome Collection and Profile Books and available at guardianbookshop.com Follow the Long Read on Twitter at @gdnlongread, or sign up to the long read weekly email here Please select what you would like included for printing: Copy the text below and then paste that into your favorite email application Enter your phone number above to have directions sent via text This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply Service map data © OpenStreetMap contributors we probe the fundamental structure of particles that make up everything around us We do so using the world's largest and most complex scientific instruments Know more The Higgs Boson The W boson The Z boson The Large Hadron Collider The Birth of the web Antimatter Latest news Media News The research programme at CERN covers topics from kaons to cosmic rays and from the Standard Model to supersymmetry See all resources a giant of the field who contributed so much to the experimental development of the Standard Model Born in the Bavarian town of Bad Kissingen in 1921 he left Germany at the age of 13 to escape rising antisemitism and settled in the United States After receiving a degree in chemistry from the University of Chicago working at the MIT radiation laboratory through the war years before returning to Chicago to embark on a career in theoretical physics he switched to the experimental side of the field conducting mountaintop investigations into cosmic rays This marked the beginning of his interest in neutrino physics which would be rewarded with the 1988 Nobel Prize in Physics shared with Melvin Schwartz and Leon Lederman for their 1962 discovery of the muon neutrino at Brookhaven National Laboratory Jack joined CERN to work on CP violation experiments he went on to become a founding member of the CERN-Dortmund-Heidelberg-Saclay (CDHS) collaboration which was later joined by a group from Warsaw and conducted neutrino scattering experiments in the West Experimental Area CDHS produced a string of important results using neutrino beams to probe the structure of protons and neutrons When the Large Electron-Positron Collider (LEP) was first proposed a core group from CDHS joined with physicists from other institutions to develop a detector for CERN’s new flagship facility This initiative grew into the ALEPH experiment with his great scientific curiosity and remarkable rigour was the natural choice to become its first spokesperson in 1980 The detector as a whole benefited from Jack’s charismatic leadership and clarity of mind he stipu­lated that stan­dard solutions should be adopted across the whole detector as far as possible Jack was also insistent that all solutions considered for the detector first had to be completely understood this level of di­scipline paid dividends and was reflected in the results Jack continued to be a regular presence at CERN contributing to the intellectual life of the Laboratory until well into his 90s notably by returning to his interest in CP violation as an adviser to the NA31 A full obituary will appear in the CERN Courier Also read Jack's 2016 interview with the CERN Courier. More Social Media Accounts Editor’s Note: This story about Henry Kissinger 2023 on the occasion of his 100th birthday How readers may choose to commemorate the birthday of Henry Kissinger, who turns 100 on May 27 may well depend on their previous readings about the former Secretary of State and National Security adviser Those who appreciated Niall Ferguson’s hagiographical two-volume biography will applaud Kissinger’s role as the first Jewish secretary of state and his success in helping to achieve détente with Communist China and the Soviet Union By contrast, political writers Seymour Hersh and especially Christopher Hitchens have pointed to a series of alleged war crimes by Kissinger in Vietnam Cyprus and East Timor marked by decisions made with apparent blithe unconcern for human suffering and loss of life Law experts insist there is scant chance that Kissinger will ever be tried as a war criminal, although some of his close political associates, including the Chilean dictator General Augusto Pinochet, did undergo that experience and the historic legal immunity of that building for myriad crimes has become familiar to Americans over the past four years Even authors whose viewpoints are somewhere between the two extremes, from Walter Isaacson to Gil Troy, have presented troubling accounts of how Heinz Kissinger ruthlessly achieved worldwide fame and fortune The family name was originally Löb, revamped by Kissinger’s great-great-grandfather Meyer, who aspired to the glamor associated with the Bavarian spa town of Bad Kissingen. Comparably, Kissinger’s career may be seen as an exercise in ambitious self-creation, behind which little can be identified as genuine. His near-century is epitomized by a TV commercial broadcast in November 2001 filmed to lure tourists back to Manhattan after the Sept The ad showed a body double for Kissinger rounding the bases of Yankee Stadium and belly flopping into home plate A close-up is shown of Kissinger brushing dirt off his suit possibly even including his celebrated exotic accent Biographers have noted that Kissinger’s brother Walter emigrated to America with the rest of the family in 1938 and since then speaks in accent-less standard American speech Kissinger opted for an imposing otherness by retaining his foreign speech patterns While accepting honors from Jewish organizations Kissinger has also behaved and spoken in ways that estranged some of his fellow Jews Among his statements, one from March 1973 caused a stir when it was published in 2010. Taped in conversation with Richard Nixon soon after a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir, Kissinger disdained the notion of pressuring the USSR about persecuted Soviet Jews saying: “The emigration of Jews from the Soviet Union is not an objective of American foreign policy and if they put Jews into gas chambers in the Soviet Union In 2011, hitherto secret U.S. State Department documents from late 1972 were likewise published, revealing that Kissinger was irked by the concern expressed by American Jews about the fate of Soviet Jewry calling the former “self-serving…bastards.” Walter Isaacson explains that at a contemporaneous meeting of the Washington Special Actions Group “If it were not for the accident of my birth I would be antisemitic.” He added: “Any people who has been persecuted for two thousand years must be doing something wrong.” During a Vietnam War-era chat from October 1973 with Brent Scowcroft, Deputy Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs Kissinger found American Jews and Israelis “as obnoxious as the Vietnamese.” Kissinger also mocked those who defended Jews, especially Israelis. One such target was presidential adviser Daniel Patrick Moynihan, whose pro-Israel stance evoked this comment from Kissinger: “We are conducting foreign policy Kissinger further inquired derisively if the Irish-Catholic Moynihan wished to convert to Judaism. These and other wisecracks led some observers, like Yeshiva University’s Rabbi Norman Lamm to disavow Kissinger as early as December 1975. Noting that one of Kissinger’s first actions as Secretary of State was to revoke the standard procedure allowing Jewish State Department employees holidays on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur Rabbi Lamm cited other instances where Kissinger failed to commemorate or even mention the Holocaust: “Let us openly disassociate from [Kissinger] He wants not to be a part of our people — its history and its destiny And let us insist that he be done with his occasional shrewd remarks to the press or to diplomats that he would not jeopardize the lives of Jews or other oppressed peoples because he too is a refugee from oppression A man who ‘forgets’ millions of his fellow sufferers has lost the moral right to make use of their suffering and his own refugee status in furthering his own ends… Our Kavod (honor) ultimately will be better served if Henry Kissinger will succeed in severing whatever frail and residual bonds still tie him to the House of Jacob and the Children of Israel Let us grant him his obvious wish to be dis-united with us.” More acceptingly, historian Gil Troy depicted Kissinger as a “conflicted” Jew and “German intellectual,” although his scholarly bona fides were questioned at Harvard where Kissinger’s verbose senior undergraduate thesis contained over 400 pages leading the university to set word limits for all future student efforts the closest bookish parallel may be with the 19th century Anglo-Irish statesman Lord Castlereagh Hated for his attacks on liberty and reform, Castlereagh inspired the following lines in P.B. Shelley’s poem “The Masque of Anarchy,” evoking the carnage resulting from political rhetoric: “I met Murder on the way –/ He had a mask like Castlereagh –/ Very smooth he looked yet grim;/ Seven bloodhounds followed him… For one by one and two by two,/ He tossed them human hearts to chew/ Which from his wide cloak he drew.” As he approaches his century with no remorse or reckoning for any possible human rights offenses Kissinger’s legacy in Jewish matters retains the aura of Shelley’s bloodhounds and human hearts Benjamin Ivry is a frequent Forward contributor I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward American Jews need independent news they can trust At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S rising antisemitism and polarized discourse This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up Copyright © 2025 The Forward Association SEARCHThe global authority in superyachting Ruth Bloomfield explores Germany's renowned spa towns, unpacking the many reasons to buy property here... If anywhere in Europe can lay claim to being the birthplace of wellness it is Germany, where the wealthy have flocked to take the waters since antiquity. The country is home to three of Europe’s 11 UNESCO World Heritage spa town sites – Baden-Baden and the smaller towns of Bad Ems and Bad Kissingen – all an easy drive from Frankfurt Airport. Venerable guests have included Mark Twain, who said he had “left his rheumatism” in Baden-Baden, and Marlene Dietrich, who described the town’s casino as the most beautiful in the world, as well as a trio of contemporary power couples: the Clintons, the Obamas and the Beckhams. Victoria Beckham recently told her Instagram followers that she and David visit yearly for an “annual MOT”, having “literally everything” checked out. Baden-Baden’s international reputation (the name means “the baths of Baden”) is staked on its spas and clinics – you can visit the glamorous Friedrichsbad bathhouse or book a treatment at hotels such as the Belle Époque-era Brenners Park-Hotel & Spa – but there are other reasons to buy property here. Those who wish to immerse themselves in nature have the 600,000-hectare Black Forest on the doorstep, and the town itself is both beautiful and useful, with an opera house and theatre, Michelin-starred restaurants and designer stores. “Even though the population is only 55,000 people, it is a very special place – a luxury city, an oasis with a lot of international flair,” says Peter Schürrer, managing director of Baden-Württemberg Sotheby’s International Realty. Baden-Baden’s prime property is centred around Lichtentaler Allee, an exquisite park that snakes its way southwards from the town centre. Around it are a dozen or so streets lined with fairytale white stucco mansions. The average asking price in Baden-Baden stands at €4,144 (£3,551) per square metre for houses and €3,457 per square metre for apartments, says Thomas Zabel, managing director of Savills Residential Agency Germany. But around Lichtentaler Allee, buyers can expect to pay upward of €10,000 per square metre and, since the houses are large, prices start at around €4 million. These homes rarely come up for sale. Before the invasion of Ukraine they tended to end up in the hands of Russian owners. Today, says Schürrer, they may be bought by wealthy Germans as a main or holiday home, or by Swiss, Italian or American buyers. Those who intend to make Baden-Baden their permanent home tend to be families attracted by the good schools and retirees for whom the outstanding medical facilities appeal, he adds. His prognosis for the future is that prices have reached their lowest level in the prime Baden-Baden market, although he expects values to remain flat in the short and medium term. Schürrer agrees that the power balance of the Baden-Baden market switched in 2023 from sellers to buyers, who now have a far greater choice of homes than in the recent past. He believes this imbalance will cause prices to stagnate this upcoming year, and three or four years beyond that. Looking on the bright side, Zabel believes now is a good time for buyers to pick up a prestige property at a sensible price. “For buyers, entrance prices are cheaper than before, and they are not going to lose money over the next two years,” he says. Located 10km east of Baden-Baden, Schloss Eberstein was built in the 13th century and comes with 43 hectares of grounds, including gardens, forest and vineyards. Currently a boutique hotel, it could be converted into a spectacular 7,180m2 private home. €19.5 million, sotheybysrealty.com Latest news, brokerage headlines and yacht exclusives, every weekday SubscribeSign up to our newslettersSign up to BOAT International email newsletters to get the latest superyacht news Boat International Media Ltd © 2008 - 2025 Content presented under the "BOAT Presents" logo is an advertising feature and Boat International Limited has been paid to include this content By 2024-08-16T11:55:32.077+01:00 Carlos María Solare discovers a raft of enticing concerts at this year’s spectacle in Bad Kissingen Heartfelt Elgar from Vilde Frang and the BBC SO under Sakari Oramo focused on Berlin’s musical life past and present featured many ensembles from the German capital there was a decidedly British angle to its opening weekend with the BBC Symphony Orchestra in attendance for two concerts and a ‘Symphonic Mob’ a brainchild of the festival’s director Alexander Steinbeis saw the BBC SO’s members playing alongside amateurs in an impromptu al fresco performance of chestnuts by Grieg the present reviewer among the 500 participants.  The festival’s opening concert (21 June) featured the BBC SO’s principal conductor Sakari Oramo in a seldom witnessed capacity In his cantata Der neue Orpheus (a satirical take on the old myth) Kurt Weill dispenses completely with violins until half way through strikes up various dance rhythms from the Roaring Twenties Rather than having the orchestra’s leader sit around on his own for half the piece Oramo picked up the violin and performed the demanding solo from memory – page-turning being out of the question – while imperturbably leading the orchestra through the ever-changing rhythms Soprano Anu Komsi (Mrs Oramo) sailed through the cantata’s intricate solo part with aplomb and an excellent feeling for the many-layered Expressionist text Weill was bookended by two Shakespeare-related pieces: Weber’s Oberon Overture and Mendelssohn’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream complete with a Shakespeare-derived narration deliciously put across by the well-loved actress Martina Gedeck Read: Life Lessons: Timothy Ridout Watch: Vilde Frang plays Paganini and Schubert Read: ‘Learning to trust yourself is a never-ending process’ - Nils Mönkemeyer’s life lessons The BBC SO returned the next day for a concert that included a beautifully three-dimensional interpretation of Beethoven’s ‘Pastoral’ Symphony and Elgar’s Violin Concerto in a typically heartfelt reading from Vilde Frang the accompanied cadenza working its intangible magic; throughout Frang’s rendition of Elgar’s highly personal writing felt completely idiomatic one of today’s best English string players appeared at the chamber music hall next door With the nimble-fingered Federico Colli at the piano Timothy Ridout honoured the festival’s Berlin theme with viola sonatas by W.F Bach and Mendelssohn alongside Schumann’s perennial Märchenbilder and Brahms’s E minor (Cello) Sonata its potentially muddy-sounding finale arguably sounding better an octave higher Ridout’s plangent tone sang out all the way up the A string cheerfully celebrating Brahms’s melodic muse Colli came to the fore in Mendelssohn’s sonata its prominent piano part positively sparkling in his hands Ridout’s contribution made much of relatively few notes but he came into his own in the concluding flourish Bach’s sonata (attributed in one source to Bach’s colleague J.G Graun) also includes a virtuoso keyboard part Ridout’s demisemiquaver runs competing on equal terms with Colli’s both players equally adept at underlining the slow movement’s aching dissonances.  My last concert at Bad Kissingen (23 June) featured the piano duo of Yaara Tal and Andreas Groethuysen in some beautifully phrased Schubert – including the F minor Fantasy – as well as an intriguing arrangement by Carl Burchard of Mendelssohn’s String Octet for string quartet and four-handed piano While the string parts remain largely unchanged the overall sound is radically different: the sweeping opening tune is played by first violin and piano in unison Burchard made a speciality of such arrangements and this one was certainly given the best of chances with an all-star string ensemble – Lena Neudauer Nils Mönkemeyer and Wen-Sinn Yang – that was obviously having a great time Harriet Smith finds that rain certainly didn’t stop play at Leif Ove Andsnes’s inspiring annual Norwegian gathering from 7–11 August 2024 Music by a neglected Romantic figure proves to be a game of two halves Find out how this new carbon fibre bow is claiming its place in bow making history An album to seduce and thrill in equal measure A crack ensemble proves its mettle in highly varied fare An adventurous violist offers a dance through the centuries Don't get confused: Burger King is offering an ever-expanding range of plant-based products that taste confusingly similar to their meat-based originals But while some guests almost think they've mistaken their order when biting into the plant-based Whopper a few meat-loving Burger King fans are still hesitant to try plant-based Burger King has called on big name support Whether it's Michael Jordan from Bad Kissingen Julia Roberts from Brannenburg or Oprah Winfrey from Georgia they're all familiar with this problem: Due to their famous names they are regularly mistaken for their namesakes in their everyday life They are true experts on the risks of confusion and confirm that the Burger King plant-based products which are developed together with The Vegetarian Butcher taste (un)mistakably like their tasty meat versions people with celebrity names were portrayed in their personal favorite Burger King® restaurant with a delicious Plant-based burger The images featuring Michael Jordan from Bad Kissingen Steffi Graf from Soltau and Oprah Winfrey from Georgia can be seen all throughout Germany a competition will be launched on the Burger King social media channels because there are without a doubt some fans in the community whose names lead to the occasional confusion in everyday life The campaign was launched by Burger King together with the agencies Grabarz & Partner "When Michael Jordan or Julia Roberts introduce themselves many people are wide-eyed and totally surprised who often ask whether their plant-based Whopper and the original were not mixed up," explains Klaus Schmäing director marketing at BURGER KING Deutschland GmbH "It's no wonder: They look exactly the same have the unmistakable taste and (almost) the same names we play on this risk of confusion in a tongue-in-cheek and creative way." it's an absolute dream to work with famous names like Oprah Winfrey Or am I just confusing things?" wonders Felix Fenz chief creative officer of Grabarz & Partner "The fact that of all things a fast food brand is suddenly at the forefront when it comes to meat-free alternatives can certainly cause some confusion commanding general of the National Training Center/Fort Irwin The Defense Department nominated Leserpance for promotion on Feb Lesperance will be heading to the Republic of Korea where he will be commanding general of the 2nd Infantry Division (Combined) The 2nd Infantry Division is unique in that it is the only U.S. Army division that is made up partially of South Korean soldiers called KATUSAs (Korean Augmentation to the U.S This program began in 1950 by agreement with the first South Korean president Lesperance graduated from Portland State University in 1989 and was commissioned an Armor Officer His first assignment was with 2nd Squadron “Eaglehorse,” 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment Support Platoon Leader and Troop Executive Officer from 1990 to 1993 including a deployment in support of Operation Desert Storm Upon graduation from the Infantry Officer Advanced Course in 1993 Lesperance commanded the Cape Girardeau Recruiting Company “Gators” from 1994 to 1996 8th Cavalry Regiment “Mustangs,” 1st Cavalry Division and served as S-3 Air and later commanded Delta Company “Dawgpound” and Headquarters and Headquarters Company “Hawk” from 1996 to 1999 including a deployment in support of Operation Joint Forge Lesperance served at the United States Army Infantry School as a Small Group Instructor and Team Chief Lesperance served on the Multi-National Division-Baghdad staff in 2007 in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Following this assignment, he commanded 1st Battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment from 2008 to 2010, including a deployment in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. He then served as Scorpion 07 at the National Training Center from May 2010 to July 2011. The general graduated from the United States Army War College June 2012. Lesperance commanded 3rd Armored Brigade Combat Team “Greywolf,” 1st Cavalry Division from June 2012 to June 2014; was the III Armored Corps “Phantom” Chief of Staff from June 2014 to July 2015; commanded Operations Group, National Training Center from July 2015 until June 2016; was the Assistant Commanding GeneralóSupport, 1st Special Forces Command from June 2016 to April 2017 and most recently as the Chief of Armor and Armor School Commandant from April 2017 to August 2019. Lesperance has been commanding general at NTC/Fort Irwin since 2019. High Desert Warrior is published the first Friday of the month. High Desert Warrior is distributed to military and contractor personnel at Fort Irwin NTC, including 2,000 on-base housing units, offices and high traffic locations on base as well as locations throughout Barstow and surrounding communities. News and ad copy deadline is noon on the Tuesday prior to publication. The publisher assumes no responsibility for error in ads other than space used. The appearance of advertising in this publication, including inserts or supplements, does not constitute endorsement by the Department of Defense, U.S. Air Force, U.S. Army, U.S. Navy, U.S. Marine Corps, or Aerotech News and Review, Inc., of the products or services advertised. is in the Rosenheim district on the shores of Lake Chiemsee it’s had some famous previous residents: Pope Benedict XVI’s mother was born and raised in Rimsting and worked as a cook in some of the lakeside hotels It’s a fair amount of work to visit Wank, a mountain in the Alps in southern Bavaria that’s 1,780 metres (5,840 feet) high so they wonder why tourists insist on taking pictures with every ‘Zum Wank’ (‘To Wank’) sign Scenic Mount Wank | © Pixelteufel / Flickr Poing Down the road from Mount Wank and about 18 kilometres (11.2 miles) from Munich is Poing One of its main attractions is Wildpark Poing Bad Kissingen goes way back to AD 801; this Lower Franconian district is home to a famous spa town of the same name once known for its healing mineral springs It’s maintained its therapeutic reputation today and was where the Chinese Olympic football team trained for the 2008 Beijing Olympics The German-Chinese Football Academy is still open today 1930s travel brochure for Bad Kissingen | © Susanlenox / Flickr Titz Titz is over in North Rhine-Westphalia It’s not very big; the district is only – wait for it – 69 km² decided to name one of their districts Spiel (German for ‘game’) Guess where the giggle-inducing Weener is – in the aptly named district of Leer This city on the banks of the River Ems near the Dutch border dates at least as far back as 951 Sign up to our newsletter to save up to $800 on our unique trips See privacy policy This way for Weener | © tup wanders / Flickr | © tup wanders / Flickr Petting This small municipality is right on the Austrian border a pretty lake formed by melting glaciers at the end of the last ice age there’s some evidence Petting dates back as far as the Roman Empire Wangerland didn’t stop at their name – its coat of arms is a topless mermaid. When in Wangerland, right? It’s up in northern Germany, almost in the North Sea and not too far from Bremen and Hamburg Wangerland has history: first human settlements date back to 2nd century BC The symbol of Wangerland | © m.prinke / Flickr Wankum This tiny village just off the A40 autobahn gets a disproportionate number of English-speaking visitors popping in to take pictures with their ‘Welcome to Wankum’ signs Wankum is part of the Wachtendonk municipality Titisee is a high-altitude lake in the popular Black Forest district appearances can be deceiving: the lake covers 1.3 km² (321 acres) and is and there are several theories how it came about: some say it honors a local nobleman Titini; another theory is that it was named after infamous Roman general A dead end in Titisee | © Steffen Zahn / Flickr Fahrtgasse Too good to ignore, Fahrtgasse is actually a street, one of the main thoroughfares in the bustling city of Heidelburg, home to Germany’s oldest university it’s in the heart of the city’s shopping district and one of Heidelburg’s main swimming pools is on Fahrtgasse The names don’t stop at the border: Austria pips it to the list for some of the most brilliantly hilarious names the now infamous town of Fucking (rhymes with ‘booking’) gave the world theft-resistant road signs but four cities named Windpassing (one is twinned with Middelfart in Denmark) Welcome to Fucking | © Tobias “ToMar” Maier / Wikimedia Commons If you click on a link in this story All recommendations have been independently sourced by Culture Trip Read Next See & Do The Best European Cities to Visit in September Art 10 Masterpieces You Can Only See in Munich Guides & Tips The Best European Cities to Visit in December See & Do The Best European Cities to Visit in October See & Do The Best European Cities to Visit in July See & Do The Best European Cities to Visit in Autumn See & Do The Best European Cities to Visit in Summer See & Do Germany's Most Beautiful Abbeys and Monasteries See & Do A Guide to River Cruises in Germany: What to Know Design The Most Beautiful Churches in Berlin Guides & Tips The Best European Cities to Visit in November See & Do The Best Weekend Trips From Heidelberg US: +1 (678) 967 4965 | UK: +44 (0)1630 35000 tripssupport@theculturetrip.com © Copyright 2025 The Culture Trip Ltd Bad Kissingen @ Bayer. Staatsbad Bad Kissingen GmbH Photo Heji Shin Editorial Team 14 August 2023 12:00The summer holidays are here and there are many ways to enjoy them If you haven't chosen your travel destination yet Why not visit thermal spas that are UNESCO Heritage Sites This type of treatment is good for the body and mind and even more so in places as special as the ones we are about to present the three German spas that are part of the 'Great Spa Towns of Europe' The European spa tradition dates back to antiquity but reached its peak in the 18th and 19th centuries UNESCO designated 11 resorts as World Heritage Sites for their outstanding testimonies to this tradition Visiting them means enjoying modern treatments based on thermal waters but in exceptional places, where every corner evokes history and glamour. Better still, you can make the most of your trip by taking the Wellness Route: it includes two of the resorts and nine other World Heritage Sites in total on an 11-day journey from Frankfurt to Munich Germany's most internationally famous resort probably for its unique lifestyle and appreciation of the arts as well as the beneficial qualities of its thermal waters These are indicated for the relief of circulatory joint or respiratory problems and are available at the Roman spa Friedrichsbad the modern Caracalla Therme and the spas of various hotels including the century-old Brenners Park Hotel & Spa which has always been frequented by royalty Baden-Baden @ DZT Günter StandlArtists have also been charmed by this resort who labelled the Baden-Baden Casino the "most beautiful casino in the world"; and Johannes Brahms who spent his summers here between 1865 and 1874 The house where he lived has been transformed into a museum but there are others to visit: the Frieder Burda designed by the award-winning American architect Richard Meier and dedicated to modern art with works by Max Beckmann and Pablo Picasso; the Stadtmuseum Baden-Baden which contemplates recent creations in the form of painting and sculpture and video; or the Fabergé Museum Music also features prominently in Baden-Baden which is home to Germany's largest opera and concert hall international orchestras - such as the Metropolitan Opera New York - and renowned ballet companies perform The Baden-Baden resort is 70 kilometres from Stuttgart and Ryanair flies to Karlsruhe/Baden-Baden airport this is a former imperial city on the banks of the River Lahn as well as figures such as Dostoevsky and Richard Wagner who were seduced by the elegance of the buildings from world premieres of plays to glamorous balls Bad Ems has 15 springs recommended for the relief of digestive or respiratory tract problems and the outstanding Robert-Kampe spring which reaches 57°C and has a flow of up to 8 metres made from evaporated mineral salts and much appreciated by opera singers and other artists Bad Ems @ Dominik KetzThe wellness services on offer are wide and diverse ranging from Germany's first floating river sauna to Europe's largest ayurvedic clinic Don't miss a ride on the Kurwaldbahn funicular which travels around 150 metres in just two minutes It was already a spa resort in the 16th century but gained fame from the 1830s onwards and especially from 1874 with the visits of the Chancellor of the German Empire Otto von Bismarck Other famous visitors contributed to its international reputation Today, around 250.000 visitors a year come to Bad Kissingen - located approximately 90 minutes by car from Frankfurt - not only to enjoy the benefits of its waters, for example to relieve digestive and respiratory problems, but also to relax or recover from illness in one of the many specialised clinics, all focused on promoting a healthy lifestyle and mental health. Carnation Revolution: Portugal's Freedom Day On 25th April Portugal underwent a fundamental transformation known as the Carnation Revolution This pivotal event marked the end of the Estado Novo dictatorship and the start of Portugal's path to democracy The day is celebrated annually as Freedom Day to honour this peaceful transition and the newfound era of freedom and democracy Fifa ranking 39th Odds to win 400-1World Cup finals record P3 W1 D0 L2 F2 A4World Cup best Group stage 2002Record in qualifying P18 W8 D4 L6 The BBC Symphony Orchestra has been coming to Bad Kissingen practically every summer since 1998 It is an idyllic spa town in the Franconia region of northern Bavaria where the good burghers of the surrounding areas come to take the waters and the Cure I must be getting old because although I've been here a dozen times I increasingly look forward to our visits here Part of the reason is the air of relaxation amid the beautiful gardens the oak-panelled Regentenbau seats about 1000 people and has fine 'Bad K' (as we affectionately call the place) is experiencing a scorcher of a heat wave The opening piece in the first concert  happily reflects this as we start with Grieg's first Peer Gynt suite Most people like to think of the opening 'Morning mood' as a snow-covered mountain scene yet it actually depicts sunrise in the Sahara desert where the itinerant Peer Gynt has ended up we are undergoing our own desert ordeals as reeds dry out and fingerboards turn into lakes of perspiration Someone comments that this is good training for the Proms Another heroic piece next as the young Israeli pianist Igor Levit bounds on to the stage to tackle Beethoven's mighty 'Emperor' piano concerto I'm glad I'm not a betting man as I would have lost money on his choice of encore: the recently-deceased Ronald Stevenson's Peter Grimes Fantasy which Igor took care to explain to the audience in fluent German The piece ends with him leaning inside the piano and literally plucking a few notes from the opera We use the interval to slake thirsts and remove our white jackets an orchestra can pull an exciting performance out of the bag So it was with Beethoven's 4th Symphony which Sakari Oramo seemed to make fizz from start to finish The good people of Bad K clamoured for more Fortunately we had an Elgarian calling card in the form of the overture to his first Wand of Youth Suite Seldom done these days but full of character and and just enough chutzpah to send the audience away into the balmy air on a high There is a dinner for all at the beautiful Ratskeller restaurant Unusually we have a free day to rehydrate Some brave the temperatures and play a round of golf I go in search of a turnip (more on that vegetable later...) At lunch somebody produces a copy of the local paper which has reviewed last night's concert flatteringly calling it the highlight of the festival At 10 o'clock the next morning we find the hall in a state of considerable excitement as 600+ school children have arrived to watch the rehearsal They are in luck as the ridiculously talented Alina Ibragimova kicks off the rehearsal with a nimble rendition of Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto After the break we run through a couple of Mozart arias with the wonderful Korean soprano Sumi Hwang Then it is time to say farewell to my desk-partner the turnip-loving Carol Ella (above) who leaves the orchestra after 10 years Speeches and presentations are made and then another valediction to the director of the festival and I spend the afternoon stripping off clothes to cool down and watching Wimbledon with German commentary Later at the hall I realise that I have taken off too many clothes as I have no socks At that precise moment our conductor opens wide his dressing room door and says hello I seize the moment and ask if he has a spare pair of black socks we head out into the garden for an orchestra photograph who is a talented photographer (his pictures usually adorn my Blog posts this being no exception) to boot!The Meistersinger overture gets a rousing performance and by the end Wagner has transformed my fingerboard into the River Rhein (I know No such problems for Alina Ibragimova as she breezes effortlessly through the Mendelssohn and delights with a Bach Gavotte encore.Before the interval Sumi Hwang appears looking radiant in a mint julep dress and sings so beautifully it makes me want to hear her sing the whole of the Magic Flute Brahms's Second Symphony is such a sunny piece that it is a perfect choice for such an evening and it really goes down a treat Sakari whips up a blistering Brahms Hungarian Dance as an encore and we descend on the Ratskeller once more for noch einmal ein Stein Something tells me we'll be back soon The BBC Symphony Chorus and Orchestra and Sakari Oramo open the 121st season of Henry Wood Promenade Concerts on Friday 17th July and the world premiere of Gary Carpenter's Dadaville Stay updated with the latest posts from the blog BBC Proms BBC Orchestras and Choirs BBC Music BBC Radio 4 About the BBC Blog BBC Internet Blog   We deliver! 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Subscribe to Adweek newsletters Imagine having the same name as a celebrity and spending your whole life being mistaken for them It would make a good icebreaker at a party you’d probably grow tired of the comparison.  Burger King Germany unearthed four real people who share a name with a major star Julia Roberts from Brannenburg and Oprah Winfrey from Georgia.  Each of these people are familiar with being regularly mistaken for their famous namesakes they are vouching for another item that might be mistaken for something else: Burger King’s plant-based Whopper Burger King claims that its plant-based products developed with food brand The Vegetarian Butcher taste so similar to the meat versions that they could fool carnivores Subscribe now for unlimited access to exclusive insider reporting I want to receive emails from Adweek about products services and events that they feel may be of interest to me I want to receive emails from Adweek on behalf of carefully-selected third party partners about products By submitting your information you agree to Adweek's Terms of Use and Privacy Policy and you will begin receiving our newsletters I understand by creating an account, I agree to Adweek’s Terms of Use and Privacy Policy and that I may review and update my marketing preferences at any time A code has been sent to your email address By subscribing you agree to Adweek’s Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Automatic Renewal and Cancellation By subscribing, you agree to the terms of sale, including the  Cancellation and Refund Policy You authorize Adweek.com to charge your credit/debit card at the annual subscription price at the amount noted above now and in time to  automatically renew your Adweek.com subscription every year before the start of each new 12-month term unless you tell us to stop.  Renewal rates are subject to change at any time with or without notice your service will continue without interruption The cancellation goes into effect at the start of the following billing cycle contact customer service at 844.674.8161 (U.S.) or 845.267.3007 (Outside U.S.) Brittaney is Adweek's creative editor based in London Adweek is the leading source of news and insight serving the brand marketing ecosystem A cyclist passes a street near the village of Pflaumdorf southern Germany during sunset on February 28 Germany:  German farmer Edgar Thomas already has two towering pylons spoiling the view of the picturesque rolling hills around his land and he's exasperated that his area is being asked to find room for more But in the country's bid to ditch fossil fuels and switch to renewables as it marches towards a carbon-neutral future such power highways are essential to transport green energy mostly harnessed in the north to the industry-intensive south Thomas' reluctance to see yet more power lines across his territory is emblematic of Berlin's struggle to satisfy competing interests that are holding up progress towards a greener economy Gesturing towards the 110-kilovolt masts that already dominate his beet field close to Bad Kissingen in northern Bavaria Thomas complained that they hinder the spraying machines he uses on its crops we have to produce food as cheaply as possible and on the other side they say we have to put up with the power lines." Feeling the heat from a vocal climate protest movement German Chancellor Angela Merkel's government plans Friday to unveil a multi-billion-euro grand plan for tackling global warming was once known as the "climate chancellor" as she pushed forward a green energy transition that vastly increased clean renewables such as wind and solar power many of those gains have been eroded by an increased reliance on dirty coal in part to offset the phase-out by 2022 of nuclear power that Merkel decided after Japan's 2011 Fukushima disaster Wind farms -- most in the north or out at sea -- accounted for around half the almost 40 percent of Germany's electricity that came from renewables in 2018 In order to transport the power down south the government wants to build power highways along three major axes through the country One 380-kilovolt stretch would cut right through the Bad Kissingen district -- a "real problem" for the agricultural region Initiatives have popped up along the power lines' planned route with municipalities deploying creative ways to block them of the planned 7,700 kilometres (4,785 miles) of power lines the local farmers' federation leader Thomas is no climate naysayer he argues that the top-down approach is wrong pointing out two wind turbines he and others in the village of Nuedlingen invested in that loom out of a copse by the field Local farmers run a biogas plant to supply the nearby thermal baths with heat and Thomas can also boast solar panels on his roof "We should try to build smaller-scale supplies locally because we like producing renewable energy," he said we have to look at what the economic story is." District administrator Thomas Bold has helped set up a petition against the new power line from his glass-roofed office in the tidy historic centre of Bad Kissingen town The decision to include it in the national "Grid Development Plan 2030" currently under public consultation "looks arbitrary.. I have great difficulty understanding it," he said the path would run for 130 kilometres (81 miles) through the Rhoen region's gentle hills The picture-book rural landscape is known and treasured locally as the "land of the open distance" for its views "When they bring power through here on lines that aren't needed here of course there's significantly less understanding than if we needed it ourselves," Bold said Bold and others believe their interests were neglected at the planning meeting in June federal economy minister Peter Altmaier rejoiced that Berlin and regional governments were "pulling together" on the grid His Bavarian counterpart Hubert Aiwanger called the deal "a great success.. and relief for citizens in northern Bavaria" after another planned stretch was cancelled Politicians promise the P43 will be buried underground as far as possible But Bold warned that the environmental cost and price tag of doing so made the plan "unrealistic" burying the power lines simply creates a new problem "It doesn't bear thinking about what that would do to the yield" of beets in times when the weather is already becoming drier The grower doesn't want to join in with talk of the politicisation of the climate agrichemicals and other factors leading to a new conflict between town and country in Germany But "there's a certain growing apart," he admitted "I'd like to say to people in the city but it has to be under reasonable conditions that we can live with." 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