While going through cities one of my favorite activities is to look up. Yes, simply look up. A lot of, especially, lesser popular cities and towns have hidden gems in plain sight. Albeit Bruhl is not a lesser know place in Germany because of the attraction park and the UNESCO world heritage ladmark, it is much quiter than most of the places that tourists flock towards.
Most of the buildings I enjoy catching a glimpse of are either very special in architectural style or simply buildings that have stuck through thick and thin for centuries. They have seen more than all living humans, and it makes them special because they're still vessels that are connected to the past, while serving the present.
Like the red and yellow building. These types of houses are rarely built nowadays and very hard to find in major cities. They are gorgeous and share the same wall. Both have gone through renovation and probably some sort of restructuring to provide strength. Yet the red one has remained very similar to how it looked when it was first built but the yellow one has modernised quite a bit. And look at the red building right below. It proudly shows it has been standing since 1875. How gorgeous!
The half-timber houses are an absolute treat to look at. They are typically German, and the most pure forms of this style of houses can be mostly seen in the older towns.
The exposed beems, which are wooden, are mostly functional but many have adopted this style for pure aesthetic purposes.
While walking through the thin aisles, some of these half-timber houses just are there in front of your face. But a lot of times you wouldn’t even notice them.
If you see in the pictures above, I had to point yhe camera up to take these photos. This is because the bottom half of these buildings aren't in the typical half-timber style. The bottom floor has turned into shops with a full floor to roof glass wall. So sometimes you might miss these beautiful houses that are signature to the country you're visiting.
These houses are pretty rare, nowadays, and buildings with more rooms and space to house a larger population is popular. Before, those wooden and brick houses were probably inhabited by once family or rented out to a few. Nowadays, residential buildings are easier for a growing city. I still take the time to look at the modern buildings. Some of them can have very interesting- like the building above that has a honeycomb -esque design.
Throughout Europe there are interesting buildings. There are plenty of churches, cathedrals, municipality buildings, and so on, that attract a lot of attention.
The residential houses are however not very attractive to many visitors. To me, these houses, among many other things, sort of tell me a story. A story of how people live in the city I'm a day to day basis. What would it be like to see the same place and things every day. Is it really special, or is it just regular?
Usually, for a visitor like me, everything that shines is gold. But that is not always the case, in reality.
While looking at houses, I caught something that I kept seeing again and again. I now know what it means, but at the moment it was very intriguing.
I kept seeing the same thing on the door frames and kept wondering what the symbols mean. Do you know what it is?
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