Decided to put an article into this forum as well ... <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/winkwink.gif" alt="" />
It began with something about snow in Germany ... Read on ! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/biggrin.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/winkwink.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/delight.gif" alt="" />
It's currently rather good, now. Only in the Alps things are snowy.
Here, the Rhein area is usually very warm. The more south you travel along the Rhein, the warmer it gets. They even grow Wein (Grape) there ! Cologne as a town has a very warm climate ... Snow usually doesn't last long within the town.
I'm in the north-east of Cologne, at the border of the Cologne lowland and the more colder land that's called "Bergisches Land".
A Berg is a mountain - but sometimes also only a very big hill. It's like a river ... we have in the German language a word for small rivers; I don't know such a word in the English language. That complicated communication a bit, imho. The word for a very small river or stream is "Bach", like the composer. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/winkwink.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/biggrin.gif" alt="" />
Also, we say Berg for really *big* mountains (like in the Rocky Mountains, for example), but also for very big hills.
We can say a landscape is "bergig" which means it has a lot of big hills (we don't use it for real mountain ranges, normally) and consequently deep valleys between the big hills, carved by rivers or Bäche (plural form of Bach) through thousands of years. And of course woods in the valleys (except where people live, of course).
That’s how the Eifel and the Bergisches Land look like. Both are very, *very* old continental pieces (in terms of geological ages) and bear fossils of some of the first vertebrates (when the only vertebrated were fish). The Ardennes are of a similar age, partly.
Well, now comes the joke (for outsiders) : The „Bergisches Land“ has its name NOT from the adjective „bergig“, but from the Counts of Berg, who lived there (I think some of them exist even now) and to whom the „Bergisches Land“ belonged ! ;D [By the way, does the word „country“ come from the fact that it belongs to a Count ?] Well, outsiders don’t know this, and I didn’t as well for a long time. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/winkwink.gif" alt="" /> Remember, I’m more Cologne-oriented <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/winkwink.gif" alt="" /> , but I live at the border to the Bergisches Land.
The Eifel and the Bergisches Land are much colder and wilder than everything around them. The folks this country breeds are more earth-bound, I think. Farmers, for example, and ore (iron, for example).
So, I’m here at the border; snow lasts longer than in the warm town of Cologne, and not as long as in the Bergisches Land itself. Mixed.
I talked about the Eifel and the Bergisches Land being *very* old, counted on geological ages. In fact, I have even seen sites not too far away from here (up to 20 km maybe) which contain ripples from shores. These are *old*. If you have a tme scale at hand - look out for the time around the development of fish - I think before verterates crawled onto land. This age is called „Devon“ in Geology, named after a place in Great Britain where these fossils and stata were found first. Internationally, such ages are named by a comittee after such places where their fossils and strata are found first.
A nearby town called Bergisch Gladbach is famous for its old fossils of fish. Unfortunately, they wre mostly found within the geological depression (like a wide and huge valley) in wich now the town itself sits. So fossils cannot be obtained from there anymore - except when someone builds a new house. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/winkwink.gif" alt="" />
I’ve been in the Eifel while studying Geology / Palaentology several times on excoursions. There are circle round lakes which are called „Maar“ (singular) and „Maare“ (plural form). They are in fact lakes within craters of old vulcanoes !
The far biggest one is „Maria Laach“, where a monastery resides. It is several kilometres wide ! (The word „Laach“ is a dialect form, you can find the word „lake“ in it. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/winkwink.gif" alt="" /> ) It „exploded“ during the early ages of Man in a „big bang“ so that everything within several kilometres was covered with thick layers of Ashes. Like Pompeji, only much thinker and much more and at a greater distance. Due to this explosive eruption some sites of early „villages“ (well, during the ice ages there were no real „villages“ as we are used to know them from today) were covered and thus preserved. Some delicate slabs of stone with carved figures were preserved which would otherwise have been lost during the following few million years.
The Eifel has a rich variety of minerals, ore and fosssils. There have been several reefs during early „fish ages“ <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/winkwink.gif" alt="" /> and later, too. The Eifel as well as the Ardennes are famous for their Trilovytes - a distinct form of invertebrate, almost „crab-like“ creature. They were very widespread a long, long time ago. The so-called „horseshoe crab“ is a distant relative (and „living fossil“) of them. Although it’s closer relatives are with scorpions, spiders and similar animals.
Well, I think that’s it for now.
Any questions ? <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/winkwink.gif" alt="" />
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