Yesterday afternoon my bicycle took me first to the second part of the Glenn Brown art exhibition (in Landesmuseum Hannover this time), my friend and I liked it a lot.

Afterwards we made our way over to ZeitZentrum Zivilcourage to look at a tiny special exhibit called HannoverKolonial.

I think the ZeitZentrum is such a treasure to have, they have lots of information about people resisting the Nazis, they also worked with the people who set up the new Holocaust memorial park in Ahlem and generally provide information boards for other places that remind us of local history and victims of the Nazis.

And right now there is also this interesting list of places in Hannover which reminds us of German colonialism, something we normally don’t hear much about despite the atrocities done at the time. I think by now many people in Hanover are aware of who Carl Peters was and that the square that was named after him has been renamed to Bertha-von-Suttner-Platz but there are still a number of other places that were once named to commemorate people who from today’s viewpoint have done very questionable things. One of these roads is right next to where we live, I didn’t know. 😞

Did you know that the Hanover Zoo once exhibited people from other cultures? ☹️ Completely unthinkable today.

If you want to go and see the exhibit make sure to pick up one of their information booklets to find out more of the history behind the shown photos. Also check on the opening times and when they are open for visits by individuals (they cater a lot for school groups).

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This morning there was a very strong westerly wind and I had chosen an exposed slightly hilly route. 😅 At times I almost got blown over which was not fun at all, especially not when a car drove past me with only 40 cm distance. 🤬 I also got a little rained on in between and at some point my chain came off (but I know how to deal with that). 🤷🏼

Never mind. In addition to that I also created my own adventure. 🤠 Some time ago someone told me that on the hill between the British war cemetery and the water reservoir(?) there is an old bunker - but also that there is not much to see anymore. When I cycled over from the Ahlem cemetery, I immediately noticed the bunker hill silhouette between the trees in front of me. Come what may, I had to go there today. I secured the bicycle to a tree and fought my way through the shrubbery, only to realise in front of the hill that it would not be so easy to get up there because it was very steep towards the top; even the normally useful method of walking up on a zigzag route did not help. In the end, I climbed the last one and a half metres on all fours.

There wasn't really much to see at all but I definitely didn't want to go the same way down. 😵‍💫 Hoping to find another path, I then followed a trail that actually led me down relatively gently to the other side. There was also a corner of the bunker to be seen. Yay!

To get back to my bicycle, I walked along the field at the side of the hill and was rewarded with sunshine and views.

After my trip I found out that the bunker was an anti aircraft protection place probably housing a flak battery. It was blown up in 1947 by the British army and apparently the local youth then grabbed some of the weapons that were still lying around there and “played” with them until the parents took them away and handed them over to the British soldiers.

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This week I didn’t take many photos on my morning rides at all but today I wanted to document first the cherry flowers and then what looks like a castle behind a big concrete wall.

The “castle” is just a big (and locally infamous) group of apartment blocks on a hill and the wall effect stems from what I think is a humongous parking garage. The garage building is quite long and at its side there is an equally long playground with interesting looking climbing frames and swings. The swings are mounted in such a way that from one side the look like a set of double swings despite all being single ones.

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Von-Alten-Garten again but this time in black and white.

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The river Leine is carrying a lot of water at the moment, so much that the flood plains are partly under water.

I went to check out a currently cut off area, the Wasserkunst at Ernst-August-Kanal. There is a currently closed bridge that was missing a ramp for cyclists and pedestrians and construction on said ramp is still going to last until April (from what I’ve read). I can’t wait for the bridge to be back in action, it’s a valuable connection for cyclists.

There’s another bridge not too far away from here that I’ve never been able to use as I didn’t even know it existed until it was closed off to replaced. That one is taking it’s sweet time, I think it’s two years already.

A third bridge in between these two was also closed for a while but thankfully it was quickly back in action.

There is talk about closing yet another bridge over the river as it needs to be replaced, that one is in Linden and it’s very busy with cyclists and pedestrians every day. Having that one closed will hurt a lot.

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A set of buildings that intrigue me every time I go past and an old unusable train track, in the industrial area near the Hannover-Linden freight yard.

I only noticed the track because of the rusty W-sign. What does the W stand for? Werkbahn (works train)? Or does it indicate that trains had to cross the road? In that case it could have warned of Werksverkehr (works traffic). 🤓 And when were these tracks were last used? 🤔

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