The White Tower in Bad Homburg

Our last visit to a tower in this summer took us to Bad Homburg where we visited the White Tower (Weißer Turm). The tower is located in the middle of the castle, and it took us a while to find the right entrance and then where to get the key from.

Once we had the key, we had the tower almost to ourselves. The tower contains a museum so that rather than just climb to the top, you can read about its history at different levels on the way up.

Currently the tower costs 1EUR for adults and 50 cents for children to enter. The car park “Schloß” near the entrance and most of the buses that go through the town stop nearby.

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Größere Kartenansicht

Aussichtsturm Ellerhöhe

Hidden away on the northern side of Bad Homburg is a viewing platform called the Aussichtsturm Ellerhöhe.

It was originally built in 1873, re-built in 1889 and extended in 1901. The top of it is approximately 200m above sea level.

Although the tower itself is only about 16m tall, it does offer a view across the town of Bad Homburg to Oberursel, and even as far as Frankfurt.

In fact, many local people do not even know that it is there!

View towards Frankfurt

Größere Kartenansicht

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The Woolworth’s chain was very much in the news in the run up to Christmas in the UK. Now, it seems, it is the turn of the German Woolworth’s to enter the world of financial turmoil. Last week it was announced that they had registered the company as insolvency – a step that is similar to filing for bankruptcy, whilst at the same time giving them a chance to carry on trading under strict conditions in the hope of finding a solution to their problems.

My first visit to a German branch of Woolworth’s (technically they are called just “Woolworth”) was in Kleve, near the Dutch border, and during my first years in Germany I was a frequent visitor to the store in Bad Homburg. However, in recent years I have rarely gone there except to buy things that I have not been able to get anywhere else. Indeed, the location at the top end of the Louisenstrasse – the main pedestrian area – means that it is somewhat off the beaten track if you are only in the town centre for a short time.

Possibly there lies the problem. Much of the media criticised the UK company as being modern enough, saying that the stores had not moved with the times. The German media has been making the same sort of claims this week, and yet the two companies were completely separate entities.

Whilst the Woolworths Group PLC in the UK had already split from the main US company in 1982, it took until 1998 for the German “DWW Deutsche Woolworth GmbH & Co. OHG” to follow suit. Since then the German company has modernised the cash desks and introduced new store concepts.

But this, it sadly seems, was just not enough.