With the Hessentag taking place in the town, I have spent most of the past week either travelling by train or walking, either to my IT appointments or to cover the Hessentag itself.  Only once have I used my car in that time, so that I could get home after the last train had gone if necessary.

Which fitted in rather nicely with the idea of encouraging people in Hessen to walk more.

The Mühlenbachweg in Oberursel

And to encourage visitors to Oberursel to walk even more this week, the Hessian Social Ministry came up with an ingenious idea.  They are asking people to walk from either die nature park “Natur auf der Spur” or the exhibition “Landesausstellung” to the Hohemark clinic at the northern end of Oberursel, a journey that takes them along the Mühlenbachweg where the old mills of the town used to be located. (more…)

There is a bit of a misconception when it comes to the word “Hessentag”, not just among foreigners.  Even some German native speakers do not quite understand the term the first time they hear it.

The problem is the word “Tag”.

Ask anyone what “Tag” means in English and they will probably tell you it means “Day”.  As in “Sonntag” – Sunday, or “Tag der offenen Tür” – Open Day, or simply in “Guten Tag“..  This leads to people thinking that the Hessentag is just for one day, which of course it is not – it lasts for 10 days.

And yet there is another meaning, and that is literally “to meet” or “to sit”. (more…)

Truly German is a podcast that talks about the news in Germany. Sometimes this will by national news, maybe political, but we will also be covering some local topics.

We want to have some fun at the same time, so part of the podcast is our Länderquiz - in which our contestant has to guess in which Bundesland three different news stories took place in.

Will Maria win herself a T-Shirt this week?

The topics are:

1. Election results
2. Döner reward for voters
3. Hessen to relax smoking laws

The quiz covers the following stories:

1. Manga fans meet up
2. Diplomats gather at Schloss Horst
3. The 356th Onion Market

Listen to the episode and contact us if you’d like to have a go yourself!

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