Archives for March 2008

A visit to Burg Eppstein

For Easter I took my daughter to visit Burg Eppstein – a castle that started life in the 10th Century and who has changed hands many times over the centuries. At the beginning of the 20th Century much of the castle was restored and in 1929 it was handed over to the town of Eppstein.

The town is situated to one side of the B455 road and the castle ruins can be seen from the road itself. It is easiest reaching using the A3 exit Wiesbaden-Niedernhausen. There is plentiful parking on the outskirts of the old town, at the side of the main road.

burg_eppstein1.jpg

The castle is open daily except on Mondays, but it is worth visiting when the museum is opened as it contains a number of interesting exhibits. There is even a themed book corner to keep children occupied. The museum is only open in the winter on Sundays and Bank Holidays, in the summer additionally on Wednesday and Saturday afternoons. For current information visit the town website.

Content not available.
Please allow cookies by clicking Accept on the banner

Größere Kartenansicht

Hear more about our visit in the podcast:

(Press the “play” button to listen to the podcast)

Download the MP3 file |Subscribe to the podcast

Stingray videos

After blogging about the stingray in Puerto del Carmen harbour yesterday, I decided to take a look on YouTube to see if I could find a video of one jumping as had been reported.

I did! And here it is:

Content not available.
Please allow cookies by clicking Accept on the banner

But even more interesting was that I actually found a video of a stringray in the harbour at Puerto del Carmen! Being so shallow, the video is well lit:

Content not available.
Please allow cookies by clicking Accept on the banner

In fact, I found that video amazing to watch as it is just so calm and the stingray doesn’t appear to be bothered by the diver swimming along behind it.

Fairy tales in Spanish

There is one shop in Arrecife that stands out for me: Librería España (Léon y Castillo 16).  With so many shops aimed at tourists, it can be quite hard to find a “normal” Spanish shop – in this case a book shop.

On my first visit to the island I stocked up on Spanish Harry Potter books and last year’s visit was no exception – I just had to go and browse the books in that shop.  Somehow, if you are looking for authentic Spanish literature (not just a translation), it’s much nicer to go to a proper book shop than search online.

Anyway, last year I found a book of children’s stories – and didn’t buy it, which I later regretted.

So it was nice to hear about a website offering just that: children’s stories in Spanish.  They may not be of Spanish origin, which would make them culturally interesting, but they are traditional stories and fairy tales from authors such as the Brothers Grimm and Hans-Christian Andersen which most people will be able to identify with.

In fact, from a language learning point of view I think that it is very interesting to listen to a story that you already know in your native language as it makes guessing any unknown vocabulary easier.

The stories are available as a podcast.  To listen, visit Cody’s Cuentos.

Please click on ACCEPT to give us permission to set cookies [more information]

This website uses cookies to give you the best browsing experience possible. Cookies are small text files that are stored by the web browser on your computer. Most of the cookies that we use are so-called “Session cookies”. These are automatically deleted after your visit. The cookies do not damage your computer system or contain viruses. Please read our privacy information page for more details or to revoke permission.

Close