For those of you who have read my AOPA blog post, this is “the rest of the story,” the pictorial representation of the flight that is ill suited for a formal presentation.
For those who haven’t read my AOPA post, I suggest it here. Cliff notes: I flew to the tulips in Holland, it was a long flight, and it cost a ton of money. Well, it was pretty, too.
Rheinhessen vineyards.
Rheinhessen farmland.
Windmill. There are lots of them in Germany, get used to it.
Rheinhessen giving way to Rhein valley (left to right slope).
Rheingau, a south-facing slope that dates back to the Romans. Yes, this wine “region” has a distinct name. In the US, this would be “the hill with the vineyards on it.” Rhein River to the left.
Some enormous statue at the top of the Rheingau.
Medieval castle, with a gravel pit next to it.
Interesting choice of village layout.
I wonder if this castle is “on the wrong side of the tracks.”
Some villages are on the hill, some are in the valley.
New money (windmills on the horizon), old money (castle). Peasants in between. American tourists pass by on the river in the middle.
Ah, Germany! Glorious rolling hills with distribution centers. It is jarring how they manage to have both co-exist so precisely.
Post-apocalyptic scene: pretty countryside with monolithic power plant belching out fumes.
And where they get the coal from. Only Germans would pillage the environment in an organized manner. American strip mining is not so neat from the air. Then again, we in North America don’t give a crap about future generations.
Someone has taken up quilting on their farm. I am not sure which country to blame this on, as I was flying straight and the border of the Netherlands and Germany weaseled like a snake. My gut is leaning toward declaring this a German act.
Levee on the Waal River, Netherlands. The “Waal” is the Dutch name for the Rhein. We don’t have this problem of renaming rivers in North America, because they stay in the same country, or we just keep the same name when they cross borders.
Massive interchange. I don’t know why I find it so interesting.
Notice the parking lot for the pentagram building. All bikes, no cars.
Tulips. You’ll have to buy the book to get the rest. This is a commercial tulip farm.
Either they built the German playground on top of crop circles, or made them in the shape of crop circles intentionally.
Tall cylindrical object valuable enough to remodel. Germany, America, and Holland have an inexplicable fetish with these devices. Tall cylindrical towers with no obvious function.
