Lists! > Ten Interesting
Fountains
10 Interesting Fountains
In terms of travel, November tends to be a down month. The Autumn
Festivals have passed, but the Christmas Markets haven't yet started. It's
too cold to spend a lot of time outside, but it's not cold enough to start
skiing. In short, the month would stink completely were it not for
Thanksgiving. So, to commemorate the lamest travel month of the year,
here's a list of some of the most beautiful, interesting, bizarre, or downright
funny fountains I've encountered through my travels. Some of these will
make you wish it was summer again. Others will cause you to wonder what
the artists were thinking (or smoking).
This is one of many weird pieces of art that have sprung up
around German cities since the beginning of the Cold War. These have many
forms, but one style -- as many shapes and figures in bronze stacked on top of
each other.
Aarhus manages to make the list two times in a row, but this
time for the wrong reason. The story: the fountain was dyed red to
celebrate the town festival, but the dye they used had a soap base. The
fountain was nothing but pink suds by the time I passed by later in the
day. I wish I took a shot of it... but was out of time.
In the summertime, one of the great delights is to visit a big
lake with a big, beautiful fountain on it, spraying cooling water over the
baking crowds. It also adds to the scenery. The fountain on Lake
Geneva can be seen clearly from the tops of the Alpine ranges nearby!
This particular fountain was interesting because it
rotated. The reliefs on each side of this wheel described some event in
Worms' long, storied history. The wheel rotated fully each minute.
In the same vein, fountains are a great enhancement for the
ponds and lakes among Europe's many grand palaces. I use the Hollersee
just as an example of a simple shaped lake with a fountain in the center,
surrounded by lovely figurines.
I'm cheating a bit here, because the Wilhelmshoehe contains
artificial waterfalls, not fountains. But the waterfalls are so lovely and
serve the same purpose as fountains, I figured they deserved to be
included. If you visit Kassel in the summer, be sure to take the 'water
walk' and see all the waterfalls in this massive park!
Switzerland is a fabulous place to see fountains downtown.
The Tellerbrunnen, shown here, is but one example... a tall gilded figurine on a
pedestal overlooking a flower-laden fountain base. Often the base itself
is just as colorful and decorated, and the downtowns of Schaffhausen and others
have a half-dozen such structures along the pedestrian walkways.
But then again, some of these fountains beg for an
explanation, this one in particular. The figure of a grotesque man getting
ready to bite the head off a child is not the sort of thing that the American
P-C crowd would stomach for very long, but here it is in the heart of the stuffy
Swiss capital! Go figure.
I think this shot makes it to my lists on a semi-regular
basis... it remains one of my favorite all time scenes. Trencin is a
beautiful ex-Bohemian town in western Slovakia with one fabulous fountain of
jumping water. I loved watching the kids playing in it on this really hot
July day a few years back.
Most modern fountains don't do a thing for me, but this one
does. It is a very bleak fountain when you think of it -- surrounding the
sprout of water are figurines representing the various stages of marriage --
from bliss to family life to old age, which is depicted by the couple being so
sick of marriage they are trying to kill each other. As a newlywed, I'm
not particularly enthralled by the message, but it's so big and obtrusive, one
can't help but stare at it.
(c) 2003 Tom Galvin
