Cottbus

I lived here for 2 months over the Summer while visiting my friend. This town is amazing, especially for a girl from America who was just happy to be able to ride a bike and walk to get around. The markets here are awesome as is peoplewatching at the AltMarkt and at the SpreeGallerie. I loved going to the Stadt Fest when Cottbus celebrated its 850th year. The mandeln is awesome at the StadtFest. It’s a lot of fun to go to the lakes and to the all of the parks around town. I was very impressed by the University Library and all of the sculptures around town. This city has beautiful landscaping.

. . . because it’s not as small to be a hicksville and not as big to have all day hustle and bustle.

You can make a virtual walk thru the town at http://www.inpethomap.de/karten/ (by checking there the “Panorama-Tour” checkbox and then on one of the letters “P” in the town map – Java must be enabled)

Cottbus claims to be “The gate to Spreewald”, a unique landscape like “venice in a forest”! http://www.spreewald.de – another good reason to come over here!

I live here since 1965 and I find always something to enjoy, even after 40 years :-) The town is shaking up since the Berlin Wall breakdown in 1989 – it’s worth a visit!

Espacially in summertime it’s really nice because of the lakes surrounding the town, most of them former surface coal mining or gravel pits, where you can do swimming, windsurfing or even sailing.
The climate is kind’a special for the reason of the surrounding lakes – it rains seldom, summer is hotter then the rest of germany and wintertime we often have the lowest temperature.

We have here the only one theatre building in Art Nouveau stile in entyre europe http://www.staatstheater-cottbus.de and the oldest working cinema building also in Art Nouveau stile. http://www.weltspiegel-cottbus.de/

Here is the famous Pückler park and castle with a museum now inside http://www.pueckler-museum.de/index.php?sprache=english

You can surf in at http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cottbus to get more information or http://www.cottbus.de , the official town site.

the rest is dead especially now in the summer break when all the students are gone. The city just falls asleep. It wakes up in October when most students come back for the winter semester.