I went on a business trip to Ulm Germany in April 2014. This post has some narrative and some pictures.

I left Phoenix on Saturday April 5 and went to Munich with a stop-over in Washington DC. I took a train from Munich to Ulm, which is a 2 hour train ride, arriving at my hotel at about 11AM on Sunday. The hotel was called the Comfort Hotel in Blaustein. The workshop was Monday through Thursday. I returned on Friday, arriving home at about 10:30 PM.

I’ll split this post into two parts. One is some pictures I took in downtown Ulm, and the other is some bird photos near Blaustein.

Birds in Blaustein

My hotel was in a little village (or part of Ulm?) called Blaustein. On the Thursday before I left for home we got off work a little bit early (around 4PM) so I had some time to explore. I went back to the hotel and got my camera and set off towards the market place where I had walked almost every evening after work, and where the Church was that I went to on Sunday (St. Martin’s). I had noticed some parks, and saw some raptors (which turned out to be Red Kites), so I thought I might find something. What I actually found was much better than what I expected. There was a hiking trail along the Blau River that went to the marketplace. It was a very nice hike and there were quite a few birds. It was early evening so the sun was low and the light wasn’t great, but I got some photographs. The Great Tit was common and had a loud distinctive song. The Blue Tit was also common, but it was difficult to photograph.We have Common Moorhens in North America. The Tufted Duck is a rare visitor to North America and is similar to Scaups we see here. The Eurasion Blackbird was common, and behaved like a Thrush which, indeed, it is. I like the photo of the female because of the water in the background that produced a kind of wavy greenish pattern. The Mute Swans had built a very large nest which the female was sitting on. I sat down on the bank close to the river to get a picture, which made the male nervous and he came around between me and the female. The Dipper was fun to watch. He was constantly dipping and diving into the water. I think they had a nest under the bridge over the river.

Here are the bird photographs:

Downtown Ulm

Ulm is the birthplace of Albert Einstein, and also has the tallest church in the world, which is a Lutheran church called Ulm Muenster (in German, the ‘ue’ is replaced by a ‘u’ with an umlaut over it). I took a taxi to downtown Ulm after work on Wednesday. The sun was low, but I was able to get a picture of Ulm Muenster while it was still in full sunlight. The steps to the top of the church tower were closed, but I was able to get a few photos inside of the church before they ushered us out and closed it for the night. I took some pictures of statues and gargoyles on the outside of the church.

Here are the pictures: