burg hohenstein








the other weekend my sister and i visited burg hohenstein. it was a hot summer day and we had to climb a lot of rocky stairs up to the tiny castle. but once we arrived on the top, the view was breathtaking and worth all the effort made. we just leaned on the stone walls for a while smelling the flavour of the castle's herb garden and looking at the horizon.

 summer berry tarts






i made these little berry tarts a few weeks ago and they tasted - oh so - nice. i used a mixture of fresh berries, that i got at our local market, vanilla bean flavour and tons of whipped mascarpone cream.

 the old times


























last year my family and i made a summer trip to the highly recommendable open air museum in neusath-perschen. little villages representing various periods of the upper palatinate farming life are set in a wonderful landscape with small woods, large ponds, vast fields and old cottage gardens. you can also visit a mill, a beautifully painted tiny chapel, a beer garden where you can eat sourdough bread with fresh butter and chives – it feels like you're walking through ancient times. everything seems so natural, so peaceful and exactly at its right place. and although i know how hard it would have been living back then, it's not easy going back to our highly-paced lifestyle either. i wish we would appreciate a much more simple and less technic-oriented way of living sometimes...

don't forget to slow down a little bit once in a while!

 gold in the air of summer








the summer in germany can't really decide if it is a cold and rainy or a very, very hot one. at the present it is the latter and all i do is to think about swimming pools, ice cream and watermelons every day. it's so hot that every little movement is quite exhausting and i always have to wait till it's evening before i can go for a walk outside. meanwhile the sun has turned the green wheat fields into golden shimmering ones and you can already hear autumn calling from far away...

sunny greetings to you,
susanne