Die Blaue Nacht

While discussing plans for the Nürnberg penshow, my friend Gerhard Brandl mentioned the blue night, which has been going on in Nürnberg for ten years now. As it turned out our friends Ekke and Gudrun had never been, so following the pen show all four of us set out with approximately 130,000 others to the old town of Nürnberg to experience this great cultural event that literally lights the city in blue, opens museums and other institutions all night, and this year featured more than 250 installations loosely grouped around the concept of “a canopy of stars” in conjunction with the International Year of Astronomy. If you seek further information (in Deutsch), check the website http://www.blauenacht.nuernberg.de/

So, after a light supper, we headed into town to see what we could see. Well, it was an incredible event, what we back in the ‘60s would have called a “happening,” but throughout the city. We visited a half dozen installations, including one in a disused bomb shelter, stopped for coffee and headed for the Haupt Marketplatz where they were firing three hot air balloons. The crowd there was scary intense, so we headed up the hill to see the castle, but did not quite make it. It was a unique and intense experience, one worth doing.

The following images provide just a small taste:

Left to right Ekke, Gudrun and Sharon inforn of the planets