Gerolstein

This beautiful postcard was sent by my postcard buddy Chris, from Germany!She writes me that  on the card there is a small part of Gerolstein city and that the hill in the back is called Munterley  You have a great view from up there! Vulkaneifel is the whole district.

Gerolstein is a town in the Vulkaneifel district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is the seat of the like-named Verbandsgemeinde. Gerolstein is headquarters to a large mineral water firm, Gerolsteiner Brunnen. The town is also a climatic spa (Luftkurort).

One form of the name Gerolstein first cropped up in connection with the building of the Löwenburg (Castle Gerolstein) in 1115, which was then named as the Burg Gerhardstein. Nevertheless, as early as the Stone Age there is evidence of human habitation in the Buchenloch, a nearby cave. In the Bronze Age, the Dietzenley was used by the Celts as a flight castle. From Roman times, a temple and dwellings are known, and remnants are preserved.

Town rights were granted Gerolstein in 1337. In 1691, the town was almost utterly destroyed when it was liberated from French occupation by troops from the Duchy of Jülich. After reconstruction, there was a devastating fire that burnt the town down in 1708; another, likewise disastrous, came in 1784. In the 1801 Treaty of Lunéville, Gerolstein, along with all areas on the Rhine’s left bank, passed to France, and were only returned to German control in 1815. Count Sternberg-Manderscheid acquired in the 1803 Reichsdeputationshauptschluss as the landholder, among other things, the holdings formerly belonging to the monasteries at Weissenau and Schussenried in Upper Swabia to offset his loss of Blankenheim, Jünkerath, Gerolstein and Dollendorf. It is known that water from the spring that had once been used by the Celts and the Romans was being bottled and sold beginning in 1724. This still forms the basis for today’s mineral water industry in Gerolstein. Late in the Second World War, in 1944 and 1945, Gerolstein’s status as a railway junction town brought Allied air raids down on the town, and 80% of it was destroyed. Town rights were granted Gerolstein once again in 1953. [wikipedia]

 

Chris used this beautiful stamp picturing a Ballonblume. Its scientific name is Platycodon grandiflorus and is a species of perennial flowering plant of the family Campanulaceae and the only member of the genus Platycodon (from Greek "πλατυκώδων", meaning 'a broad bell'). This species is known as platycodon or Chinese bellflower. Depending upon the region, it is also referred to as the Japanese bellflower, common balloon flower, or balloon flower. It is native to East Asia (such as China, Korea, Japan, and East Siberia) and bears big blue flowers, although varieties with white and pink flowers are in cultivation. In Korea, white flowers are more common. [wikipedia]