The Bridges of Aue (Saxony), Germany

In connection with a recent interview with a local newspaper about the bridges in the Erzgebirge, this tourguide has been updated to include information and bridge photos, most of which can be found via Google Map. The text has been updated as well. As mentioned here, the tour guide is the first of many parts on the bridges in the mountain region in western Saxony, yet it is also the first of its kind to use new apps other than what has been profiled in article form to date. This includes Google Map where you can click onto the bridge and view the photos taken. In any case, enjoy the new version of the tour guide on Aue’s historic bridges.

The Bridgehunter's Chronicles

Sometimes experiments are needed in order to find out how to effectively reach your audience. It can be with the use of print media, such as newspaper articles, leaflets, broschures and the like. But it can also mean the use of various forms of technology, such as the internet and social networking. Aside from wordpress, which powers the Chronicles both as an original as well as the areavoices version, people have used facebook and pininterest to post their pics of their favorite bridges. Yet most of these have been individual bridges and not that of a tour guide, like the Chronicles has been posting since its launch in 2010.

The Bridgehunter’s Chronicles has just started using  Instagram recently, and I had a chance to experiment with putting a tour guide together, using the app , during my most recent visit to the city of Aue in western Saxony.

Located 25…

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The Bridges of Aue (Saxony), Germany

Sometimes experiments are needed in order to find out how to effectively reach your audience. It can be with the use of print media, such as newspaper articles, leaflets, broschures and the like. But it can also mean the use of various forms of technology, such as the internet and social networking. Aside from wordpress, which powers the Chronicles both as an original as well as the areavoices version, people have used facebook and pininterest to post their pics of their favorite bridges. Yet most of these have been individual bridges and not that of a tour guide, like the Chronicles has been posting since its launch in 2010.

The Bridgehunter’s Chronicles has just started using  Instagram recently, and I had a chance to experiment with putting a tour guide together, using the app , during my most recent visit to the city of Aue in western Saxony.

Located 25 kilometers southeast of Zwickau where the Zwickauer Mulde and Schwarzwasser (Black Water) Rivers meet, Aue is lined up along both rivers with houses that are at least a century old.  The town prides itself on mining and therefore, one can find many places where copper, silver, iron and uranium are produced and transported, both past and present. It also has a top premere soccer team in Erzgebirge Aue, which plays in the second tier of the German Bundesliga.  Eight kilometers to the west is the town of Schneeberg, where several Medieval buildings have been considered historically significant by the government and UNESCO, including its prized cathedral. However getting there is almost only possible by bus or car, for biking up there would be as biblically challenging as Moses climbing up Mt. Sinai to speak to God and get the Ten Commandments.

Speaking from experience, if you have to go to Schneeberg from Aue, please don’t do that and take the bus instead. 😉

Getting back to the story, I happened to take some downtime between the time of an appointment in Schneeberg and the time I had to return to Jena. The only problem was the camera that I usually use for my bridgehunting tour was left home by accident. Bummer as it was and seeing many sights considering surprising to the eye of the photographer and pontist, I decided to use Instagram on my Smartphone and started taking pictures.

And the rest was history. 🙂

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Bahnhofsbrücke spanning the Schwarzwasser at the confluence with the Zwickauer Mulde

A post shared by bridgehunters_chronicles2010 (@bridgehunters_chronicles17) on May 23, 2017 at 1:09am PDT

Despite the firsthand attempt of using Instagram to construct a tour guide of the historic bridges in the community of 55,000 inhabitants, it did not stop right there. Over the course of almost six months- most of which was concentrated in the second half of the time when I started working as a teacher at the police academy nearby- I found some valuable information and together with what I used with Instagram, I enhanced my tour guide in a way where I integrated my photos and information into Google Map, so that in the end, this tour guide is the first in which Google Map is used exclusively.

So how does this work? Rather simple.

Go to the map at the end of the article, zoom in and click onto the bridge you wish to look at. Enjoy the pics and the information provided per bridge. 🙂   The goal with this tour guide is to make it simpler for people to access the bridge without reading too much text. The Aue Bridge Guide will set the precedent for further tour guides to be created in the future, while at the same time, experiment with newer social network apps with the goal of attracting more viewers than up to now.

It is hoped that the two attempts will be a success and the Chrnonicles will therefore become a bigger platform for discussing historic bridges.

In the meantime, enjoy the tour guide as well as the pics via Instagram. 😀

 

 

The Bridges of Schlema, Germany

Bad Schlema Railroad Bridge. Photos taken by the author in August-November, 2017

Part three of the historic bridge tour in the western part of the Ore Mountain region (German: Erzgebirge) takes us northeast to Bad Schlema. When we think of the community of about 5,700 inhabitants and the word Bad, it does not refer to the condition of the town. Granted there are many derelict buildings whose historic value warrants renovation and conversion into a recreational facility of some sorts per building, while some houses and even bridges that are at least 50 years old and have cracks and missing siding are in need of some renovations.  The word Bad in German stands for either bath(room) or health spa. In the case of Schlema, it is the latter. Nestled deep into the valley of the River Schlema, the houses, both modern and antique line up along the creek that is only 10 meters wide but cuts a huge gorge into the mountains enroute to the Zwickauer Mulde at the site of the Stone Arch Bridge (see article for more details).  The health spa in Bad Schlema is over a century old and consists of radon bath house, hotel and resort and a park complex- all within approximately five acres of each other, the size of a typical rural American golf course, like the one at Loon Lake in Jackson County, Minnesota, where I spent most of my childhood. One can recognize the health spa area by the large tent that pops up as you drive on the road connecting Hartenstein and Bad Schlema heading west in the direction of Schneeberg. That road is part of Silver Road, the longest road in Saxony which starts in Zwickau and passes through Schneeberg and Schlema enroute to Freiberg and Saxony. It has a storied history in connection with mining of copper, Silver, iron and uranium and many sites in Schlema serve as memorials for the regional past time.

Close-up of the tent-style building which is the Radon Health Spa.

But as I mentioned in my previous article on the Stone Arch Bridge, Bad Schlema was once connected by a rail line, which branched off from the north-south route connecting Aue and Zwickau (enroute to Werdau and Leipzig), ran along the Schlema going past the north end of Schneeberg before terminating at Neustädtel to the northwest. Five stations provided access for people to board, including Oberschlema, Schneeberg and Neustädtel, yet by 1955 only the station at Niederschlema was still serving trains, but along the Zwickauer Mulde. That was later renamed Bad Schlema. The line to Niederschlema was discontinued and later dismantled to make way for the main highway (B169) that now connects Schneeberg with the Saxony Police Academy and all points westward. However, some relicts of the Schneeberg Line still exist in Bad Schlema, including the Oberschlema Train Station (now privately owned), flanked with three bridges.

The three bridges at the former Oberschlema Train Station

But when comparing the bridges to the ones in Zschorlau (in the previous article), Schlema has many more small bridge crossings spanning the small river that empties into the Zwickauer Mulde- 44 to be exact! But unlike the crossings in the town south of Schneeberg, most of these bridges in Schlema are wooden crossings that serve private property on the opposite side of the bank. The exception is a crossing at a bus stop, which given the proximity of the road running parallel to the river, makes sense. That bridge and bus stop is co-owned by the community and the regional bus service RVE.

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Yet there are some standouts that are worth noting, which you can find on the map below. Like in the ones for Aue and Zschorlau, the location of the bridges include some information and photos, which will help you find the bridges when visiting Bad Schlema. A lot of information is missing and therefore, if you have any you wish to add, please contact Jason Smith at the Chronicles and will add it accordingly.

Good luck! 🙂