Jaap van 't Veen's photos with the keyword: Bodensee

In the Pfahlbaumuseum in Unteruhldingen, pile dwellings from the Stone and Bronze Age (4,000 to 850 B.C.) come back to life in reconstructions. The museum provides an insight into the mysterious world of farmers, fishermen and bronze casters from prehistoric times. About 6,000 years ago, the first farmers settled by the lakes around the Alps. They often built their villages directly on the water. By putting their houses on stilts, they had protection against damp soil and flooding. The important water, the fishing and a safe and convenient location on the major trade routes were probably reasons to settle here. It was not until the end of the Bronze Age (850 B.C.) that climate change forced them back to the higher regions of thee inland. Since then, the remains of the sunken villages have been well protected in the lakes. Completely isolated from the air, the soil also contains organic remains that would otherwise have been rotten on land for a long time. Numerous finds allow an accurate reconstruction of the houses. During intensive underwater excavations, divers were able to store numerous objects: tools, bones, textiles and even the remains of meals. Pfahlbaumuseum Unteruhldingen is one of Europe’s largest archaelogical open-air museums. It shows more than twenty reconstructed pile dwellings and replicas and original findings from excavations.

Flower island Mainau in Lake Constance is all year/all weather destination. We visited early September and were ‘lucky’ finding the summer flowers and decorations still in bloom. But we were really surprised by the explosion of colours in the Dahlia garden. One slope of the island was full of flowerbeds with blooming dahlias, varying in height and colour. I did read there were about 250 different species with a total number of plants of more than 12.000. Dahlias have originated in Mexiko and Guatemala. In 1790, the director of the botanic garden of Mexico-City, sent dahlias to Madrid. Since then many different sorts of dahlias have spread to gardens in Europe and the rest of the world. Dahlias have come to Europe's gardens not too long ago, but nonetheless, there is a certain tradition in the dahlia blossom on Mainau for about 60 years now. More info/pictures of Mainau: www.ipernity.com/doc/294067/48482522

Mainau - the flower island - had many owners before it was bought in 1853 by Grand Duke Friedrich I of Baden as a personal property. He is considered being the park founder. He not only built a summer residence, but began to create order on the island to redesign it and plant rare exotic trees and plants, which he brought back from his travels. In the 1930, Prince Wilhelm (then the island's owner) turned the administration of Mainau over to his son, the Swedish Prince Lennart Bernadotte II. The prince, who had renounced his Swedish royal lineage after marrying a commoner, devoted the rest of his life to turning the island into a privately-operated park. Mainau is now maintained by a foundation that the prince and his second wife established. The island's manager is their daughter, Countess Bettina Bernadotte and their son, Count Björn Bernadotte, manages the foundation. The Bernadotte family still lives in the castle on the island. Mainau - with 45 hectare the third largest island in Lake Constance - has a kind of micro Mediterranean climate. Nowadays it offers the beauty of impressive and colourful themed gardens ( for instance a Rhododendron slope, Italian Rose garden and Dahlia garden - www.ipernity.com/doc/294067/48516738 ) and a very interesting park-like arboretum with 500 different species. A greenhouse has a tropical climate and houses thousands of butterflies. The flower island is the main attraction of Lake Constance and attracts a lot more than a million visitors each year. Although not the main reason for visiting, parts of the 18th century castle (large PiP ) are open to the public.