Scenic route
A scenic route, tourist road, tourist route, tourist drive, holiday route, theme route, or scenic byway is a specially designated road or waterway that travels through an area of natural or cultural beauty. The designation is determined by a governmental body, such as a Department of Transportation or a Ministry of Transport. A tourist highway or holiday route is a road, marketed as suited for tourists. Tourist highways may be formed when existing roads are promoted with traffic signs and advertising material; some tourist highways such as the Blue Ridge Parkway are built for tourism purposes. Others may be roadways enjoyed by local citizens in areas of exceptional natural beauty. Still others, such as the Lincoln Highway in Illinois are former main roads, only designated as "scenic" after most traffic bypasses them. In the United States this type of roadway is termed a scenic highway. In Europe and other countries around the world they are marked with brown tourist signs with the individual route symbol or name, or both.
In the United States, a scenic route may refer to a type of special route of the U. S. highway system that travels through a beautiful area. These special routes, which boast "Scenic" banners are longer than the "parent route". There is only one route in the country that remains with the official scenic designation: U. S. Route 40 Scenic in Maryland. Scenic byways in the United States include state, National Scenic Byway, National Forest Scenic Byways and Bureau of Land Management Back Country Byways programs which designate roads or routes as scenic byways due to some unique characteristics. National Parkways are scenic roads in the National Park System built for recreational driving through scenic or historic areas. Unlike most scenic routes, National Parkways are built with a buffer of park land along both sides of the roadway, they may have large satellite parks or recreation areas built periodically along their length. Most National Historic Trails are commemorative motor routes. Theme routes are special theme-based tours, aimed at providing a visitor or tourist with a better insight on that theme.
Being popular in Europe, they can cover anything from an individual city, a wine growing region, Dutch tulip fields, Swiss Mountains, to Norwegian Fjords. Subjects can be architectural, historical, or cultural. Examples of theme routes: Bergstraße Bertha Benz Memorial Route Castle Road Cheese Route Deutsche Fährstraße European Route of Industrial Heritage German Wine Route Golden Ring of Russia of historical sites Liberation Route Europe Silver Ring of Russia of historical sites Romantic Road Scotland's Malt Whisky Trail Silver Road Trail of the Eagle's Nests, along a chain of medieval castles in Poland Upper Swabian Baroque Route Wild Atlantic Way Auxiliary route Scenic Drive Trail blazing Viewshed Scenic byways in the United States National Tourist Routes in Norway Marguerite route in Denmark Asian Route of Industrial Heritage
County of Hanau
The County of Hanau was a territory within the Holy Roman Empire, evolved out of the Lordship of Hanau in 1429. From 1456 to 1642 and from 1685 to 1712 it was divided into the County of Hanau-Münzenberg and the County of Hanau-Lichtenberg. After both lines became extinct the County of Hanau-Münzenberg was inherited by the Landgraviate of Hesse-Kassel, the County of Hanau-Lichtenberg by the Landgraviate of Hesse-Darmstadt in 1736. In 1429 Emperor Sigismund of the Holy Roman Empire declared Reinhard II. of Hanau a count, so his possessions, the Lordship of Hanau, became the County of Hanau. The main part of it was positioned to the north of the river Main stretching from the West of Frankfurt am Main eastwards through the valley of the river Kinzig to Schlüchtern and into the Spessart mountains to Partenstein. Not correct the title County of Hanau is used in literature sometimes for its territorial predecessor, the Lordship of Hanau; this elevation in rank was an outer sign for the political and economical success of Reinhard II.
Only one year after the death of Reinhard II his son and successor, Reinhard III died too, leaving as heir his son Philipp I a boy four years of age. It was in no way certain; this was a threat to the further existence of the family of the counts of Hanau. The only other living male of the family was Philipp I, a brother to Reinhard III and uncle to Philipp I. Due to the Hanau Statute of Primogeniture of 1375 only the eldest son of a reigning count of Hanau was allowed to marry and produce offspring able to inherit the title and county; this caused a conflict within the family producing two parties: The mother of Philipp I, Countess Palatine Margaret of Mosbach, her father, Otto I, Count Palatine of Mosbach, on one side insiting on the Statute of Primogeniture. Their interest lay in securing the whole, undivided inheritance for Philipp I. On the other side stood Philipp I and most of the influential persons and institutions in the county, including its four towns; the conflict lasted until 1457.
In 1458 this led to the solution Philipp I wished: The administrative District of Babenhausen –, all the territory of the county south of the river Main – was separated from the county and given to Philipp I. It became the nucleus of the county of Hanau-Lichtenberg; the remaining county was called Hanau-Münzenberg to distinguish the two counties. In 1642 the last male member of the Hanau-Münzenberg family, Count Johann Ernst, died; the next male of kin was Friedrich Casimir, Count of Hanau-Lichtenberg still a minor under the guardianship of Georg II of Fleckenstein-Dagstuhl. The relation to count Johann Ernst was quite remote and the inheritance endangered in more than one way; the inheritance happened during the final years of Thirty Years' War, the feudal Overlords enemy to Hanau, tried to hold back fiefs traditionally held by Hanau-Münzenberg, the county of Hanau-Münzenberg was of Reformed Confession, Friedrich Casimir and the county of Hanau-Lichtenberg were Lutheran and to reach the capital of Hanau-Münzenberg, the town of Hanau, proved to be difficult for the heir: Friedrich Casimir only managed by travelling in disguise.
Georg II of Fleckenstein-Dagstuhl managed the succession of Friedrich Casimir by two treaties: Parties to the first one of 1642 were Friedrich Casimir and the wealthy bourgoisie of Hanau. The count granted the reformed faith as state religion within Hanau-Münzenberg only reserving Lutheran services for himself and his court. Therefore, the citizens of Hanau – by far the strongest power within the devasteted county – sopported the accession of Friedrich Casimir. Parties to the second one of 1643 were Friedrich Casimir and Landgravine Amalie Elisabeth, née countess of Hanau-Münzenberg, daughter to Philipp Ludwig II, she granted diplomatic support against the still resistend overlords. Therefore, Friedrich Casimir granted – should the house of Hanau be without male heirs – the inheritance of Hanau-Münzenberg to the descendants of Amalie Elisabeth; that happened in 1736. These treaties secured the unification of the two Hanau counties under one ruler and saved Hanau-Münzenberg as a unit. Against the treaty of accession between Friedrich Casimir and his Hanau subjects he tried to enlarge the influence of the Lutherans within Hanau-Münzenberg: The first twenty years of his reign the Lutheran services were limited to the chapel in his castle in Hanau.
But due to growing numbers from 1658-1662 an own church building for the Lutherans was erected in the town against the protest of the reformed majority, the Johanneskirche. Both parties struggled against each other for decades, tried to prevent – unsuccessfully – mixed marriages and fought one another. An additional treaty of 1670 allowed the Lutherans their own church; this resulted in two parallel churches within the county of Hanau-Münzenberg each one having its own administration. Therefore, a lot of villages in Hanau-Münzenberg had a set of reformed church, school and cemetery and another one for the Lutherans. Only the Enlightenment and the economic crises of the Napoleonic Wars let to the Hanau Union which ended this double structure in 1818. Sibylle Christine of Anhalt-Dessau, the widow of Count Philipp Moritz, the ruling count until 1638 had received Steinau Castle as her widow seat; as widow of a ruling count, she could raise substantial claims against the county. To avoid this, it was decided to marry Friedrich Casimir to the widow, 44 years old at the time 20 years older than he.
An added advantage of this marriage was that she was a Calvinist whi
Imperial Palace, Gelnhausen
The Imperial Palace at Gelnhausen, in German called the Kaiserpfalz Gelnhausen, Pfalz Gelnhausen or Barbarossaburg, is located on the Kinzig river, in the town of Gelnhausen, Germany. It was founded in 1170, like the town whose creation was linked to the palace, goes back to Emperor Frederick I; the palace enabled the expansion of imperial territory along an important long-distance highway, the Via Regia. The exact date when construction of the palace began is still much disputed by historians. Debate revolves around the question of whether the building of the palace took place a few years before the official founding of the royal town in 1170. Or whether there was an earlier castle belonging to the Counts of Selbold-Gelnhausen. Various data acquired through the use of dendrochronology point to the time around 1170, in which the subsoil was made capable of bearing load by driving oak piles into the ground for the foundations of the walls; the construction of the palace was managed by the Counts of Büdingen, who erected the castle of Büdingen as their own residence nearby.
In 1180, the imperial palace at Gelnhausen was the venue for the great imperial court or Hoftag of Gelnhausen, at which Henry the Lion was put on trial in his absence and his imperial fiefs redistributed. In the years that followed, further imperial courts were convened at Gelnhausen. Whether at this time the now ruined palas had been built for use as an assembly hall is not clear, but appears likely; the large number of different stonemasons suggests a large number of labourers working on the building site at the same time and thus a rapid pace of construction. During the Hohenstaufen era, the palace was an Imperial Castle, had Burgmannen, its estate included Büdingen Forest, in which the castle's occupants still retained timber rights until the 19th century. The decline of the palace began as early as the 14th century when, in 1349, Emperor Charles IV enfeoffed it, together with the town, to the Counts of Schwarzburg and never reclaimed it. In 1431, the Count of Hanau and Count Palatine Louis III procured the palace and town from Count Henry of Schwarzburg.
At the end of the 16th century, the Counts of Isenburg in Birstein had taken over the burgrave's office, but did not reside at the castle. During the Thirty Years' War, the town and palace were damaged and Imperial and Swedish troops razed down its main building. After the extinction of the House of Hanau in 1736, Gelnhausen fell to the Landgraves of Hesse-Kassel; the palace was used as a quarry until 1811. The castle chapel had to be demolished due to its dilapidated condition. Around 1810, the palace became one of the first buildings from the epoch of Romanesque architecture in Germany that attracted the interest of art-loving scholars. At the end of the 19th century and during the 20th century, the first safety measures were carried out to preserve the remains of the palace for posterity, it was not until the end of the 19th century that the independent municipality of Burg was dissolved and integrated into the town of Gelnhausen. Today, the palace belongs to the state of Hesse and is managed by the Administration of State Castles and Gardens for Hesse.
Along with its attached castle museum, it is open to the public. Thomas Biller: Kaiserpfalz Gelnhausen. Die vor 1170 gegründete und 1180 fertiggestellte Pfalz des Stauferkaisers Friedrich I. Barbarossa. 1. Auflage. Schnell & Steiner, Regensburg, 2000, ISBN 3-7954-6253-3. Günther Binding: Pfalz Gelnhausen. Eine Bauuntersuchung. H. Bouvier, Bonn, 1965. Joachim Ehlers: Zur Datierung der Pfalz Gelnhausen. In: Hessisches Jahrbuch für Landesgeschichte, 18, pp. 94–130. Waltraud Friedrich: Kulturdenkmäler in Hessen. Main-Kinzig-Kreis II.2. Gelnhausen, Gründau, Jossgrund, Linsengericht, Wächtersbach. Published by the Landesamt für Denkmalpflege Hessen, Wiesbaden/ Stuttgart, 2011, ISBN 978-3-8062-2469-6, pp. 507–511. Bernhard Hundeshagen: Kaiser Friedrichs I. Barbarossa Palast in der Burg zu Gelnhausen. Eine Urkunde vom Adel der von Hohenstaufen und der Kunstbildung ihrer Zeit. Mainz, 1819. Tobias Picard: Königspfalzen im Rhein-Main-Gebiet: Ingelheim – Frankfurt – Trebur – Gelnhausen – Seligenstadt. In: Heribert Müller: „...
Ihrer Bürger Freiheit“ – Frankfurt am Main im Mittelalter. Beiträge zur Erinnerung an die Frankfurter Mediaevistin Elsbet Orth. Kramer, Frankfurt, 2004, ISBN 9783782905442, pp. 19–73. Fred Schwind, Reichsstadt und Kaiserpfalz Gelnhausen, in: Patze, Hans: Der Reichstag von Gelnhausen. Ein Markstein in der deutschen Geschichte 1180 - 1980. Marburg, 1981, pp. 73–95. Gerd Strickhausen: Burgen der Ludowinger in Thüringen, Hessen und dem Rheinland. Studien zu Architektur und Landesherrschaft im Hochmittelalter. Hessische Historischen Kommission Darmstadt, Darmstadt, 1998, ISBN 3-88443-061-0, pp. 247–249. Alfons Zettler: Gelnhausen als Gründung Kaiser Friedrichs I. Barbarossa. In: Herzner, Volker. Akten der 1. Landauer Staufertagung 1997. Regensburg, 2001, pp. 47–55. Information about the imperial palace on the website of the town of Gelnhausen
Louis III, Elector Palatine
Louis III, Count Palatine of the Rhine, was an Elector Palatine of the Rhine from the house of Wittelsbach in 1410–1436. Louis III was the third son of his wife Elisabeth of Nuremberg. During his father's campaign in Italy 1401-1402 Louis served as imperial vicar, he did not run for the German crown. The Palatinate was divided between the four of Rupert's surviving sons; as oldest surviving son and new Prince-Elector Louis III received the main part, John received Palatinate-Neumarkt, Stephen received Palatinate-Simmern and Otto received Palatinate-Mosbach. Louis III was of the League of Constance. Cultured and religious he was a patron of the Heidelberg University. Louis III acted as vicar for Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor and was his bearer during the Council of Constance; as such Louis also executed the sentences against Jan Hus and Jerome of Prague. He arrested Antipope John XXIII in 1415. Louis III returned sick from a pilgrimage in 1427 into the Holy Land which he had organized after the death of his son Ruprecht.
From 1430 onwards he was blind and in 1435 deprived of power by his wife and her advisors. In the following year he died, in Heidelberg, was succeeded by his son Louis IV. Louis III was married twice. Firstly, he married on 6 July 1402 Blanche of England, daughter of King Henry IV of England and Mary de Bohun, they had one son Ruprecht. This marriage brought the Palatine Crown into the hands of the Wittelsbach. Secondly, he married on daughter of Amadeo, Prince of Achaea, they had five children: Mathilde, married: in 1434 to Count Louis I of Württemberg in 1452 to Duke Albrecht VI of Austria Louis IV, Elector Palatine Frederick I, Elector Palatine Rupprecht, Prince-elector archbishop of Cologne Margarete, a nun at Liebenau monastery Harriss, Gerald. Shaping the Nation: England 1360-1461. Oxford University Press. Ogden, Jack. Diamonds: An Early History of the King of Gems. Yale University Press. Thomas, Andrew L.. A House Divided: Wittelsbach Confessional Court Cultures in the Holy Roman Empire, c.1550-1650.
Brill. Watanabe, Morimichi. Christianson, Gerald. Nicholas of Cusa: A Companion to His Life and His Times. Ashgate Publishing. Genealogie-mittelalter.de Biography
Vehicle registration plate
A vehicle registration plate known as a number plate or a license plate, is a metal or plastic plate attached to a motor vehicle or trailer for official identification purposes. All countries require registration plates for road vehicles such as cars and motorcycles. Whether they are required for other vehicles, such as bicycles, boats, or tractors, may vary by jurisdiction; the registration identifier is a numeric or alphanumeric ID that uniquely identifies the vehicle owner within the issuing region's vehicle register. In some countries, the identifier is unique within the entire country, while in others it is unique within a state or province. Whether the identifier is associated with a vehicle or a person varies by issuing agency. There are electronic license plates. Most governments require a registration plate to be attached to both the front and rear of a vehicle, although certain jurisdictions or vehicle types, such as motorboats, require only one plate, attached to the rear of the vehicle.
National databases relate this number to other information describing the vehicle, such as the make, colour, year of manufacture, engine size, type of fuel used, mileage recorded, vehicle identification number, the name and address of the vehicle's registered owner or keeper. In the vast majority of jurisdictions, the government holds a monopoly on the manufacturing of vehicle registration plates for that jurisdiction. Either a government agency or a private company with express contractual authorization from the government makes plates as needed, which are mailed to, delivered to, or picked up by the vehicle owners. Thus, it is illegal for private citizens to make and affix their own plates, because such unauthorized private manufacturing is equivalent to forging an official document. Alternatively, the government will assign plate numbers, it is the vehicle owner's responsibility to find an approved private supplier to make a plate with that number. In some jurisdictions, plates will be permanently assigned to that particular vehicle for its lifetime.
If the vehicle is either destroyed or exported to a different country, the plate number is retired or reissued. China requires the re-registration of any vehicle that crosses its borders from another country, such as for overland tourist visits, regardless of the length of time it is due to remain there. Other jurisdictions follow a "plate-to-owner" policy, meaning that when a vehicle is sold the seller removes the current plate from the vehicle. Buyers must either obtain new plates or attach plates they hold, as well as register their vehicles under the buyer's name and plate number. A person who sells a car and purchases a new one can apply to have the old plates put onto the new car. One who sells a car and does not buy a new one may, depending on the local laws involved, have to turn the old plates in or destroy them, or may be permitted to keep them; some jurisdictions permit the registration of the vehicle with "personal" plates. In some jurisdictions, plates require periodic replacement associated with a design change of the plate itself.
Vehicle owners may or may not have the option to keep their original plate number, may have to pay a fee to exercise this option. Alternately, or additionally, vehicle owners have to replace a small decal on the plate or use a decal on the windshield to indicate the expiration date of the vehicle registration, periodic safety and/or emissions inspections or vehicle taxation. Other jurisdictions have replaced the decal requirement through the use of computerization: a central database maintains records of which plate numbers are associated with expired registrations, communicating with automated number plate readers to enable law-enforcement to identify expired registrations in the field. Plates are fixed directly to a vehicle or to a plate frame, fixed to the vehicle. Sometimes, the plate frames contain advertisements inserted by the vehicle service centre or the dealership from which the vehicle was purchased. Vehicle owners can purchase customized frames to replace the original frames. In some jurisdictions registration plate frames have design restrictions.
For example, many states, like Texas, allow plate frames but prohibit plate frames from covering the name of the state, district, Native American tribe or country that issued of license plate. Plates are designed to conform to standards with regard to being read by eye in day or at night, or by electronic equipment; some drivers purchase clear, smoke-colored or tinted covers that go over the registration plate to prevent electronic equipment from scanning the registration plate. Legality of these covers varies; some cameras incorporate filter systems that make such avoidance attempts unworkable with infra-red filters. Vehicles pulling trailers, such as caravans and semi-trailer trucks, are required to display a third registration plate on the rear of the trailer. An engineering study by the University of Illinois published in 1960 recommended that the state of Illinois adopt a numbering system and plate design "composed of combinations of characters which can be perceived and are legible at a distance of 125 feet under daylight conditions, are adapted to filing and administrative procedures".
It recommended that a standard plate size of 6 inches by 14 inches be adopte
Via Regia
The Via Regia, running from the Rhine river through Frankfurt am Main and Leipzig is a European Cultural Route following the route of the historic road of the Middle Ages. There were many such via regia associated with the king in the medieval Holy Roman Empire, such as the King's road from Menzlin to Wismar - but the subject of this article is the best‑known; the Via Regia ran west–east through the centre of the Holy Roman Empire, from the Rhine at Mainz-Kastel to Frankfurt am Main, trade city and site of the election of the King of the Romans, continuing along Hanau, the Kaiserpfalz at Gelnhausen, the towns of Steinau an der Straße, Neuhof and Eisenach to Erfurt, a centre of woad production. It ran further eastwards to Eckartsberga, crossing the Saale river between Bad Kösen and Naumburg and reached Leipzig, another trade city; the eastern part continued through Upper Lusatia along Großenhain, Königsbrück, Bautzen and Görlitz to Wrocław in Silesia with further connection to Kraków in Poland.
The road was first mentioned as strata regia in a document issued by Margrave Henry III of Meissen in 1252, while its origins date back to the 8th and 9th centuries. After the downfall of the Imperial power in Central Germany in favour of the Saxon House of Wettin following the 1307 Battle of Lucka, the road lost its royal status and from the 14th century this route could no longer be spoken of as a "Via Regia"; the important section of the road between Frankfurt and Leipzig continued to exist under the name Hohe Straße. It remained under sovereign control of e.g. the Bohemian Crown in Upper Lusatia, the Saxon electors, the Abbey of Fulda, as well as the Archbishopric of Mainz and was chartered through tolling. The branch-off from Frankfurt am Main to Cologne via Wetzlar was called Hohe Straße; the road had a large economic significance for interregional bartering. From the west came Flemish blankets, from the east wood, pelts and honey, the middle section controlled the German indigo of the Thuringian Basin as well as the mining products of the Saxon Ore Mountains.
The High Road provided the direct route between the largest German trade fairs of Frankfurt and Leipzig. Pilgrims, who took part in the Aachen Cathedral shrine pilgrimage used the road in large numbers. Thereto they turned off the trunk road at Eisenach along the "Long Hesse" road to Marburg and Cologne. Testimonies of the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela are known from Großenhain, Erfurt, Vacha, Frankfurt am Main and Mainz; the road was used by armies. Some large battles came to pass in its catchment area. After the final defeat of Napoleon, the significance of the road declined, since, as a result of the reduction of the Kingdom of Saxony by large parts of its Lusatian territories at the Congress of Vienna, the toll on behalf of Leipzig was no longer continued. Parts of the historic Via Regia route are today marked by major national roads: between Eisenach and Erfurt by the Bundesstraße 7. In Hanau the Birkenhainer Strasse branches off the Via Regia crossing the Spessart mountain range towards Gemünden am Main in Franconia as a high road.
The Council of Europe awarded the Via Regia the title of Major Cultural Route of the "Council of Europe” in 2005. According to the Council of Europe, it "is the name of the oldest and longest road link between the East and the West of Europe; the route has existed for more than 2.000 years and connects 8 European countries through a length of 4.500 km." Ludwig Steinfeld: Chronik einer Straße. Die alte Straße von Frankfurt nach Leipzig. Geiger-Verlag, Horb am Neckar 1994, ISBN 3-89264-360-1 El Camino Real Dere Street, Scotland's Via Regia Roman roads VIA REGIA - Cultural Route of the Council of Europe Third Saxon State Exhibition „via regia — 800 years of movement and mobility” May 21st to October 31st 2011 in Görlitz The Official Site of Radomysl Castle - the participant of the project "VIA REGIA Cultural Route of the Council of Europe"
