A cascade in Linderhof, Bavaria, Germany.
Who has not tried to replicate Versailles, the famous palace of Louis XIV, the king of France? Just look at Sanssouci, Peterhof, or Schoenbrunn to name a few. The young king of Bavaria, Ludwig II, also didn’t remain uninvolved. When he ascended the throne in 1864, at the age of 18, he immediately started to build his fairy tale castles and palaces. One of them, Linderhof, was supposed to be a new Versailles in the Bavarian Alps near the Linder River.
The bell tower of the flooded city of Kalyazin, Russia.
One day, we bought tickets for a river cruise ship from Moscow to Uglich, the ancient Russian city famous for the fact that Ivan the Terribles son Dmitry was killed there. He was the last representative of the Rurik Dynasty which ruled in Russia for 500 years until the end of the 16th century. But today’s story is about a miracle you can miss in the middle of the cruise (for example, by sleeping in your cabin). It’s a beautiful bell tower standing half flooded right in the middle of the Volga River.
Did you ever fly in your sleep as a child? I did. Do you remember those bird’s-eye views of Earth? I do. Impressions were magnificent – I was a bird. Have you ever noticed that when someone is standing on the edge of something like the Grand Canyon and posing for a photographer, more often than not, they raise their arms to the sides? Why? Because in that moment, they feel they have wings. At least, they would in the fantastic world of dreams.
However, if you aren’t lucky enough to live in Norway’s fjords or the Swiss Alps, but still want to get similar impressions, mankind invented bell towers for you many centuries ago.
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