Saarland, Germany

This was one of my first official cards from Germany. It's a multiview of the German state of Saarland. Multiviews mean more work for me to post on this blog... plus I usually like single views better. But I like this one.

Beautiful Saarland.
The top photo is a bend in the Saar River (for which the state is named) near the town of Mettlach. Bottom left you can see Schloss Berg, which is either a castle in Luxembourg, or a fancy hotel chain in Germany. It's hard to tell from a cursory glance through Google. If anyone else wants to try their hand, all I have is this picture from the card, and the text "Schloß Berg in Nennig." I'm leaning towards saying this is the hotel, because its presence on the card implies that it's in Saarland...

Bottom right is Ludwigskirche in Saarbrücken (the capitol of Saarland), one of the most important Protestant churches in Germany, commissioned by Prince Wilhelm Heinrich von Nassau-Saarbrücken, designed (along with the surrounding square, which you can see in the photo) by Friedrich Joachim Stengel, and built in 1762-75. It was severely damaged in World War II, with only the outer walls left standing, and there was a subsequent disagreement about whether the interior should be restored to an approximation of its original Baroque design, or rebuilt and modernized.

On the left with the happy cats is a stamp designed by New York artist James Rizzi, proclaiming "All the best!" On the right is "Still Life With Cherries" by the late 16th/early 17th century Moravian painter Georg Flegel, from the "German Painting" series of stamps.