Post photo: Friedrich-Ebert-Bridge | © MonikaP on Pixabay
Recently, the 500 meters from the bulwark tower to the idol tower in Heilbronn Neckar Mile chosen, and if you take advantage of the diverse and often excellent offers along the Neckar, it can seem as if it is a mile.
In any case, the lower and upper Neckarstrasse have developed into a well-frequented meeting place in Heilbronn in recent years, a real Neckar promenade that can be highly recommended without further ado, which also the Heilbronn city center overall upgraded and with the Neckar up to the Wertwiesenpark on one or up to the Neckar arch on the other hand harbors further potential for development. If you then add the area around Kaiser-Friedrich-Platz to the main train station or even the Europe Square with its adjacent educational campus includes, then Heilbronn will be able to come up with an offer that can easily keep up with the offers of much larger cities.
The potential is definitely there and promises future generations at least a rosy, cultural, sociable and therefore liveable future in Heilbronn.
Until then, it is important to appreciate what has already been created, but above all to use and maintain it. I have two suggestions for this:
signage and signage
One could easily start signposting things in Heilbronn that actually already exist. In addition to the Sülmer City - these signs even existed before - you can signpost the Neckar mile quite well and thus show all visitors and guests as well as the people of Heilbronn themselves which part of Heilbronn you are in.
It also fits quite well that the Europaplatz in Heilbronn is once again identified as such.
If signposts are now added that show pedestrians and cyclists the way there, a good start would already be made without great effort and expense.
It would be wonderful if the most prominent Heilbronn trees, at least in this area, were also marked.
water feature
Heilbronn in the Neckar has had its own water feature right next to the Neckar stage for a long time. It is very surprising that this is not used. Worse still, it stays off even during the hottest days of the year when it would be beneficial to the health of even the city dwellers and wildlife as a whole.
Two suggestions that were certainly also brought to the city administration by other people from Heilbronn, which could be implemented very easily and without much effort on the part of those responsible.
It should even be possible to switch on the water feature without hiring external experts or advertising agencies. The municipal council and the top management could even combine the whole thing with a trip to Geneva to have the switching on and operation of a water feature explained to them on site.
On August 7, 2020, the time had come and those responsible were able to bring the water feature back to life in a concerted effort.
When my better half and I came by, we saw a little girl running towards the water feature, clapping and laughing at the same time — a late afternoon on the Neckar can hardly be any better.
The water mist that the city of Heilbronn had installed for the BUGA in Kranenstraße is doing less well. At first I thought that this action was completely unnecessary and also overpriced, slowly got used to it and finally even liked it.
If you walk along Kranenstraße today, you will find exactly this water mist system shut down and garnished with dried plants. A shame both for those responsible and for the so-called BUGA friends who have obviously set new priorities.
I would like to remind those responsible that it is not enough to simply have infrastructure created, but that it must be maintained and, if necessary, renewed. In addition, the hoped-for profit of the BUGA quickly evaporated if you let parts of it rot away afterwards and experienced by everyone — a BUGA obliges, even after 2019.
After the water feature only splashed a little and only now and then until the end of the year, it can no longer be observed in 2021. Only a few waterfowl use the installation to get some rest from overly aggressive city dwellers.
But now I know, and this is always from a very well-informed source, why the Neckar or city fountain no longer has a chance with us. It stands in the way of the wine pavilion, which was completed in 2020, because it brings Neckar water into the wine glasses on site when the wind is unfavorable; which actually does not harm a good wine.
However, the responsible winegrowers seem to have noticed that the Neckar water even improves the wine and are now afraid - because they know us Heilbronners very well - that if this should become public knowledge, the Heilbronners will come by with their own glasses and meet on site and then having fun with Neckar water in the best of moods instead of buying the wine that is served there.
"And I stand on the shore for long days, seeking the land of the Greeks with my soul."
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Iphigenia in Tauris (1787)
