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The upper Rhine valley and the surrounding hills and mountains stretch from Frankfurt in the north to Basel in the south. Most of it belongs to Baden and Alsace, although southern Hessen and south-eastern Palatinate posess upper Rhine territories as well.
The area offers all kinds of different landscape types.
In this thread I want to introduce you to them. I will only talk about landscapes that have not yet been affected by the growing big cities and industrial areas.
First of all the upper Rhine valley, due to its southern location and being only a few meters above sea level,:
....has a special climate for German standarts. It is sometimes described as submediterranean. This map, published by the German meteorological service, shows it:
Near the Rhine river the natural landscape is swampy with mosquitos and a lot of water birds. Especially the huge white stork can be seen quite often.
They build their nests on roofs:
In summer the area has an almost tropical vibe. Due to the high humidity and mosquitoes it´s quite challenging to live near the upper Rhine river. The following pictures are from the nature reserve "Taubergießen", which was created in order to protect the original swampy landscape.
Despite the tropical humidity in summer there is sometimes snow or frost in winter. Which creates a totally different atmosphere.
pt. 2 coming soon....
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