I first visited Görlitz, for no particular reason, in October 2023, as described in this post.

This time, the occasion was these two tours to what for some strange reason the Germans call “Lost Places” (why DO they call them that?). I had very little idea of what to expect, and a list of places to be visited does not exist.

Having set off from Berlin very early in the morning of 4 April, while walking in the direction of my hotel in the Altstadt, I looked for a nice café first thing upon arrival, and found Café Bikini in Berliner Straße. New, with healthy food choices and great coffee. Highly recommended.

Later in the day, I re-discovered another very nice café, this one on the other side of the river Neiße in Zgorelec. I also still find it fun to be able to nip over to Poland for a coffee. While we still can. Before Trump hands Putin Poland on a silver platter.

Photos from day 1:

Day 2: before going back to Café Bikini for brunch – an early walk in Stadtpark where the day before I had heard and seen many birds, and photographed, a.o. my first Hawfinch/Kernbeißer.

Heard many different birds again, and got some photographs of variable quality. Am posting most of them here, at least for the purposes of identification later.

Not sure about this one (same bird in all three photos):

The following are Nuthatch/Kleiber, Red Kite/Rotmarlin, Robin/Rotkehlchen, Song Thrush/Singdrossel, Starling/Star, in that order.

Two small buildings next to each other, a monument for the 15th East Meridian, some miniature daffodils, and the obligatory tree in black and white, in that order.

Photos from the afternoon’s tour of five “Lost Places”

The tours were not dedicated photo tours, and the groups were large (I estimate about 35 people on the first tour). The following is the best I was able to do with the time, space, opportunity, and light (or lack of) available.

The tour on day 2 had slightly fewer participants, but again the usual, obligatory handful of badly brought-up retards who were unable or unwilling to keep their mouths shut while the guide was speaking.

Same number of places visited as on day one (six) but where we walked about 7 km on day 1, we only walked between four and five km on the second tour. Others who might want to attend one or more of these tours should be prepared for lots of stairs.

Before the tour, I took this one from my hotel room:

Some of the photos from the Sunday tour were taken on the way from place to the next: