This is Mülheim’s Stadthalle, one of the city’s most famous landmarks, which rougly translates to City Hall, but this is not the Rathaus – it’s actually a theatre and concert hall, built in 1926 and rebuilt in the 1950s after WWII. The building, located on the west side of the river directly opposite of the center of the city, houses a big concert hall, a second smaller chamber music hall and a ballroom. I’ve only been in there a few times, but in the 1950s and 1960s it was the location for great concerts and theatre. Today, the organizers are struggling to get the hall filled, there are only a handful events going on. As you can see from the signs in the windows, this photo is from 2004, but the hall looks exactly the same today.

I don’t know why those two looked so scruffy – they were not fighting or anything,
maybe it was just an enthusiastic preening session!

Another naturally curly one :-).

The cornflowers look different every day.

And then the rain came, quite unexpectedly. I’m sure that the heat-breaking thunderstorm we got this late afternoon was nothing special, although I heard that a lot of cellars were flooded elsewhere in the city – but it sure rained a lot! The top balcony was temporarily flooded, but there was thankfully not much damage and the flowers and plants all seem to have survived. This photo doesn’t really show the force of the downpout, but it’s the only one that came out well!

This crow, stopping by on the nearby aerial, obliged me with a nice silhouette shot.

The pumpkin leaves are growing almost abnormally big this year…

The great unfolding :-).

One of the few wood pigeons often grazing on the lawn in front of our balconies.
I think this might be one of this year’s offsprings!

A hoverfly diving deep inside a chili flower.