17. May 2026
Wiesbaden, Spießbaden
Our first stop in finding a new potential home is Wiesbaden.
The view from our Airbnb every evening. What a nice house – 1/2
Liza really wanted to see it, and there are some reasonable arguments in favor of the city. Wiesbaden is the capital of the German state of Hessia. It is close to the Taunus mountain range, which has mountains anywhere between 400 and 800 meters in height. With its proximity to both the Taunus and Frankfurt, it is very well-connected, yet quiet and close to nature.
Incidentally, when I mentioned our going there to a good friend of mine who is from Frankfurt, she simply commented “Wiesbaden, Spießbaden”. I’m not going to translate German puns here, it’s not going to be funny. IYKYK. I’ll try to give you some impressions of what the city is like though.
That being said, when going through my pictures I realized that the pictures I took aren’t really representative of the city. Despite the blog’s name, I’m more hobby photographer than travel blogger, I suppose.
The City
The first thing I noticed when we got here is that Wiesbaden is wealthy. Not the entire city, of course, but the density of expensive cars, for instance, is striking. It also shows that the city was not as affected by the war as, say, Hamburg. There’s a lot of old architecture, which is beautiful.
A mini-photoshoot in the city center with Liza and Panda – 1/2
Some impressions of the Wiesbaden inner city. – 1/5
On the Neroberg, there’s a Russian Orthodox church that is quite impressive. I hiked there a few times, and while I was never lucky with the weather (it was so cloudy in those two weeks), I managed to snap some decent pics.
Extremely serious. – 1/2
The Taunus
I personally would prefer the mountains to be a bit higher. And while fact that the Taunus caps out at 879 above sealevel is somewhat disappointing, there is no denying it is great for dog-friendly hikes. There’s an abundance of 5-8km hikes with no more than 200m elevation gain that Panda’s short legs can easily handle!
For most hikes, we took the car to the starting point for anywhere between ten and thirty minutes, but we could even get to the Neroberg, Wiesbaden’s very own Hausberg by foot.
The forests are lush and green, and the views over Wiesbaden and the Rhein Plain are very scenic.
Hiking in the Taunus. – 1/4
Updates from Panda!
Panda really enjoyed Wiesbaden, as far as I can tell. With the Kurpark and the Taunus close by, most of our walks were long, scenic and largely leash-free. We had a terrace that she could lie on throughout the day, so she’d spend her time lying in the sun when we were working from home.
The terrace looks mighty comfy.
She has also gotten used to sleeping in our bed. The rule used to be that she’d sleep in her own bed at home and could join us in our bed when traveling, but since we’re now traveling the entire time and the distinction between hotels and home becomes more and more difficult to explain to a dog, we just gave up.
The bed also looks mighty comfy.
Frankfurt
I went to visit a friend in Frankfurt for a few hours. Needless to say, I tried snapping some pictures of the skyline. There were also some opportunities for street photography, but I am really not used to getting up close to people. I’m shooting at 35mm, and I do not feel comfortable with how close I have to be to people to get the shots I want.
More importantly, if you’ve been to Frankfurt and the area around the train station, you’ll understand that even if I was more confident, it’s not the place for street photography.
Oak’s words echoed … There’s a time and place for everything, but not now.
Some pictures of the Frankfurt skyline and highrises. – 1/4
Closing notes
As is now customary, here’s an adorable closing picture of Panda.
Shot at f/1.4. God, I love that shallow depth of field.
While Liza travels to Bulgaria for two weeks, I’ll stick around in Hamburg. I’ll hopefully be able to travel some interesting places and take some cool pictures. If you’ve made it until here, thanks for sticking around, and I’ll see you next time!