Germany is a "Bread Paradise". With over 3050 registered varieties, almost all available types of grain are used from wheat, rye, barley and oats to millet, corn, rice and potato starch. While bread rolls go under so many different names in the various regions it is easier simply to point.

Storks are among Germany's favorite wildlife. Harbingers of Spring, bringer of babies, stars of myth, superstition and a "theme route", their return to nests on cliff-ledges, rooftops, chimneys and purpose-built towers, after a winter in warmer climates, is reason to celebrate.

Germany's reputation as one of the world's best kept countries is well earned, and the universal and regular cleaning of everything in sight even has a name, Putzanfall. So much a passion it's "enjoyable", leading to anxiety attacks when everything doesn't "sparkle" as it should.

Every change of season is makeover time for Germany's flower boxes. A bizarre mixture sometimes, the carefully tended colorful plant filled containers are everywhere, a wonderful sight on door stoops, window ledges, trailing from apartment balconies and down ancient farmhouse walls.

A Christian festival that began with Palm Sunday and Easter ends with Pentecost, which in German speaking regions is a mix of secular, religious and pre-Christian traditions. From devotional processions and services, to decorated oxen, villagers covered in birch branches and "Wickedness Night".

Germany, the country and its people. Richly diverse, the world's fifth largest economy and Europe's industrial powerhouse, filled with castles, medieval villages, unspoiled nature, mountain ranges, stunning scenery, culture of every variety. And a complex history.