Postcard Bivels with Burg Falkenstein, Our valley, P.C. Schoren Luxembourg

Postcard from the early twentieth century showing a black-and-white phototype of the Luxembourgian village of Bivels in the Our valley, seen from an elevated viewpoint with on the opposite slope of the valley the ruins of Burg Falkenstein on the German side. The image shows the village nestled in the valley with its small church with pointed spire on the right and the scattered white houses along the slope. In the upper left on the opposite hill, clearly visible, the surviving residential tower and walls of Burg Falkenstein. In the upper right, the caption "Biwels & Falkenstein" in red lettering. Published as number 60 in the "Edition artistique P.C. Schoren" of Luxembourg-Gare, with the LUX publisher's mark at the bottom left of the verso. The verso is unwritten and unposted, with a divided back. The card is in good condition.

The composition places two countries in a single image: Bivels, Luxembourgian territory in the municipality of Putscheid, in the foreground, and Burg Falkenstein, German territory in the municipality of Waldhof-Falkenstein in the Eifel, in the background. The river Our, barely visible between the two, forms the border here and traces the Ourschleife, a pronounced meander that gives this point in the landscape its singularity. Burg Falkenstein, first mentioned in 1173, was one of the seven castles securing the possessions of the County of Vianden and was destroyed by French troops in 1679. That the village has its church tower closer at hand than the castle above, and that both are held together in a single glance, gives this card its characteristic tension: everyday habitation below, medieval ruin above, a national border between them that no one in the picture seems to notice.