Friday, January 25, 2013

In search of Musicians

Up in the dark with most of yesterday’s snow still on the ground.  Tram fro Rosenthaler Platz to Hackescher Markt and then a train to the Hbf for a quick breakfast before getting our train to Bremen.  Lauren got a ‘Happy Weekend’ ticket which got her home to Worms at a good price, but the trade-off was that it took 10 hours – Happy Weekend tickets can’t be used on the IC or ICE trains.  Our trains went within 5 mins of each other which was good and no-one had to hang around at the station on their own.

Our train to Bremen went via Hamburg and passed through miles & mikes of very flat farm land.  There was still a bit of snow about leaving Berlin but most had gone by the time we got t Bremen.  Alissa met our train and navigated us to the apartment we’re renting here.  It is stunning, it’s almost like being in a hotel suite – new, stylish and with lots of attention paid to furnishing details.

After dumping out bags, we headed into the Alstadt with our lovely tour guide.  We checked out St Peters Dom first.  Dating originally from around 800AD, most of it is early Gothic and the Dom Museum contains a stunning collection of clothing, footwear and liturgical garments from the Bremen Bishops of the 14th century which were discovered when they had to do renovations & move the caskets from the crypt. 

After this we moved further into the Market Square – faced by the fabulous World Heritage Listed Town Hall built in 1405.  Legend has it that until then, the town had existed quite happily without a town hall so when the merchants decided they needed one, no-one could agree how big.  They gathered together all the townspeople who were eligible to vote and stood them shoulder to shoulder and formed a square – the size of which determined the size of the town hall.

We headed from the town hall, past the statue of Roland and itnto the Bottcherstrasse with it’s quirky buildings and a really cool lollie shop and down to the Weser River and along St Martins Quay.  We stopped fr something to eat and then were off to the Becks Brewery for the tour that Alissa had given us for Christmas.

We got a presentation about the history of the Becks company – it dates from 1873 and now accounts for 1 in 4 of every German beers drunk outside Germany.  We had a look through part of the production plant and then into the tasting room.  We tasted a Becks, a Haake Beck and another of your choice.  They make a special beer for fans of the Bremen Football team (this seemed popular among the pommies on the tour) as well as a number of flavoured beers (lemon, lime, orange).

We cambe back to the flat for a bit of a rest and then met Alissa for dinner.  We went to a very cool restaurant called the Erotick Kartoffel (which translates as The Erotic Potato) … all meals are served with a baked spud and then you add whatever meat you want with it.  A live piano player (doing covers of Elton John & Billie Joel) added to the ambiance, as did the corset clad waiting staff!

A long day but another really enjoyable one, made even better by the blue sky… hours and hours of it … made for a cold day (-3) but just seeing the sun was lovely.

Final Instalment

ICE (the cold kind) stuffs up the ICE (the train kind) schedule

This is very strange, I am sitting in an ICE train but it is stationary … going no-where for the next hour.  We were booked Trier to Saarbrucken on a regional, then Saarbrucken to Mannheim on an ICE and finally Mannheim to Worms on another regional.  We decided to leave Trier an hour earlier to avoid a tight connection – it gave us 1hr 05 in Saarbrucken rather than 5minutes. 

First leg was fine, on time, no worries but the ICE train to Mannheim has got stuck somewhere south of here.  So they have got another ICE and I am sitting at the station in the train while we wait for passengers from the original train to get here to join this train.  Estimates when we arrived in Saarbrucken were 15min delay – that has now blown out to 60min – the train is on the platform so we decided to get on and grab a seat since there are no seat reservations available on this replacement train – first in best seat so to speak!  And I have a good seat.

So back to this morning … the little man at the hotel gave us a sheet “In Trier today’ and it said the Amphitheatre was open so we walked up there, only to be met by a sign in German that neither of us could understand though we could pick out the words for ‘snow’ and ‘ice’.  I took a photo of the sign and asked some random lady in a car if it meant ‘closed because of ice and snow’ … sure enough!  Bugger, bugger, bugger …. I manage a few photos through the gate!

On the way back we also had a look at the Church of Our Lady next door to the Dom – we missed it yesterday.  It’s lovely, an interesting shape because the aisles are all very short so it’s more a Greek Cross formation than a traditional Christian cross.  Really pretty and some lovely modern stained glass windows.  It was apparently the first church built in Germany of Gothic style.

Back to the trains, we were due into Worms about 5.30 – that’s not going to happen.  Just as well we know where we are going and Lauren has already got the key from Manfred.

Our hour has gone by and we’re expecting the train to leave any minute.  But, surprise, surprise… we’d been in our seats about 10 mins, relatively content to sit in the warm when another ICE pulled into the platform next to us and lots of people transferred.  Pleased we had our seats.

About 10 min after that, they announced that snack boxes were placed at the end of every second car … seems when your trains are stuffed up they feed you.  Our sncak box contained some bread & spread, a tinned salad nicoise, some chocolate pudding, a bottle of water, some pretzels & some biscuits.  It also had cutlery (wooden – really cool) and some coloured pencils & a little activity book.  Shame we don’t read French, but I know 2 small boys who might have some fun so these are tucked safely into my bag. 

While all this was happening, a steward came through with chocolates too.   Nice work Deutscher Bahn or Rail François  or whoever.  We’re wondering if the national railway of which ever country the train stuff-up happens in is responsible for placating passengers. 

Everyone is quiet … none of those cranky idiots you see on the airport shows when a plane is delayed, though maybe the little man at the information desk has been dealing with the cross ones.  We’re now at 75min late … no point bothering, we’re warm, dry, in a comfy seat and we’re fed .. we’ll just wait till we go!  I do know we can get whatever train we can from Mannheim back to Worms so we’ll just go with the flow.

Update, all the people who got on before and were probably the reason we were fed have just got off and onto a Paris bound ICE train.  We’re now filling up again with people off the Paris train and are now running 1hr 25 late …. Manheim in the dark – bloody glad we didn’t have a plane to catch!


Hey we’re moving … only 1hr 40 min late!

Day 37 Helen Stuffs up ...

If my only right royal stuff up was today, I’ve done ok.  When we were in Mainz before Xmas, the only thing I didn’t get to see was the Gutenberg Museum.  While we were away, Dagmar organised for me to not only see the museum but to do some printing in the print shop along side the museum.  She let me know via FB but late last night I had a brain snap and couldn’t remember what time the train was that I was supposed to catch.  No internet working here or at Lauren’s house so I just got up early to catch the 7.50am train.

I got the the station with 5 min spare but the line at the ticket machine was jammed by someone who didn’t have the right change etc & I missed the train.  I thought I’d just get the next one and catch up with D&M in Mainz (they were getting on my train at Nackenheim)  only my ‘new’ train was an express & didn’t stop either at Nackenheim or at Romishes Theatre.

Long (and embarrassing) story short, they are at Romishes Theatre station waiting for me, I’m at Mainz running back & forward to different platforms as each new train arrives (both from Mainz and from Romishes Theatre).  In the end I came home & they did the same.  This was all compounded by the fact that Lauren had no phone at home (and therefore no internet to get Dagmar’s mobile number) Alissa had her phone switched off at uni & stupidly I had not got Dagmar’s number before Xmas.  A comedy of errors on my part has left me with a very red face and poor Dagmar & Matthias out in the snow wondering where the hell I had got to.

We’re meeting them tonight in Bodenheim for dinner & will phone them as we get on a train!  Lauren will join us for desert (she doesn’t finish work till 7pm) and will phone me from a payphone at the station to find out the name of the restaurant (or tell me the time of her train so I can meet her at Bodenheim station)

This afternoon I’ve collected all the stuff we didn’t take on our trip round Germany (Xmas decortions I bought before Xmas, Xmas pressies etc) and have packed my pack to the point of stuffed-ness.  It weighs about 19kg.  I am now quite confident I will be able to get everything else into Tony’s wheelie bag and still be under weight.  We have a set of bathroom scales from Nadja & Christof here so I can check as we pack to determine what can be packed and whether I will need to post anything home.  I think I will be OK.

Tomorrow I will go back to the Gutenberg and hope the lady there takes pity on one stupid Aussie & can find a space/time for me to print.  Other than that, tomorrow will be a quiet day. I need to do an online check-in and just confirm that none of our flights have been effected by weather-induced cancellations.

*****
We wanted to take Dagmar & Matthias out for dinner .. they knew of a cool little winebar/restaurant in Bodenheim so we caught the train & they drove – Bodenheim is the next door village to where they live.  Lauren got an early mark and came up on the next train & Matthias went back to the station to pick her up.  A better way to end our German holiday I could not have imagined.  Good wine (except for poor Dagmar who was the designated driver) good food & the best company made for a fantastic evening.  These little winebars are family run places.  Bodenheim is smack in the middle of the Rhine Wine region and each family has their own vineyard and their own little winebar.  Huge selection of wine (& schnapps which Tony & Matthias & Lauren sampled).  We had a wonderful night, and I can’t think of a better ending to our holiday than to spend the evening with Lauren and ‘her parents so far away’



Day 38  Printing & Packing
I got up early again, and this time I got onto the train in time!  Navigated my way from the Romishes Theatre station to the Gutenberg Museum and was very pleased they were able to fit me in.  The young lass who I worked with was on a GAP year – undecided about what she wanted to study at Uni she was working in the print shop for a year… what a wonderful job!

So I got to print … not on the actual Gutenberg press but using his moveable type etc.  Great fun!  Then into the museum itself.  Saw the original press, and lots of other stuff about printing, but the highlight without doubt was an original Gutenberg Bible.  In steel vault & under glass an original 2 volume edition of the Gutenberg Bible and another copy (only one of the volumes)  Magic! Gutenberg (and his staff)  only printed 180 copies and there are now only 49 left in existence.  This bible has 1200 pages, 42 lines per page (in Latin) so to get the whole lot of both the Old and New Testaments the book binders had to make two volumes.  The museum has one complete bible (bought in 1978 for $4million) and another ‘half’ bible (just one of the volumes) which they have had since the 1920’s.

The museum is housed in a lovely 15th century palace which (like most of the rest of Mainz) was heavily damaged in WW2 (luckily the reconstructed press & all the other treasures had been moved to safe storage)  It houses lots of other stuff on printing and has an extensive collection of Asian printing including items from China, Japan & Korea. 

Back to Worms – very happy this time!

A couple of hours to finish the packing before Nadja drove us to the station.  Lauren came with us but stayed to see us onto our train & then walked home


Day 39 .. or whatever part of the day it is
Got the train from Worms to Mainz, hung around for a bit, did a final check that there were no flight delays & headed for the airport.  I love the German word for Airport … Flughafen.  We had to be there the mandatory 3hrs prior to our flight so after checking in we had a bit of a wander & something to eat.  Tony was by now suffering more & more from his cold/flu and would have been quite happy to be shot at that point.

The flight was full but left on time … there seemed to be a number of groups of school kids on board – didn’t hear any of them speak but wondered were they Aussies returning from exchanges or German kids heading over on exchange – whatever they were, all were in high spirits.

Landed in Singapore at 4.20pm (local time) but our body clocks told us it was 9am and we’d not had much sleep.  A 4hr transit in Singapore & we were off again, landing in Sydney at 6.30am today.  Travel time since we left the flat:  20hrs travel time, 6hrs waiting around time.  My brain is too mushed to even figure how long we’d been awake.  Home by train & Ainsley picked us up from Pennant Hills station.  She went off to work, Tony went to bed & I unblocked the washing machine.  I had a 3hr sleep this afternoon and now, at 10pm I’m ready to head to bed.  Insanely tired, pleased to be home but looking back on a wonderful trip.

Sunday, January 20, 2013

What did the Romans ever do for us?

Another crappy nights sleep.  Michael arrived for his ‘check-out inspection’ .. that man is anal, he even counted the books/brochures on the coffee table!  Tony mentioned the music and his response was that we should have phoned him and he would have phoned the police and that would have put a stop to the party… yeah sure!
By the time we headed to the tram it had started to snow again but we navigated out way to the station and onto the correct platform with time to spare.  The train was delayed 5 min due to the weather but the trip was uneventful and the scenery was beautiful.  The track slithers through small narrow valleys with little villages round every corner.  The hillsides are heavily wooded, mostly conifers of some kind and today everything was blanketed in white.

Found our way to the hotel, checked in and headed out again to explore.  Our hotel is directly opposite the Porta Nigra … it’s a 2nd century Roman gate into the city which normally you can go into.  Unfortunately, the snow, thaw and subsequent freeze had rendered it unsafe so it was closed today – with luck we’ll have time to visit it again tomorrow.

 We intended to go next to the Dom (St Peters) but our/my navigation skills have gone astray (I’m gonna blame the fact that the sun is now coming from the south and I forget to turn it upside down)  .. anyway, we came upon a big church and since I’d not really looked at pictures of the Dom, wasn’t too sure what I was looking for.  We had in fact, found St Pauls and inside it is amazing!  White walls and the MOST amazingly painted & gilded ceiling.

We finally got our bearings and made our way to the Dom.  It is massive and looks much ‘heavier’ than the Cologne Dom which is so light and ‘airy’.  Inside, as with all the cathedrals we’ve been in is amazing and the crypt especially was fascinating. They have been burying Bishops of Trier there for hundreds & hundreds of years.  The inside was really plain in comparison to some of the other cathedrals we’re seen but had huge altars and statues on most of the columns.  This one is a mostly Romanesque, so the arches are rounded rather than pointed like the Gothic churches.

Next stop was supposed to be the Konstantin Basilica built in 310AD as Constantine’s throne hall and later converted to a church but it has really short opening hours so we missed out.  Might try again tomorrow morning.

On the way to the Kaiserthermen (Imperial Baths) we passed the ruins of the Forum Baths (1st century) but there was a private function going on inside so we snuck a look and some photos from street level.  Onwards to the Kaisertherm, only to find it closed for the winter .. I guess it is too risky having tourists trample all over things that are covered in snow.  The brickwork on the tower in one corner was astonishing.

Following the ‘Tourist Route’ we headed for the Ampitheatre… patted a well-fed cat on the way and once again, found it closed – we were 20 min too late.  So we’ll go back again in the morning.  We have about 3 hrs before we head back to Worms so there is time to get in a return visit to a couple of these places.

After following the ‘tourist route’ back to the hotel, we remembered we needed some milk (hotel has kettle etc but only provided 2 of those stupid little milk thingies) figured if we walked a block, turned left, walked a block turned left etc we’d get back to the hotel …. Wrong!  The blocks here are very strange and 45 min later we were at the other end of town, in the dark and both needing the bathroom! .. and we didn’t find anywhere to get milk.

Dinner tonight just across the road then another search for a coffee (and possibly milk) came across a Maccas … coffee… yes!  Milk … ah yes, if you pinch a handful of their little milk thingies!  Enough for a decent cuppa in the morning!

Tomorrow we’ll explore a bit more of Trier, go back and visit the amphitheatre and hopefully Konstantin Basilica and then on the train.  Regional train to Saarbrucken, ICE to Mannheim and then back to Worms on a local.  Almost the end of a very grand adventure.

Picassos and Padlocks

The worst nights sleep of the trip so far … we appear to be sharing a common wall with a ‘Party Club’ (it seems to be a private party venue) and they played god-awful doof-doof dance music till 3am!  Aaargh! … who will be tired cranky little people today!

Last night’s lack of sleep caught up with us very quickly this morning … we managed to take the tram in the wrong direction, then when we realised this, we had a bit of trouble finding our way to some kind of landmark that we recognised.  Sorted finally and we were on our way to the Ludwig Museum.

Tony didn’t fancy paying 10euro to look at paintings so he went in search of a replacement bag – the one we got in Munich has torn on the bottom.

The Picassos were amazing, plenty of them covering most of his illustrious career, including drawings, all painting phases and his later-in-life fascination with ceramics.  Several sculptures as well. 

The Ludwig also has a permanent exhibition of the Haubrich Collection – a collection of works covering the late 19th and into 20th centuries, put together over 50 years by Cologne resident Joseph Haubrich.  Even during the Nazi years, he managed to add to his collection which included many paintings which were deemed ‘Deviant Art’.  In 1946 he gave the collection to the City of Cologne.

There was also a special exhibition of the work of the English painter David Hockney called “A bigger picture” … a huge exhibition and very crowded but wonderful.  Huge canvases (many over 4m high and 5m long) bright colours, mostly landscapes, and often the same view painted for all four seasons.  His paintings seem also, to be done in panels – usually 9 or 12.  Recently, he’s taken to doing these wonderful film paintings – one on display was from 9 cameras mounted on a frame driving down the same road.  Each camera is filming almost the same thing but from a slightly different perspective. 

After a late lunch we bought the bag and headed back to the flat .. last night was catching up and we both needed a nap .. besides it was -4 degrees and really windy so inside in the warm was a good place to be.

One place on my ‘must see’ list remained to be done so we headed for the Hohenzollernbrucke – home of the thousands of padlocks.  Lovers, newlyweds, those celebrating anniversaries etc have, for years locked a padlock onto the mesh along the side of the bridge and thrown the key into the Rhine.  It is an amazing sight even if you don’t have a single romantic bone in your body .. thousands and thousands and thousands of padlocks or every colour and size are attached to the mesh, to each other, to chains etc for the full length of the walkway across this bridge… it was really cool.

Japanese for dinner (average all you can eat buffet) and then a quick search for a Christmas decoration to add to the collection … no luck, but I did get a little clown – Carnivale is about to start and all the shops are now getting decorated for that.  I figured a little purple clown would still be OK for the tree but would also be something uniquely Cologne.

We walked back (despite the cold & wind), dreading the possibility that the bloody club through the wall would be doof-doofing again… it was!  We have a 9.20 train to Trier tomorrow and Michael will be here to do our ‘check-out inspection’ at 8am so we have time to grab some breakfast at the station.  He’s just a little bit anal … there is an inventory of plates etc on the inside of each cupboard door and he wants to check the flat before we go.  Both other ‘landlords’ have been happy for us to leave the key either inside the flat or in their letterbox .. oh well, it takes all kinds.

Tomorrow we’re off to Trier for some more Roman stuff.

Saturday, January 19, 2013

Kings bones & Roman ruins

First full day in Cologne and our first stop after some breakfast was a guided tour of the Cologne Dom.  UNESCO World Heritage listed since 1996 it is massive!  … and then some more massiveness.  Germany’s largest cathedral was begun in 1248, stopped in1560 (they ran out of cash) started again in the 1830s and was finally finished in 1880.  It survived WW2 relatively unscathed.

Our first view of it was yesterday when we stepped out of the train station, and our first view this morning was equally as jaw-dropping … we walked over the bridge and into the main part of town.  You come around a corner and up a short flight of stairs and wham! There it is – right in front of you –the west portal.

Around the corner, past flying buttresses and huge statues adorning the walls and you come to the main entrance.  Step inside and the first thing that hits you is the space … there are 5 aisles but nothing but tll columns dividing them and everywhere you can see are stained-glass windows.  Unbelievable!

I joined a guided tour (Tony declined – he hates paying for things).  There is too much to describe so I’ll just stick to the really impressive stuff.  As I said, stained glass windows everywhere (and today we had pretty good light so they were just lovely) – the ‘biggie’ is the one built very recently (and hugely controversial by German artist Gerhard Richter.  NO ‘picture’ just 12,000 3” pieces of glass – 72 different colours – it’s like a kaleidoscope – I loved it!

Then on to the main draw-card.  Cologne Dom has been a pilgrimage cathedral since the 1100’s when they ‘acquired’ (read stole during a war) the Reliquaries of the Magi.  This massive gold sarcophagus is said to contain the bones of the 3 wise men who visited Jesus.  Whether it does or not is irrelevant – the sarcophagus is incredibly impressive, about 6’ long, 3’wide and 3’high it took 40years to make and is utterly stunning!

Then there was the Cross of Gero, a wooden crucifix from about 950AD, a 15th century altar piece, and tombs of all the bishops since the cathedral was built, gilt altars, a priceless statue of Mary decorated in pearls & crucifixes (put there by the faithful).  Do yourselves a favour and put Cologne on your bucket list – and put the Cologne Cathedral as your #1 stop .. this place is like nothing you will ever see!  I’ll try and get some photos up on facebook (and my photos absolutely do NOT do it justice I can assure you)  We studied it at school in Yr 9 (along with The Dom in Aachen and Angkor Wat) so I have waited a very long time to see it with my own eyes – and so worth the wait.

After the Dom & some lunch we headed for the Roman-German Museum.  Cologne was named by the Roman Emperor Claudius after his wife (and niece!) Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippina (now there is a mouthful!) and the museum is chock-full of stuff from the 1st century BC to the 5th century AD.  From sacrificial altars & tombstones through to cloak clasps, pottery of every kind, combs, jewellery, shoes, busts of emperors, and several wonderful floor mosaics (one of them was found some years ago and the museum was actually designed & built around it).

They also had a temporary exhibition called ‘The Tunnel’ which showcased all the wonderful archaeological stuff (mostly Roman) that was found from about 2003 during the digging of a new railway tunnel. Lots of photos of the dig plus masses of stuff now on display.

It was quite extraordinary standing within touching distance of household items that are 2000 years old. 

We got home about 4.30 stopping on the way for ‘coffee & cake’ … a very German tradition, then headed out again about 7 to find some dinner.  This time we grabbed the tram and then walked from Neumarkt back towards the Dom down Cologne’s main shopping strip.

We had dinner at a fantastic little Thai place just a street back from the river in an area that looked like it was probably merchants-ville during the 1600s.  Home again to find the ‘club’ next door pumping out doof-doof music … hope it doesn’t go too late!  And our only English language TV station (CNN) is going all spazzy & pixelated on our gigantic (not!) TV.  We do however have the choice of Spongebob Squarepants, Braveheart and World Championship Snooker + about another 15 stations in German!

Tomorrow I’m planning on visiting the Ludwig museum and then we’ll do a spot of shopping!

Friday, January 18, 2013

Tiles on the Ceiling & a train to Cologne

After yesterday’s late arrival into Aachen, we only really had half a day to explore this pretty town. A bit of a sleep in, and some breakfast (or maybe that should almost be morning tea) we set off into the Alstadt and back to explore the Dom.  The outside is pretty amazing but the front door really belies the incredible, amazing beauty which greets the visitor when they walk through the door.

It’s a really tall cathedral and every single inch of the ceilings (on all 3 levels) are covered in mosaics.  Golds & blues, flowers, geometric patterns, depictions of scenes from the bible… it is utterly utterly stunning and worthy on its UNESCO World Heritage Listing.  We spent ages wandering round with our mouths open as each corner brought something new.  Behind the altar are 2 amazing gold sarcophagus’ … one containing the body of Charlemagne, who made Aachen his capital of the Holy Roman Empire in 794, the other is the Shrine of Mary (containing 4 relics of Mary – which are taken out and displayed every 7 years).  The chandelier which hangs in the middle of the church was a gift from Barbarossa in about 1165.  There is also the Tomb of Otto III (buried in 1002)  and Charlemagne’s throne which saw the coronation of more than 30 German kings.  Unfortunately, the English guided tour was at 2pm and by then we were on a train to Cologne.

I also went through the Dom Treasury where all the priceless religious items are kept.  Relinquaires, a bust of Charlemagne, crowns, gold altars… mind blowing even for this dirty little heathen.  Only problem was a ‘no photos’ edict posted on the door.

A quick bite to eat and we were off to Cologne.  Our train was 10 min late into Cologne (some problem between Duren & Horrem where we sat for 10 min) and then we had to navigate our way from the Hbf to the apartment we’d rented on the other side of the Rhine.  We managed to catch the train to the appropriate station for our tram but then got on the tram going in the wrong direction!  We finally arrived at the flat about 4.15.  It’s the smallest (most ‘compact’) of the flats we have rented but for 3 days is perfectly fine and in easy walking distance of eateries, a supermarket and plenty of shops … the building fronts onto the Rhine (our window looks into a tiny courtyard unfortunately) and the mighty Dom is across the river and easily visible past the Deutzer Brucke.  Tomorrow we’ll explore the Dom and the Roman ruins of Cologne and with luck fit in the Ludwig Museum with its collection of Picassos.

Internet access for the next 3 days might be fun … Michael provided a USB stick but this stupid laptop won’t let me connect with it ….Starbucks might be looking good!

Wednesday, January 16, 2013

Belgium Rail sucks

We started today with a walk out to the Ramparts Cemetery on the edge of the Ieper Old Town.  If I was a soldier who had to be buried in foreign lands, this is  the cemetery I would want to be buried in.  It is serenely beautiful, perched high on the rampart, overlooking the moat and beside the Lille Gate.  We found headstones from January 1915 and several Aussies from 1917.  As with all cemeteries with more than 200 graves, there was a Cross of Remembrance, but unusually, the grave stones faced the water rather than the cross.

Heading back into town along the top of the Ramparts we came back to the Grote Markt and a daylight visit to St Martins Cathedral.  It is as beautiful inside as outside. 

Our time in Ieper was just about over and we began the somewhat challenging trip from the hotel to the railway station.  Yesterdays snow was cleared from footpaths and now lay in lumpy re-frozen piles along the street.  Some had iced up, other bits had turned to slush having been in direct sunlight.  Our train was due to leave at 11.39 for a 2 hour trip to Brussels where we would catch the ICE train for another high speed trip to Aachen. 
We had an hour & 5 min between trains so we got a bite to eat and headed for the platform.  Departure time for the ICE came, went and then an announcement “the ICE to Cologne via Aachen will not run today”… oh great…

Off I go to the ticket office and I’m told we can get a train on platform 5 to Liege and can change there for a train to Aachen.  Not much tome so we race (as best we can given the stairs – Brussels has no lifts) only to find that we needed to be on platform 3.  Neither of us speak Flemmish or French and only major announcements are done in English.  Off we trudge to platform 3 only to see the train disappear as we get to the top of the steps.

Back to the ticket office anda readiness not to be nice to the little man behind the window.  Yes, platform 5 will be OK for the 3.32 train (the time we ‘should’ have arrived in Aachen) and Yes we should change in Liege.  We wait in the freezing cold – the waiting room door does not shut, not that this matters because half the glass is missing!

So instead of a new, fast, warm, comfortable ICE train we board something that is more akin to an old cityrail red rattler.  So far so good, and we have both simmered down a bit.  We get to Leige and the platform we’re supposed to go to is packed … seems lots of other people are wanting to go to Aachen.  We finally head along the platform away from the crowd, jump on and grab a seat .. a pretty nice seat actually… but the pleasure of a warm seat doesn’t last long because soon the train conductor/ticket inspector arrives and tells us we cannot sit here because we have a 2nd class ticket and are actually in the 1st class compartment.  The fact that we paid a premium to travel in a reserved seat on an ICE train doesn’t seem to impress him and we are summarily dismissed to the hard, cold 2nd class seats.

Half an hour later and with no further sightings of the ticket man we arrived in Aachen. To say we were not impressed by Rail Belgium is perhaps something of an understatement!

Add to today’s rail comedies, we had an email from the company we booked our Aachen hotel with informing us that the hotel was closed due to some water pipe emergency.  So we found our way to the replacement, only to find that they share a reception with another hotel round the corner and our room was on the 2nd floor  and there was no lift!

On a brighter note, we headed into the Alstadt looking for a little place for dinner and to get an idea of where the Cathedral was. We came round a street corner and there in front of us was the most enormous cathedral, lit up at night, dusted with fresh snow and looking absolutely stunning… I can’t wait to explore it tomorrow!

In their footsteps

I’d found a guy online who did Tours of the Ypres Salient and after a couple of emails had booked him to show us around, with special emphasis on the places where the 17th (Grandfather Adamson) the 39th (Gt Uncle Parrish – Greta’s uncle) and the Otago Regiment (G’ma Ballantyne’s brother) had served.  At the appointed time, a very English looking gentleman in a Volvo drove into our street just as I was taking some photos of the Cloth Hall and introduced himself as Bob Findley.

Introductions made, we popped back into the Hotel to use their lounge chairs and he explained where we were going and presented us with a folder of his research for the boys we were following.  I was gobsmacked – it will make a wonderful addition to family tree research I know both families are doing.  Trench maps, modern maps with the trench lines marked etc – just wonderful.

While Sanctuary Wood didn’t really have any connection to ‘our boys’ it was the first place he took us because it is the only place around Ieper where the trenches are still intact.  Seems the land owner returned in 1919 and roped off several hundred metres of trenches figuring family members of those who fought may one day want to return – thank God he did… he then figured he could charge (and did) and his nephew now thinks he can rip tourists off and is the most unpopular man in town.  Tour guides (like Bob) have ganged up on him and were refusing to take visitors there if he kept hiking his prices.

Sanctuary Wood … as you might suspect from the name was a place where the troops rested when they came off the line.  The Germans soon figured this out and blew the living shitter out of it and now there are only 6 ‘bits’ of tree left .. all that was left of a whole wood.  It is littered with bomb craters .. don’t forget that WW1 was an artillery war, but the trenches are still there … 3 lines of trenches and their connecting communications trenches, ammunition niches, duckboards etc.

There is also a museum there with thousands & thousands of dollars worth of priceless war relics – you name it, it’s here.  It is just such a shame that the ugly toad who owns it now is not more willing to look after it better, display it better, label it better and show more respect for what he ‘owns.’

We saw rolls of barbed wire, wire stakes, weapons of every imaginable kind (from both sides) carts, trench mortars, gas mortars, field telephones, uniforms, boots, shells of every kind and hundreds of photos.  Most chilling were the before and after photos of Ypres town … it was just mashed!

From here we went to Polygon Wood, and to Anzac Rest, home of Johan van Dewalle who found 5 unidentified  Aussie soldiers in unmarked graves in 2000 during some local roadworks.  His little café is now a little bit of Australia, complete with Aussie flag, caps, badges etc.  Three have now been identified, the first of which was Jim Hunter, KIA in Polygon wood on 26th September 1917 and buried by his brother John.  This identification has led to the setting up of a group wanting to build a permanent and fitting memorial to all the ‘Brothers in Arms.’   It’s galling indeed that the Australian government doesn’t want to come to the party with some cash to help this happen.  We signed a petition and I suspect I may be writing a couple of letters to some lazy politicians when I get home.

We said our goodbyes to Johan & his wife and were off to the New Buttes British Cemetary which also housed the New Zealand Memorial to the Kiwi soldiers who had been killed in the area but had no known grave.  This was one of the places I had specifically asked Bob to take us to .. Grandma Ballantyne’s younger brother Arthur had been KIA in the area and was listed on this memorial.  Needless to say, I shed a few more tears.

New Buttes also contains a memorial to the Aussie 5th Division.  It is such a beautiful place and we were the first ones to track the snow to the NZ Memorial.  The Anzac Five are also buried here – and have been interred in a row by themselves.

From here we went to Tyne Cot Cemetary .. final resting place of over 12,000 allied soldiers including one from B Company 17th  and an Aussie VC.  It is huge, quiet, beautiful yet just so wasteful!  It is right of what was once the German Front line because the cemetery also contains 2 german bunkers, which had become field dressing stations once the Allies took that part of the line.  Cemetaries always sprung up around dressing stations… no need for too many guesses why.

Last stop before lunch was Gravenstafel where on 12th October 1917, the Kiwi’s lost 2700 men in 4 hours and required another 1200 as stretcher bearers to get the wounded out – the mud was so awful they needed 6 men to a stretcher.  This place and this day has been described as New Zealand’s Blackest Day, and probably is, in reality, their Gallipoli.

Arthur had survived Gravenstafel (part of the Battle of Passchendaele) on 12th October 1917 only to be killed near Polderhoek Chateau on 24th November the same year.

We came back to Ieper for lunch… grabbed a roll and a cake at a little bakery (the most beautiful little cakes I saw in Ieper) before heading out again.. this time to Hill 60 … part of one of the best planned and best executed exercises of the War.  According to Bob, the movie of the same name is very accurate.  English & Aussie tunnelers dug deep under the German front line … 27 tunnels in all and deployed 50,000pound bombs/mines at the end of each.  Let off simultaneously at 3am, they blew the crap out of the German front line and ‘vapourised’ (Bob’s words) thousands of German soldiers.

Hill 60 now is missing it’s top, is littered with craters and the battle that followed the detonation of these mines resulted in at least 2 VC’s being awarded.  Only 3 of the mines deployed for that night didn’t explode .. one went off in the middle of a thunder storm in the 50’s and the other is still sitting in its tunnel… under a farmhouse that was re-built in the 1920’s… not a very sought-after piece of real-estate as you might imagine.

There is a captured German bunker up the top (well it’s now at the top … wasn’t at the top originally) that the Poms captured, and did a quick renno to make it a British bunker … while the cement was drying a German bomb landed in the wet cement but didn’t explode … it’s still there.
It turns out that the NZ Otago Regiment (Arthur Cunningham) and the 39th Australian (Edward Parrish) had been engaged earlier in the war in the same battle and these two boys had served at the same time on the same line, separated only by a few hundred metres.  So next stop was the NZ memorial on Messines Ridge… built like all other memorials from Portland Stone, but this one is surrounded by NZ native plants.  It has a stunning view … one side down to where Parrish and the 39th were fighting and on the other side across to where Cunningham and the Otago Regiment was fighting in June 1917. 

It was in this area that Albert Parrish won his Military Medal on 13th October 1917.  The line the Aussies were fighting on stretched from Derby Crossing to Waterfields, just a few km’s  (and a couple of days) from Gravenstafel and just a few hundred yards from the Tyne Cot Cemetery.

Second last stop was Hyde Park Corner from where Edward Parrish had marched up Mud Lane and back to the front on Messines Ridge.  We stopped at a little café for a coffee and imagined these young men heading back into battle near St Ives.

Final stop, and only because we were in the town of Messines was the Church of St Nicoclas.  Before the Kiwi’s took the town of Messines, it seems a certain German Corporal was treated in a makeshift dressing station set up in the crypt, for a shoulder wound … how different the world might be now if the medic at that dressing station had not done such a good job.

Out the front of the church (which like so many others on the Salient) was almost totally destroyed is what looks like some strange pavement repairs.  Only when you stand and look at it properly do you realise you are looking at a map of the Land of the Long White Cloud!

It was now getting on for 4.30 and the sun was going so, the end of a thoroughly memorable day was fast approaching…. And the only thing I have not mentioned was getting ‘bogged’ in a snowdrift at a cemetery whose name I now can’t remember.  We’d stopped there to look at the grave of another boy from the 17th Bttn AIF and the depth of snow turned out to be more than Bob expected.  A passing truck driver and another motorist stopped to help, but without any kind of tow rope couldn’t manage to extricate us.  Thankfully, Johan came to our rescue and towed us out.  Poor Bob was mortified – seems the only other time in his life he’d been stuck in snow was 30+ years ago as a copper in the UK. 

I’d had an extraordinary birthday … one I will remember for a very long time.  Thanks Bob … great company, and an extraordinary knowledge of this part of WW1 and a passionate deployment of that knowledge… I couldn’t have asked for more.

Snow, snow more snow and the Menin Gate

When the alarm went off at 6.10am and I looked out the window everything was white.  Bremen had had about 2” snow over night and it was a mushy trip to the station.  The train was scheduled for 7.44am, but this time came & went and the departure board showed a 5 min delay.  We actually left about 10 min late but the delays kept coming and by the time we reached Cologne the train was 35min late.  Thankfully we had a 50min transfer time in Cologne before our ICE train to Brussels.

All the way through from Bremen to Ieper the ground was white, the trees were white, the houses – everything.

We arrived at Ieper about 4.30 having missed the connection at Brussels Nord – 5 min was always going to be tight – even if you a)knew where you were going and b)didn’t have to change platforms and c)didn’t have to carry bags down stairs (god I love the German railways with lifts on every platform) or d) have a gammy knee.  Snow everywhere and it took us about half an hour to navigate our way to the Hotel O where we were staying.
It’s a new hotel, with a very modern take on WW1 décor … old helmets, ammo boxes etc everywhere, the rooms painted brown & khaki and the ‘dining’room set up like a canteen (and labelled ‘canteen’ on the lift buttons. Turns out we were the only guests for 2 nights.

After getting settled & adding another layer of clothes we wandered out to find the Menein Gate so we knew where to go for the Last Post Ceremony.  I found panel 17 where the boys from B Company of the 17th are listed and took a bunch of photos – it was great that there was no-one else there so I could have free reign getting them.

Back into the Grote Square for some dinner (De Trumpet) and then up to the gate again for the Last Post.  By now it was snowing quite heavily and was bitterly cold.  There were only about 20 other people there and the 4 buglers arrived about 10 to 8.  They formed up and under the outer arch of the gate played the Last Post which brought us both to tears.

In need of a coffee by now, we returned to De Trumet for a cuppa and some yummy strudel before calling it a night.  It had been a long day and we were both expecting tomorrow to be quite special.

Sunday, January 13, 2013

Skating seagulls & narrow streets

Woke this morning to overnight snow … white rooftops out our window.  There is no shopping in Germany under German law so the only places you can get breakfast are the cafes at the railway station.. off we went, all rugged up because the temperature gauge said a nippy -5.

We met up with Alissa at 10am and our first stop was the statue of the Bremen Town Musicians – you remember the Grimms story of the Donkey, the dog, the cat & the rooster?  We took a couple of photos and then headed for the Schnoor … it’s a 14th & 15th century settlement on the edge of the Alstadt.   Obviously cars were not a consideration in those days so the ‘streets’ are really only 1-2 people-widths wide and wind around all over the place.  It’s tourist-vile but a) because it was Sunday and b) because we were quite early we practically had the place to ourselves.   We wandered round for a bit and came upon a Christmas Shop … even better the sign in the window says 50% off … it was THE MOST beautiful Christmas shop I have ever seen.  In a merchants house from the 1600’s and with the only remaining piece of the medieval town walls at the back, this place was fully decorated as if Christmas was tomorrow.  Rows & rows of glass bowls containing the mose beautiful glass ornaments, baubles, start, hearts, icicles, strings of beads … like a kid in a lollie shop I wandered round with my mouth open and a stupid grin on my face trying to take it all in.  It seems the old lady who owns the business had decided to retire …after 26 years and everything was to go by the end of March.  Needless to say, I added a few things to our growing collection.

After this we headed back into town and had coffee & cake in the dining room/restaurant of one of the city hotels …yum! Alissa explained I was a home ec teacher and the fellow behind the counter was happy for me to take photos … they were so beautiful to look at  … and turned out to be exceptionally yummy to eat too!

Keen to just walk for a bit after all the time we’d spent in Berlin racing in and out of museums, we took a stroll around the zig-zag shaped moat and embankment which creates the northern edge of the old city.  With the extreme cold & snow over night, there was now a frozen ‘river’ powdered white.  Seagulls & ducks were walking/skating around getting very cold feet!  It’s a really pretty part of Bremen, with lots of old trees and I can see how beautiful it would be in sprint & summer.

Tony’s knee was getting a bit cold so he headed back to the apartment & Alissa and I wandered some more  - up to the top of the roof-top carpark on the Kaufhof building for a view out over the whole city – on a clear day I am sure you could see for miles.

Dinner tonight was at Vapianos – a modern Italian place doing pizza, pasta etc – cool concept whereby you order and then watch the chef make your meal & cart it back to your own table – pots of rosemary & basil on the tables for you to use to add to your meal if you wish … something like this would rock in Sydney.

Early start in the morning as we’re off to Ieper in Belgium to visit some family related WW1 sites.  Train to Cologne, then Brussels and finally to Ieper.  Long long day but very much looking forward to Tuesday’s tour round some of the allied war cemeteries etc.

Beer in Bremen

Up in the dark with most of yesterday’s snow still on the ground.  Tram fro Rosenthaler Platz to Hackescher Markt and then a train to the Hbf for a quick breakfast before getting our train to Bremen.  Lauren got a ‘Happy Weekend’ ticket which got her home to Worms at a good price, but the trade-off was that it took 10 hours – Happy Weekend tickets can’t be used on the IC or ICE trains.  Our trains went within 5 mins of each other which was good and no-one had to hang around at the station on their own.

Our train to Bremen went via Hamburg and passed through miles & mikes of very flat farm land.  There was still a bit of snow about leaving Berlin but most had gone by the time we got t Bremen.  Alissa met our train and navigated us to the apartment we’re renting here.  It is stunning, it’s almost like being in a hotel suite – new, stylish and with lots of attention paid to furnishing details.

After dumping out bags, we headed into the Alstadt with our lovely tour guide.  We checked out St Peters Dom first.  Dating originally from around 800AD, most of it is early Gothic and the Dom Museum contains a stunning collection of clothing, footwear and liturgical garments from the Bremen Bishops of the 14th century which were discovered when they had to do renovations & move the caskets from the crypt. 

After this we moved further into the Market Square – faced by the fabulous World Heritage Listed Town Hall built in 1405.  Legend has it that until then, the town had existed quite happily without a town hall so when the merchants decided they needed one, no-one could agree how big.  They gathered together all the townspeople who were eligible to vote and stood them shoulder to shoulder and formed a square – the size of which determined the size of the town hall.

We headed from the town hall, past the statue of Roland and itnto the Bottcherstrasse with it’s quirky buildings and a really cool lollie shop and down to the Weser River and along St Martins Quay.  We stopped fr something to eat and then were off to the Becks Brewery for the tour that Alissa had given us for Christmas.

We got a presentation about the history of the Becks company – it dates from 1873 and now accounts for 1 in 4 of every German beers drunk outside Germany.  We had a look through part of the production plant and then into the tasting room.  We tasted a Becks, a Haake Beck and another of your choice.  They make a special beer for fans of the Bremen Football team (this seemed popular among the pommies on the tour) as well as a number of flavoured beers (lemon, lime, orange).

We cambe back to the flat for a bit of a rest and then met Alissa for dinner.  We went to a very cool restaurant called the Erotick Kartoffel (which translates as The Erotic Potato) … all meals are served with a baked spud and then you add whatever meat you want with it.  A live piano player (doing covers of Elton John & Billie Joel) added to the ambiance, as did the corset clad waiting staff!

A long day but another really enjoyable one, made even better by the blue sky… hours and hours of it … made for a cold day (-3) but just seeing the sun was lovely.

Friday, January 11, 2013

The Wall, snow & blue sky

Our last day in Berlin & it seemed appropriate to visit the Berlin Wall Memorial at Bernauer Strasse.  Snow over night but a bright blue sky this morning.  Cars down our street were covered in snow and Lauren wrote ‘Hi Ainsley’ on the back of a little VW Golf parked outside our apartment block.  We caught the tram to Nord Bahnhof and then up to the memorial.  It is the last surviving part of the wall where both walls and the strip in the middle are pretty much intact.

The ‘death strip’ was 30m wide and patrolled by armed guards, secured with barbed wire & lit day & night.  Houses fronting/backing the wall were emptied of residents over a 4month period because too many of them were being used as escape routes.  Pictures of people jumping from 3rd & 4th story windows were pretty scary.  Luckily, this stretch of the wall was almost always patrolled on the western side by the fire brigade with nets to catch the jumpers.  There is documentation telling how a women who was 9months pregnant jumped. 

There is a pretty little cemetery that lay in the path of the wall, so the DDR government just tore down the wall, moved the graves and continued on it’s merry way. 

It had started to snow again and the whole area was quiet and white (and bloody cold).  We read our way through all the info boards, watched the short docos about people escaping out windows, looked at where the various escape tunnels went and looked at the new Church of Reconciliation.  The old one was originally built 1894 but when the wall went up it was in ‘no mans land’ and cut off from the parishioners.  The DDG government ordered it’s demolition in 1985, but a chapel was built in 2005 using some of the rubble of the old one.

By now it was lunch time so we jumped a tram to Alexanderplatz for some food & some shopping.  Mindful of the available space in my case I only bought one pair of shoes (cute little red suede boots).  It gets dark here about 4.30 so we headed home. 

The “Hi Ainsley” that Lauren had written in the snow this morning was still there and by the time we’d had a cuppa & checked emails etc it had started to snow again.  Dinner in a micro-brewery at Alexanderplatz saw the most enormous servings we’ve encountered so far.  We waddled back to the train and headed home to pack. 

Tomorrow we’re off to Bremen and Lauren heads back to Worms.

Thursday, January 10, 2013

A Plague Hat & Men in Tights

We’re almost at the end of our ‘must see’ list and today it was the Deutsches Historisches Museum.  Chronicling German history since the time of the Celts, this museum is amazing.  Here’s a list of some of the more unusual/special/bizarre/cool stuff that’s there:

A Statue of Charlemaine, a pocket calendar from 1397, Martin Luther’s bible ( 1522), the Edict of Worms (when Martin Luther got chucked out of the Catholic church) A cookbook from 1587, a full set of jousting armour (horse and knight) from the late 1500’s,  a plague mask 1600s (worn by a doctor, intended to keep the germs out), an anatomical model of a pregnant woman (just like the game ‘operation’), a surgical bullet remover (1800’s), Napoleon’s Bicorn Hat from the Battle of Waterloo, the first x-ray machine, WW1 helmets (complete with bullet holes) the Olympic torches from the 1936 Berlin & 1972 Munich games, a VW beetle & a Trabie.

I didn’t go through the WW2 years section having seen my fill in previous days.  Plenty of costume from the 1700’s onwards, and many many paintings of important people.  It truly is a spectacular museum and if you are a history nut, you could easily spend hours and hours here.

After another late lunch we headed for the West Berlin ‘shopping strip’ of Krufurstendamm (known to Berliners as K’damm) – you could do some serious damage to a credit card along this strip, and particularly at the uber expensive KaDeWe department store where your choices range from Vuitton to Prada to Bulgari to YSL … not exactly my kinda place!  We wandered round for a bit and headed home because Lauren & I were going to the theatre.

‘Show Me’ is a cabaret sort of show … no story to speak of, just a collection of dance/song numbers – I suppose that they are trying to make it easy for anyone to understand and without spoken language it is accessible to all regardless of what you speak.  It was amazing!  Fantastic costumes by Christian Lacroix, they ranged from something of a cross between can can dancers & pompoms, to  hip hip boys with thick gold chains, to girls in lycra hotpants,  and one amazing number with 50 dancers in white jumpsuits with LED light strips that ended up glowing all different colours. 

The second act had lots of water … the stage was both revolving and one that dropped and they dropped the middle bit and filled it with water so we had 4th row seats watching boys in pink & purple lycra break dancing in 6” water, and a fantastic aerial act working beside a 50’ waterfall.  Heart in mouth stuff was provided by a pair of aerial ‘tumblers’ (for want of a better word) that worked off a rig about 30’ up with NO safety wires.  Lots more … check out this trailer http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJwFmT7vC_o

We had coffee & apple pie after the show. We got snowed on at intermission (woooo hoooooo) and Lauren picked up a hand-full from one of the cars parked in our street to bring home for Tony. 

Greek Gods & Magic Carpets

The Pergamon Museum is fantastic … it’s really a 3-in-1 museum since it houses the Collection of Classical Antiquities, the Museum of the Ancient Near East and the Museum of Islamic Art in the one huge bullet holed building.

Pay your 10 euro, dump the coat, grab your audio guide and open the first door and you are standing in front of the magnificent Pergamon Altar  built 180-160BC.. a massive reconstructed stairway, colonnade and frieze from the Temple of Zeus .. it is staggeringly big

In the next room is the Market Gate of Miletus … from the early 2nd century AD.  The really good thing is that until you are actually in each room you don’t really know what’s coming and each time you move on there is another Oh My God moment.
The Ishtar Gate is something else … massive, made of blue glazed tiles decorated with lions, bulls & dragons and built in the time of Nebuchadnezzar II (600 BC)  There is the gate, and a long section of the processional to the gate, plus all kinds of goodies from that period in history.

Upstairs is the Museum of Islamic Art … carpets, glazed altars, the 8th century Caliph’s Place from Mshatta and a stunningly beautiful painted Aleppo Room from 17th century Jordan.  Masses of other artifacts including jewellery, a family crypt, burial stuff and a statue of Hadad the God of Weather.

We whizzed around in only 2 hours but I could have easily spent that much again. 

A late lunch at Alexanderplatz with Lauren then some Helen time to do a spot of shopping … was the plan, however, I past a hairdresser so popped in for a haircut and by the time I came out (4pm) and did a lap of the Alexa mall, it was almost dark and raining (surprise surprise!)  Shops here close at 8pm but Berlin in the dark is not as tourist friendly as you might imagine so I just hopped on a tram back to Hachecher Markt and then to Rosenthaler Platz & walked back to the apartment.

Dinner & an early night might be the next plan … Tony has a cold, snored most of last night & I didn’t get a lot of sleep.  Went to Friedrichshain for dinner, ate at a little cross cultural Italian/Mexican place … really good.