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As anything is possible when we travel virtually, we are now backtracking to catch up on the artistic trail.
In Quedlinberg (remember the medieval town with its hilltop church and monastery) we discovered a Lionel Feininger Gallery. Feininger, born in the USA, spent most of his life in Germany, painting, printing and teaching at the Bauhaus. He summered in Quedlinberg and before fleeing to the US before WW2 he entrusted his work to a friend in the village who hid it all. He never returned & the friend eventually set up the gallery. They have so many works they can completely change the exhibition in the 3 storey gallery 4 times a year! Having seen so little of his work before it was fantastic to spend a couple of hours there.
After Berlin, Dresden and Prague, in Cesky Krumlov (the other medieval town mentioned last time) we found an Egon Schiele gallery. Cesky was his mother’s home town and he set up home there one year to paint. Schiele who died of influenza when only 28 is now a renowned town identity yet at the time he was driven out by rumours about nude models and young boys!! We
Hot spring
Love the polessaw more of his work in Vienna and the link to Cesky was immediately clear with his aerial views of rooftops and the river curving around village scenes. Schiele is an artist whose work I have mainly seen in print form. He was influenced strongly by Klimt and in Vienna there were whole rooms of this artist’s work and also works by Oskar Kokoschka and other northern European Expressionists.
We left you in Budapest and much has happened in our travels since then. When we left Budapest we drove down to Lake Balaton to see Gerd’s brother, Karl, who was on a fishing trip with his mates. It was reminiscent of fishing trips all over the world - with a rented house, lots of gear and grog and no fish to show for the effort!
Next stop was Graz where Gerd came from. We stayed with Annemaree and Reinholt (who we met in Berlin). On the way in we drove by a hotel at a Spa designed by the architect Hundertwasser whose work we had come across at an exhibition in northern Germany. He is obviously related to Gaudi and Col decided his work would be perfect for
Hunterwasser design
This is the spa outside Graz the Rehab Hospital project in Putney as he thinks it would add colour and atmosphere to the suburb and put it on the map!! I’m not convinced that Putney is ready for Hunterwasser and can only imagine the protest marches and meetings, but perhaps he is right.
Col and I took the opportunity to go to Vienna for a couple of days and we both enjoyed this elegant city. We managed to get to Stephankirche (the main cathedral) for an important choral mass. A cardinal presided and the choir was supported by the organ and a small orchestra. The acoustics were superb and the cathedral was packed. We also took in the mandatory Mozart and Strauss concert in a palace and then walked for hours in the late evening through the floodlit city. Our drive to Vienna was through beautiful valley scenery with lots of snow topped mountain views out of the car. It was so nice that instead of driving back on the motorway we returned via the scenic route.
Graz is an interesting old city with a modern overlay and it was good to explore it with the help of locals instead of just bumbling around
as you can do in strange cities. Annemaree and Reinholt’s hospitality was both generous and warm and we were able to meet up with their children and see a little of Austrian home life.
After Graz, Deanna, Gerd, Col and I continued our trip to Venice through parts of Austria where they had lived when first married. It was a nostalgic trip for both of them and we enjoyed hearing their stories and memories from that time. After only getting a little lost we set up in a hotel in Maestre (near the last train station before Venice) and then went in to spend a day in Venice doing what you do when there. We walked from the train over the bridges and along the little lanes crowded with shops, spent time at St Marks, the Doges palace and in St Marks square before catching the ferry back to the station. St Marks has been beautifully restored since any of us had seen it last and it was an unexpected treat to be able to get inside the recently restored Doge’s palace.
It is very sad to see how Venice is deteriorating. It has always had a slightly
faded look but now many buildings seem to be deserted and crumbling. The dampness is obvious and on the square there now are 251 days of the years when sea water comes over the wall. Inside the Doges’ palace we saw the tide coming under a door which was rotting from the constant exposure to water. A huge effort is going on in that very famous area whilst the rest of the city seems to be disintegrating around it. As with New Orleans you wonder at the magnitude of the problem and whether they can ever overcome it.
Lunch in a restaurant on the square perhaps deserves a blog of its own - not because of the food but just for the price!! On top of the expensive food and drink we had to pay a cover charge of 22 Euro (about $35) for the music which not only entertained us in the restaurant but every freeloader sitting and feeding pigeons in the square!! The bill for lunch for the 4 of us was more expensive than our two night’s hotel accommodation…
A day’s drive took us to Lausanne to stay with Helga and Rene (Gerd’s sister and
The Bascilica at Mariatrost
This is near where we stayed in Graz husband who we stayed with in 2003 and who visited us in Sydney in January this year). The long tunnel under St Bernard was closed so we had to drive over the Alps. WOW!
In Sydney I had mentioned that last time I missed out on Swiss fondue so this time Rene made sure that we had a superb version of this dish. The cheeses were only part of the story and after dipping our bread in kirsch before dunking it in the creamy hot fondue and then pouring kirsch over the pineapple we ate later, we were all feeling no pain at the end of lunch.
Whilst the other two caught up with family and friends in Lausanne we took ourselves off to Interlaken and the Jungfraujoch - Top of Europe mountain railway trip. The weather was great all the way up the mountain and even at the viewing points in the 9 km track inside the mountain. One of these points was overlooking the north wall of the Eiger, the one used by the mountaineers and the other was on the side of the Monch. Unfortunately when we came out at the top (3571 metres /
11760 ft) it was blowing a gale with clouds swirling and no view at all up there but the air was mighty thin. We each rang our kids from up there just to say ‘hello’ from the top of Europe.
It took almost 3 hours from Interlaken to the top. With Swiss precision, we started on a fast moving electric train, equipped to use a cog rail when we started up the Alps through icy mountains. We then changed to a more traditional cog railway, where 3 trains full of tourists made their way through ski fields and climbed up continuous steep grades. Finally we were on the Jungfrau railway cutting through inside the 3 mountains, Eiger, Monch and then the Jungfrau. This connecting service runs on time through difficult terrain every 30 minutes. Coming back we came down through the most picture perfect Swiss valley imaginable with little chalets and homes dotted across the slopes.
To wind up our 6000 km adventure with Gerd and Deanna we drove to Poce, on the Loire to Margaret and Michael’s home there. We remembered meeting them before on an earlier visit they had made to Sydney. They have a beautifully
restored house in a little village near Saumur and made us feel very welcome. We left Deanna and Gerd to explore Scotland with them and some other friends whilst we head south.
The trip through Eastern Europe was wonderful as we visited places we had never thought we would see and did it with the help of friends (and their friends) who knew many of those places well. Their perspective and local knowledge made it all the more interesting. However, it was talking to people who had lived behind the iron curtain that made us all more aware of how easy it is to take away our freedoms and introduce a climate of fear and mistrust. We will always remember the story of the couple who managed to leave East Germany separately and then to meet up for a weekend in Paris. When they returned (separately of course) their 9 yr old son accidentally saw a photo of them in front of the Eiffel Tower. He was excited and wanted to tell everyone and they had to explain to him they could each lose their jobs and be punished if anyone ever found out. It was commonplace they said
to have friends and relatives reporting on one another and it was hard to trust anyone. Unfortunately, after the Wall came down, the husband was taken in by an unscrupulous Englishman who helped to set up a business, made extravagant promises and then ran off with the money! He leaned quickly that trust was not necessarily more valued in the West!
We are now in Puy L’Eveque on the Lot River on the next stage of our trip. We are relaxing after the busy weeks we’ve had. Next is Spain where we will meet up with Barry and Sonia in Barcelona. More of that next time!
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