Berlin - Sanssouci Palace

January 06, 2014 in Travel

After finishing three weeks work in Essen, I visited Berlin for a few days before flying all the way home again to New Zealand. In my first half-day after arriving on the train, I walked around getting my bearings again, currywurst for lunch of course, and then met up with good friends from Finland/New Zealand who had timed their weekend visit to coincide with mine.

The following day I took the train out to Potsdam, which is a city just outside Berlin and capital of the German state of Brandenburg. It was the place of residence of the Prussian Kings until 1918, and so has a lot of monumental buildings including several palaces, including Sanssouci - Sans Souci meaning in French "Without Worries" - which was the summer palace of Frederick the Great.

The summer palace was meant to be a residence for the King to relax away from the formality and ceremony of the main German court in Berlin. Of course it is still huge, ornate and covered in gold leaf. It is supposedly a German rival to Versailles, but really is much much smaller, like a very fancy country villa rather than a huge palace. It is built on a very cool terraced vineyard though, which might have made for a nice picture if it wasn't the middle of winter and cold and grey.

The Sansoucci grounds are massive, containing both the Sansoucci Palace, and the New Palace, which is much larger and grander, and was built shortly after Sansoucci to celebrate the end of the 7-years war. This one is considered the last of the great German Baroque palaces. There is also another Orangerie palace, an oriental-styled pavilion called the 'Chinese Teahouse', roman-styled Baths, and another tiny 'Charlottenhof' Palace.

Münster and the Send

December 23, 2013 in Travel

Following a long day trip to Hoge Veluwe National Park, the next day I made a shorter trip to the historic town of Münster, which was recommended by some work colleagues in Essen. Münster (which means 'monastery') was founded around 797AD by missionary of Charlemagne, and is also known for being the centre of the 'Anabaptist' rebellion during the Reformation in 1534, and also the site of the signing of the Treaty of Westphalia which ended the 30-years war in 1648. Looks like not much else happened between then and WW2 - but by then Münster was an administative and industrial centre, and over 90% of the old city (Aldstadt) was destroyed by air raids.

Unlike some other cities which suffered massive war damage and were rebuilt in boring-concrete modern styles e.g. Essen and Rotterdam, the Münster Aldstadt was rebuilt in replica of the style it was before the war. Many of the town's historical items were removed and safely stored during the war, so there are plenty of historic artifacts just placed in rebuilt buildings. These include the Cathedral's treasure stash (Domkammer), the fancy 1540's astrological clock shown above, and the wall panels and furnishings of the town hall where the Treaty of Westphalia was signed. And a funny chalice in the shape of a rooster, of course.

The Cathedral (St.Paulus-Dom) was particularly impressive with another large pipe organ to add to my collection, which made for a nice picture with the sun shining through the clouds of incense. Extra points for catholic theatricality. The Prinzipalmarkt (principal marketplace) was interesting, with rebuilt historic buildings in a ring around the city centre, although many of them did look suspiciously clean and tidy stone of course, many of the facades only a few decades old.

I also found this pointy looking organ in St.Lambert's church, where the deposed leaders of the Anabaptist rebellion were suspended in cages from the clock tower until they were dead... the cages are still there, but the bones were eventually removed! The Anabaptists were basically crazy radicals who liked re-baptising people, communal property, and polygamy and seem to be ancestors of modern Amish and Mennonites etc. They took over the whole city, but the deposed Bishop sent in his army to besiege them and after a year they were broken, with the leaders tortured and put in cages.

After walking across town to see the Münster Palace, which is now the administrative building for the local university, I ran into a massive fair set up on the Schlossplatz. This is the 'Send' fair, which occurs three times a year and attracts over a million visitors and 250 vendors and rides. It was interesting walking around seeing all the German fairground food stalls, which all looked like pretty serious business - pretzels, bratwurst, toasted nuts and candy all looked good, not so sure about the giant Herring stand! All sorts of different rides as well, including bumper cars, multiple haunted houses, a roller coaster and ferris wheel, log flume and shooting galleries. Of course I ended the day with fairground Currywurst Frites.

Netherlands - Hoge Veluwe National Park

December 11, 2013 in Travel, Landscape

Nationaal Park De Hoge Veluwe is a park in the east of the Netherlands towards the German border, by the town of Otterlo. It is famous for both the park itself, which is 55km2 in area, and also for the Kröller-Müller Museum in the middle of the park, which has the second-largest collection of Van Gogh paintings outside of his namesake museum in Amsterdam. I had been meaning to visit here for a few years now, mainly to tick off another of the famous museums in the Netherlands, but also to check out the countryside and see something different to my usual weekend city trips. I was hoping to visit on a sunny day, but the European autumn wasn't cooperating and I was running out of time, so I just chose the least rainy looking weekend available.

Van Gogh - The Potato Eaters — Van Gogh - *The Potato Eaters*

The art collection was founded by Helene Kröller-Müller, who was one of the first to appreciate the work of Van Gogh and collect his works, and one of the first European women to put together a major art collection. In 1935 she donated the whole collection to the Netherlands state, and 3 years later the museum was opened in the national park - also owned by Helene and her husband Anton, one of two privately owned national parks in the Netherlands. As well as the Van Goghs, the museum also has a good number of paintings by Signac, Seurat, Picasso, Mondriaan, Gauguin and other impressionists and modernists. I do prefer the Dutch Golden Age painters, but I really enjoyed this museum for a change of pace.

Vincent Van Gogh - Cafe Terrace at Night

Sculpture wing from outside in the forrest

There is a well-known and very large 75-acre sculpture garden attached to the museum, also containing work by a number of modern and contemporary big name sculpters such as Rodin. The Jardin d'émail by Jean Dubuffet (above) looked like it would be fun to run around in, but was closed for winter unfortunately.

After spending the whole morning at the museum and sculpture gardens, I went out to explore the park, in slightly sub-optimal weather. I drove between two of the main sites to see the hunting lodge, which was a very cool looking building but currently closed for renovation. I made some stops on the side of the road to take photos, but realised I was missing most of the good scenery by driving - it is far too big to cover much on foot, but conveniently the park has over 1700 bicycles completely free for anyone to use and ride around. I've hardly been on a bike since I got my driver's license at 15, but I eventually gave in and braved the bike paths. I was a little wobbly for the first km or two, but managed to avoid crashing into anything or anyone, and slowly got comfortable.

I was following one of the two main bike circuits, aiming for one area of massive sand dunes about 5km away, but I misread the Dutch signage and found myself about 7km in the wrong direction before I located myself on a map! I decided to keep going to the sand dunes and back to base around the full 26km loop, but the light was starting to dim, the weather was cold and threatening to rain, and the path I was on was almost empty of other cyclists - I'd left the forest and entered a very exposed and windy section of heath moors. I pushed it a bit further, but eventually found a crossing path for a shortcut back home, and discretion proved the better part of valour this time. I made it back comfortably though - annoyed to miss the sand dunes, but I still enjoyed the landscapes i did explore, and somewhat satisfied not to have crashed my bike!

My little white bike. Camera bag safely strapped into the child seat..

Kölner Dom - German #1 Landmark

December 04, 2013 in Travel

Kölner Dom is the German name for the Cologne Cathedral... but calling it Cologne makes me feel like an ignorant American tourist, so I much prefer the name Köln. Besides, the Dom, pronounced 'Dome' makes it sound to me like a giant sports stadium or death match Mad Max arena, which is much more exciting. Back on topic, the Kölner Dom is the single most visited landmark in Germany, receiving 20,000 visitors a day according to Wikipedia! 20,000 seems like a lot, but I've been there three times now, and each time it has been pretty busy, for what it's worth.

I keep going back because, well, firstly it's not very far from where I work in Essen, and secondly because I still haven't gotten a really good photo of it! Built in the Gothic style, it is very dark inside and hard to photograph without a tripod, which I never carry when travelling anyway. I'd also like to try again with a wider lens, such as the nice Fuji 14mm which I still can't afford yet! This trip I arrived just in time to make one of the twice-daily English language tours, which I hadn't done previously, and it was good value for $6 because we got to go inside the choir, which is not accessible without a tour, and see the famous reliquary up close, and get some nice photos from the centre of the building. The 'Shrine of the Three Kings' reliquary supposedly contains the remains of the 'three wise men', commissioned by the Archbishop of Cologne around 1190ad.

The Dom is very impressive both inside and outside, covering a huge land area and is also very tall... you can also climb the 509 narrow, winding stone steps up the tower, but I've done that before and once was enough! It is the largest Gothic church in Northern Europe, and with the two huge towers has the largest facade of any church in the world. So for anyone interested in Cathedrals and Gothic architecture like me, this is a pretty good example and well worth visiting (several times).

The Dom construction was first started in 1248ad, being built continuously until 1473, and then stopped until the 19th century, and not finished until 1880, 552 years after it was started! At that time it was the tallest structure in the world, for only four years before the Washington Monument was erected. It was struck by 14 bombs in WWII but stood strong in the otherwise almost completely flatted city, although it is still under continuous repair and reconstruction of the stained glass windows in particular since the war. It is now a listed World Heritage site.

Zeche Zollverein - Down the Mines

November 24, 2013 in Travel

Just got home from my month-long trip to Germany this week, now into the long process of catching up on my backlog of editing and posting photos! I'm a pretty amateur blogger... living up to the 'blave' name well! These pictures are from inside the buildings of the Zeche Zollverein mine complex - from a guided tour of the main mine shaft (Shaft XII) building and from the Ruhr Museum which was built into the lowest levels of the large Coal Washing Plant.

Zeche Zollverein coal mine - air flow ('luft') control valve

I'm not usually keen on guided tours - since I prefer to take my time and explore around by myself and find interesting things to photograph - but as usual the most interesting places are only accessible by tour, at extra charge of course. The mine shaft itself is not accessible for the tour - but I have it on good authority that they do special trips down there for VIPs and important industrial groups, which would have been really interesting! But the mine shaft buildings themselves were quite cool, and of course you get the full tourist information spiel on coal mining, conditions for the mine workers, history of the mines etc etc etc.

The best trivia I got from the tour was the 'cost of water' for the mines in the Ruhr region - even though the mines shut down 20 years ago, they still have to turn the pumps on for an hour every day to keep pumping out the infiltrating water. If they stop doing this, after a year the weight of water will compress the ground (riddled with tunnels) and lower the Ruhr enough to redirect the Rhine and flood the whole (densely populated) region. So they must keep paying to pump of thousands of tonnes of water.. forever!

Illuminated staircase down the the Ruhr Museum

I also visited the new Ruhr Museum, which was built into the basement floors of the Coal Washing Plant building (shown from the outside last post). It's not huge, but made for one of the most impressive museum settings I've visited. There were all sorts of informative displays of the history and modern development of the Ruhr region, but as usual I found the ancient history much more interesting. This part was also in the lowest floor, with lots of dramatically lit displays inside concrete coal bunkers. The bronze age armour and weapon displays were particularly impressive in this setting! But my favourite part was probably the giant orange-lit staircase descending to the lower floors.

Ruhr Museum in the belly of the Coal Washing Plant

Zeche Zollverein - Most Beautiful Coal Mine

November 07, 2013 in Travel

After a long day trip to Amsterdam, I wanted to go somewhere a little closer to (temporary) home in Essen the next day. Zeche Zollverein is about 15min down the road, and very famous in this area, easily the most well known tourist attraction in the Ruhrgebiet, but I'd never gotten around to visiting before. Somehow an old industrial site didn't really sound exciting to me, when there are many old famous cities, cathedrals, museums all over the place to visit instead. Or maybe industrial engineering is a bit too much like work/study to me! But I'm glad I made the trip this Sunday, I found the whole thing really interesting and also fun to photograph (most importantly!).

Zeche Zollverein is one of only 20 industrial sites to be UNESCO World Heritage listed, and industrial culture in general is quite a big thing in the Ruhrgebiet. This is the huge industrial area in mid-west Germany where there was lots of heavy industry before WWII - which was subsequently flattened in the war, and then rebuilt to form the centre of Germany's 'economic miracle' and return to prosperity in the 1950's and 60's. A lot of towns around here were heavily damaged and then rebuilt in modern style (think ugly concrete) so they lost a lot of cultural heritage in places, and have embraced their more recent industrial culture instead. The main buildings shown here are from the 1930's, built in the 'Bauhaus' style, considered an architectural masterpiece at the time, making it known as the 'most beautiful coal mine' in the world!

Tunnel between Coal Washing plant and Coking plant

The Zollverein complex was started in the 1830's but continuously expanded over the years as demand for coal and coke (for steel making) rapidly grew. The biggest shaft (12) was built in 1932, and the massive Coking plant in 1961 - which I didn't get to visit as there was more than enough to keep me occupied in the Shaft 12 and Washing Plant areas. But they have some really cool stuff at the Coking plant as well - like a massive 150m-long ice skating rink down the whole length of the plant in winter. At times this was the largest coal mine in Germany, and employed almost 7000 people! The mine shafts were closed in 1986, and the coking plant in 1993 - but the state government immediately bought the land and declared it a heritage site to be preserved and maintained.

The whole massive site has been turned into a tourist attraction, including tours of the old facilities of course, but also art galleries, studio spaces, concert halls (and outdoor concerts), the ice rink, a big sculpture park, several museums, a very fancy restaurant and lots of cafes, and even a swimming pool on an upper deck of the coking plant! I went on a guided tour of the Shaft 12 complex, and as we were walking through an old control room there was a massive glass wall with a Zumba class running on the other side! Quite surprising to see, but they are making all sorts of use out of this complex now. Although most of my photos focus on the old equipment and buildings, there is lots of space and activities for the community as well.

I spent quite a bit of time just walking around the buildings of the complex taking photos, and there weren't too many people outside as it was cold and windy and wet. But I also did the guided tour, and visited the Ruhr Museum, which has been recently opened in the bowels of the Coal Washing plant - quite a nice museum, but a really cool setting. More photos from that part of the complex and inside the shaft buildings next time! I've run out of weekends on this trip to Germany to visit again, but I'd quite like to come back next time and see the Coking Plant, and also the 'Red Dot' design museum built in the old plant boilerhouse, holding the world's largest collection of contemporary design.

Berlin - Sanssouci Palace

Münster and the Send

Netherlands - Hoge Veluwe National Park

Kölner Dom - German #1 Landmark

Zeche Zollverein - Down the Mines

Zeche Zollverein - Most Beautiful Coal Mine

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