Auf Wiedersehen, Deutschland

Sehestedt, Germany, founded 1282

Sehestedt's restaurant/hotel/beer garden

The church in Sehestedt

The historical museum (alas, it was closed)

A tall ship plies the Ostsee/Nordsee Canal, which links the North Sea and the Baltic...goes right through Sehestedt (school kids take the cross-canal ferry home for lunch, and back to school)

Thursday we departed Lubeck and headed north into Schleswig-Holstein en route to Denmark. We stopped in Sehestedt, on the Ostee-Nord Canal to take pix for Rachel's partner Will Sehestedt. It is a beautiful little hamlet, very well cared for, the Canal was full of traffic, including tall ships and the ferry, and we took a number of pix for Will and his family. 109 to be exact. After lunch we drove on, entering Denmark about 3PM. We thought we'd explor Havesled, but, by 5PM, the whole town appeared closed, sidewalks rolled up, so we drove on to a rest area near Kolding, where we spent the night.

Lubeck

The Holsten Gate at Lubeck

Interior of the Marienkirche in Lubeck, where Buxtehude played; the organ is still the world's largest mechanical organ

Plaque commemorating Bach's visit to hear Buxtehude; Bach almost lost his job by over-staying his leave

Niederegger is perhaps Germany's most famous marzipan shop...five floors including museum; yum

Just in case your Michelin map is a bit dated, it's helpful to know that Waghemansstrasse was changed to Wahm Strasse in 1460

Wednesday morning we took the Grey Wanderer back to the Mercedes dealership for repair. They told us it would take until mid-afternoon, so, equipped with some complimentary bus tickets, we headed for the Altes Stadt, the old city, to do the sight-seeing for which we came here.

Old Lubeck is an island in the river Trave, a very old city, capital of the Hanseatic League in its time. It sustained some damage in the war, but enough remains and enough has been restored for the entire old city to be designated a World Heritage Site. Most of the old stuff is 14th or 15th century, but some goes back to the 13th. It is a beautiful place, much of it pedestrianized, a great place to just wander. The pix above represent some of our walk about town.

Later in the afternoon we picked up the camper and greatly stimulated the local economy, far more than we had intended or wanted. It is hard to know what is reasonable...different place, different currency, dealing with Mercedes and not an auto glass dealer. Oh well. We continued our grocery shopping at Citti and later returned to our campsite, on the river, at the Congress of Music.

Shattering Incident in Lubeck

Ouch! But it was a nice band-aid

"Our" Mercedes-Benz dealer in Lubeck

Tuesday morning we undertook another reorganization of the camper, and I worked some more on the still-not-fully-functioning converter. We were going to do some heavy-duty grocery shopping in advance of our trip to expensive Scandinavia, but, in the Citti shopping center parking lot, I managed to back the Grey Wanderer into a signpost, breaking one of the back windows in the van. Horrors! Curses!

Vicki took all this calmly, stoically almost. I did not. Within a few minutes, however, we were at the Mercedes Benz dealership in Lubeck, arranging for repair. Unfortunately, the replacement window had to come from Hamburg, and won't be done until Wednesday. The Mercedes people (complimentary expresso, chai) did clean up the mess of glass and install a plastic sheet over the window frame (with a nice Mercedes logo) so we could carry on. We did a little more grocery shopping, then spent the night, with several other RVs, at the Congress of Music parking lot just across the river from the Altes Stadt.

Tiergarten, Brandenburg Gate, Reichstag, Memorials, Monuments, Air Ministry, Checkpoint Charlie, the Wall...and on to Lubeck

The Reichstag, the German Parliament...quite a tortured history

Goethe Monument in Tiergarten Park (almost as large as Phoenix Park in Dublin)

The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe

Inside the Sony Center, near KulturForum

Goering's Air Ministry, one of the few 3rd Reich edifices not much damaged in WWII (probably reflecting the Allies' low estimation of Goering's strategic abilities); it's presently the Ministry of Finance

Achtung!

Checkpoint Charlie; now Tourist Trap Tommy

Vicki at the Wall

Monday was our last day in Berlin. After breaking camp again at the Avus, we drove into the city and parked on the Tiergarten, near the Kulturforum, allowing me to walk around a bit of the park, all the way to the Reichstag, and back. Dozens of sites, scenes, some in the pix above, many quite moving. Later we drove to the Friedrichstrasse area, and took in the various sites there, the largely-intact headquarters of Goering's Luftwaffe and many of the other evils he managed (now the ministry of finance), Checkpoint Charlie, and the Wall. See illustrations. You'd think the Wall was maybe 9th or 10th century, given what little is left of it. Anyway, having thus done Berlin, and feeling very pleased with it, we proceeded on to the autobahn and to Lubeck, where we stayed for a night in an actual campground.

Rococo My World

Schloss Sanssouci, from the gardens and terraces

The Bildergalerie exterior

The Chinese pavillion

The "New" Palace

The Orangerie

The Ruins; no palace is complete without some ruins to show off

Our goal for the day, Saturday, which we totally underestimated, was the Schloss Sanssouci, Frederick the Great's summer palace (mid 18th century). We had read that the guided tour took an hour. It turns out the Schloss is just the opener... there also are the women's wing, the kitchens and wine cellar, the art gallery, the orangery, the parks, the orchards, the vineyards, the windmill, the (artificial) ruins, the Chinese pavilion, the guest palace, the new palace, and more. Think of it as the German Versailles (except for most of its time it was merely Prussian). Frederick is of interest himself, probably the closest we ever got to a philosopher/king (Voltaire lived with him for 3 years), but then the whole complex stayed in the royal family and after nationhood in the 1870s became one of the Kaisers' main roosts. In the new palace Wilhelm III signed the documents starting WWI. And in 1918 abdicated.

The whole thing is pretty much Rococo or Rococo revival, reflecting Frederick's era and, throughout, his interests and tastes. Rococo, to my great surprise, grows on you, especially when you begin to see some of its principles and themes. Apart from being a great nation-maker and statesman, and intellectual, Frederick was also a patron of the arts, a colossal collector of French and Italian painting, and an accomplished flutist (composed 102 flute sonatas). I knew of him primarily as a military leader, very much in the same league as Napoleon. He once “exhorted” his troops with the exclamation “Fools, would you live forever?!”.

We arrived a bit past 10AM and left a bit after 6PM, and, by my count, saw seven of the thirteen principal sites. Sanssouci was relatively undamaged in WWII. Despite the Red Army's thoroughly looting it (3,000 pieces are still “missing”), most of it was returned to East Germany, and what one now sees, unlike most other such national monarchical sites, includes much of the original (restored) furniture, furnishings, and art. Of particular interest, and worth the hefty admission price all by itself, is the Bildergalerie, the paintings gallery. It was the first purpose-built art gallery in Europe. Imagine something on the scale of Versailles' Hall of Mirrors, only, instead of mirrors, you have paintings, hung floor to ceiling, Baroque-style, practically every square inch covered by some master or other. The building itself, gold everywhere, sculpture, marble, mosaic, proportion, light, was great art. Alas, photography was not permitted here nor anywhere else at Sanssouci, although we did sneak a few outside shots. Apart from the Bildergalerie, the main hall in the new palace, which Vicki and I dubbed “shell world,” is pretty incredible...a whole 6-8k square foot hall decorated in sea shells and other mineral specimens, floor to ceiling, floor and ceiling included. The shell is a central Rococo image.

It was an exhilarating if exhausting day—3 stars plus, easily, and much more than can be done in a day—but we were glad to get back to our “site” at the Avus Rasthof. Driving to Potsdam from Berlin, by the way, takes you through the now-ruins of Checkpoint Bravo, a major entrance to East Berlin/East Germany.

Day in Charlottenburg

It was another day with Frederick the Great, Old Fritz, his grandmother and successors

Entrance to Schloss Charlottenberg

From the gardens

Some of the artifacts from Herman Schliemann's excavation of Troy, the museum of which is at Charlottenberg

Alas, the museum was closed for renovation, but we did make it to the Cafe Schliemann

We parked on Schloss Strasse, next to this beautiful old pump

As if Schloss Sanssouci were not enough, Sunday we spent most of the day at Schloss Charlottenburg, the palace Frederick the 1st built for his wife, Charlotte. After bearing him an heir, she spent the rest of her relatively short life there, pursuing her interests in theatre, music, painting, philosophy and the sciences. She was Fred the Great's grandmother, and presumably the source of his more humane interests. With her friend and tutor, Leibniz (inventor of the calculus and monads), she founded the Berlin academy of the sciences. Schloss Charlottenberg was badly damaged in WWII, but is now well restored, and many of its interior furnishings and art were saved and are now on display. It was built originally in the late 1690s. Fred the Great resided there for a time, but much of what is on display is from the mid-19th century, when later Prussian kings and queens resided there (in addition to the Berlin Schloss, the Potdam Schloss, Schloss Sanssouci, and others). Again, much art, mostly French (including David's “Napoleon as First Consul Crossing the Alps”), and much history. Happily, for our tired feet, fewer buildings and grounds than Schloss Sanssouci, and generally fewer wows.

A Night at the Opera

The Deutsche Oper Berlin, located, where else?, on Richard Wagner Strasse

Deutsche Oper Berlin

Finale and curtain calls

Original title: "Tannhauser: Nudie Star Wars Sick Bed Version"

Sunday afternoon and evening we spent at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, also in Charlottengurg, about 2 km from the Schloss. I'd gotten tickets a few days earlier to the season's final performance of Wagner's Tannhauser, one of my favorites. After Schloss Charlottenburg we did a quick change into opera attire in the camper and had a quick meal. All this while parked on Schloss Strasse. The performance began at 5PM, and ended a bit after 9PM, with two leisurely intermissions. Even the most dedicated Wagnerites have to eat.

The music, the orchestra, the singing, and the acting too, all were glorious. The fiddles were drowned out on a few exuberant occasions, but that was the only acoustic defect of a great performance. The lead was the American, Scott McAllister. I was transported.

At least when I kept my eyes shut. One of the problems with Wagner performances these days (it happens with Shakespeare too) is that directors are always trying to put new spins on the works, their “stamp,” trying to eke new or contemporary messages out of them (as if they were not pregnant enough). We once saw a Flying Dutchman in New York that was presented as the first mate's dream. Whatever.

It gets worse when you have 21st century theatrical technology at your disposal. Deus ex machina is one thing, but this was an entire stage floor full of trap doors through which people were passing, being raised and lifted and lowered, often en mass. And then there were dozens of things (mostly knights in shining armor that looked more like storm troopers from The Empire Strikes Back (see illustration)) coming out of the ceiling and hovering, almost throughout the evening, over the singing and acting. All the knightly characters in the performance were attired in head-to-toe armor, as if the audience might not understand who they were. The performance was of the 1845 Dresden version, but the DOB decided to put on a ballet anyway in the first act overture (the 1861 Paris version indeed had a ballet, to accommodate the Jockey Club, all of which ended in a riot, but that's another story), apparently assuming no one would actually want to listen to the music. The “ballet” was a poor imitation of Gotz Friedrich's Bayreuth Tannhauser, the so-called “Porno Tannhauser.” Imagine 40 or so D-cupped cuties (Vicki, who would not relinqish the binoculars, said they were in body-stockings) flopping about in Venus' grotto. For 15 minutes. And, following the same reasoning, or lack, the DOB did not want to portray the Pilgrims' Chorus as a bunch of—what? pilgrims?—and so in act one they were red-devil-looking sinners, yes, popping up out of the floor, and in act three they were the inmates of a sick house...people in need of redemption, finally healed (see illustration again).... Mallarme, the father of Symbolism, called Tannhauser “that forest of symbols,” but I think he was referring mostly to the libretto.

It took a truly masterful performance, musically, to overcome all this, which it did; and it is good to know that the music can, for me at least, transcend just about any theatrical instantiation. Despite it all, I was very grateful for the opportunity to finally see a Wagner performance in Germany. I just hope I get to see another one, more conventionally done.

KulturForum and Gemaldegalerie

The Berlin Philharmonic and the Sony Center, from KulturForum

A Very Famous Holbein, the name of which escapes me at the moment

I have come to rate European museums in accordance with the number of St. Sebastians they exhibit; the Gemaldegalerie gets a "3"

Ascension; or, Lift-off, as Vicki and I prefer to call it, a scene frequently depicted in northern Euro painting

"Let's boogie!" the angel seems to be saying to Jesus

This was entitled "Venus, Cupid, and ..." (I forgot the name of the guy whose legs only appear in the photo; oddly, the bunnie is not named; it is well known, however, that Hugh Heffner visited Europe in the early 1950s, and I conjecture that...

German Historical Museum

The Deutsches Historisches Museum; one corner of it

Kant, in the Enlightenment section

88mm cannon, in anti-aircraft configuration

V2 rocket combustion chamber

Hitler kept two of these over-sized globes, one in Berlin, one in Berchtesgaden; this is the globe Chaplin satirized in The Great Dictator

"You mean....Springtime for...you know who?" The museum had relatively few images of Hitler, but they did have this one bust...all the museum's other busts, I believe, are in white

Thursday we decided to ignore our electrical problems as well as other needs, and just go in and see more of the city. Rain was forecast (correctly), so we decided to do our sightseeing indoors at the German Historical Museum. It is, as one might imagine, a long and interesting stroll through German history, from Stone Age to Celts to Romans and then into the dark ages, emergence of the Holy Roman Empire, Middle Ages, Reformation, etc., right up to the present. Rather more attention is given to more recent history, especially the founding the nation in the 1870s, WWI, the Depression and rise of National Socialism, WWII, partition, and reunification. The period 1919-present occupies almost the whole main floor. The emphasis is on political, technological, religious, and military history. Sadly, Germany's great artists, writers, philosophers, composers, etc., get very short or no shrift. (No mention of Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, nor, alas, even Wagner). Oh well. Kant did get pride of place on a little display about the Enlightenment, and there was a bust of Goethe. Thomas Mann gets mentioned only in the context of his BBC broadcasts during WWII.

Anyhow, having had interests in German history and culture that go back a long way...theology, philosophy, language study, WWII, Wagner...I found the museum fairly absorbing and spent virtually the whole day there (but also walking the Unter den Linden a bit, visiting the national holocaust site, the German Staats Oper, Humboldt University, and more. Also peeks at the Reichstag, the Brandenburg Gate.....

The museum's treatment of Hitler and National Socialism, both Vicki and I thought, was forthright, open, and pulled no punches. His coming to power, conflict with the Marxists, the ruthless nature of Nazism, the Holocaust, and so on, were evidenced in every conceivable way. I could go on at great length about all this (and have lots of pix). I doubt that any museum has a more difficult story to tell, and the DHM takes on its task with all the grace and candor that is possible. It is a terrible and unforgivable story.

After dinner, we drove over to the KulturForum area to see the museums there and principally the Gemaldegalerie. It is a huge collection of European painting; the 400 works lost in WWII hardly diminished its importance, it is said. Personally, I was not overwhelmed. It has hundreds of works by the masters, yes, but no masterpieces, no signature pieces. IMHO. But, hey, we got to chalk up another Michelin 3 star site. We “camped” again at the Avus Rasthaus in SE Berlin.

Unter den Linden, 2009

Berlin's most famous boulevard, Unter den Linden

Pinocchio store

Ferrari store

Inventory of Ferrari store

Staat Oper

Ampelmannchen; the ampel man was seen on street crossing lights throughout east Berlin; proposals to replace him with the conventional western figure (like in the US) were met with protests, so ampel man remains in the relevant portions of the once-divided city; there is evident nostalgia for some aspects of east Berlin/east Germany.