GERMANY

GERMANY August 13, 2014

We wake in the outskirts of Hamburg. Sleepy heads. We were up too late watching the Danish series, Borgen, on our lap top. We start off today with no breakfast. 'Let's get going!” 

A bank name...Hamburger Bank! It's true! Would you bank there? 

Hamburg is a very busy city, a contrast to sweet, neat and quiet Denmark country roads. Tree lined jumbled streets, lots of people and cars (VW's) and road construction. Germany can afford to fix its streets. 

Moving on from the city into rural residences and farms, we note that it feels much like the Netherlands. Thatched roofs, brick barn and home combinations. Lazy irrigation canals. We follow a dike, then over the Elbe River. Locks, fish ladders, fast water. The land is flat here, lowlands and canals, idealy filled with sheep and cows and crops. Lovely tidy old villages. The buildings are of sturdy brick with interesting old style roof lines...cut off at the ends at an angle. There is more roof than wall face. A very cozy look. More often than not, windows and doors are placed so I imagine that I see the homes winking at me from their dear little faces, windows... the eyes, doors... the yawning mouths. An old Buick stationwagon, laden with shiny chrome, is parked in a garage. The German flag waves at us too, such a strong design, three wide stripes from the top...black, red and yellow. 

Luneburg. Another very old city. High spires atop brick churches. Centuries old houses and shops sidle up to each other, leaning this way and that. Enchanting. Alive. So pretty. 

We open Daisy's windows to let the fresh sunny breeze in. It is a halcyon day, sunny and just warm enough for my liking. We go through many towns that we could live in. Red brick is predominant, neat hedges, bright bushy gardens. Curved and winding streets. A mix of old and new buildings but the architectural style is always similar. Perhaps some of these towns were bombed and rebuilt. A yellow tractor is parked on a front lawn, a temporary piece of farm art while the owner is eating lunch indoors. Some of the barns are wood timbered...that look of dark colored timber forming a criss-cross pattern on white concrete. 

Tall cornstalks edge both sides of the road like soft fences, then we dive into a leafy forest, mottled sunshine blinking with the leaf movement. We are headed to Wolfsburg and the Volkswagon museum. Daisy should like that, there surely will be some cousins to visit in the parking lot! We find the town. Roofs are high and pointy or low and cowled like illustrations in German childrens' books. Oh my gosh what a place this museum is. Being Volkswagon fans and owners of the like, it is a feast of the old, the new and the inventive. 

• An outrageous little sports coupe 1952, maybe one of its kind.
• Walt Disney's, Herbie, 1969.
• 4 wheel drive bug used to drive the commander around. 1946.
• 4 wheel drive amphibian, 1944.
• A wood carved model of a beetle convertible, full size.
• Limousines, cars and buses, all stretched in length. 
• Many prototypes, some for design only, no engines.
• Milk trucks and postal delivery trucks.
• The Samba bus, an ancestor of the Transporter.
• Fire engines, ambulances.
• A made in Mexico, last version...Ultima Edicion.
• Jettas, Rabbits, Golfs, Sciroccos, Karmen Ghia (sigh).
• Ralley and race cars, space age cars, Robot testers, low and streamlined bodies, Harlekins with panels of green, yellow, blue and red.
• And buses, buses, buses...always a favorite.  

Besides a few buses and a Eurovan, I drove a baby blue 1967 beetle for 30 years...not without accidents, creases and dents, and fresh paint. It is now in my nephew's garage, waiting for his daughter to turn 16. Hmmm. Cute, but will she like the foggy rainy day windows and the less than full heating system and the stick shift!? 

We were tempted to buy some tin art...a picture of an old bus and the words...LET'S GET LOST – BE PREPARED TO  START YOUR OWN ADVENTURE. (Ha! We got lost and our adventure is almost over!)

This afternoon we run into Amir from Tunesia. He sells us some wifi equipment and we hear a bit of his story. He knows five languages. He lives in Germany because his children live here. He would like to come to the Kentucky Derby.

August 14

Every day starts with sunshine...but any weather pattern can happen after that. Germany's countryside is luscious as we wander through all the tree-lined roads. Sometimes I get flashbacks from war movies I have seen of soldiers fighting in small towns and villages and getting help from the local farm folks. We stop for gas. The car in front of us has a Canada flag sticker on its back bumper. Of course we have to question the driver. “I have family in Alberta.” Just as I was thinking how German he looked he says, “My family fled from Poland and we are scattered around the world, even Brazil. I stayed here in Germany.” A shake of hands, some good wishes and we part. 

If I lived here in this rural area, I would take my morning coffee out to the veranda and sit for an hour, soaking up the mists of tranquility and beauty. No better elixer for the start of my day. Besides our buddies Daisy (camper) and Gypsy (GPS), we have aquired two more beings to our travel family. Shaboom, the red horse from Sweden and Willie, a ceramic guini pig, white with grey spots, from Denmark ...both gifts from new friends along the way. Shaboom and Willie have the best seats in the 'house' riding on the flat dashboard top. We are moving along on a fast 3 lane highway feeling like we are in a race but not doing very well as cars zip by us at unbelievable speeds. “Let's just stay with the trucks!” Lovely hills are about us. The road takes us winding around and in between these gorgeous humps of trees and fields. Timbered two story houses with red roofs nestle in the sweet depressions or yawn at us from hillsides. A transport truck's trailer says, ANYWHERE and EVERYWHERE.

Romantic Road. We are about to begin our journey down this well-known area of medieval towns. We start in the north end at Rothenburg, a fantastic medieval walled town. We walk along the top of half the wall, then climb down into the main streets of shops housed in timbered buildings all painted subtle pastel colors. This is the best! Thin streets wander through high canyons formed by higgelty pigilty tall traditional German buildings. It is such a treat for the eyes. Man-made gorgeous. Beer gardens with ompah bands are busy, tables loaded with folks drinking beer and wine and eating kraut and sausage. This is why the streets are not jammed! We try 'Schneeballen' a traditional ball of pastry. Rick Steves was right, they are disappointing. It is early evening. Prime time for photographing. 

This Romantic road was an early trade route and its history is strong and kept alive by the townspeople. We look forward to seeing more tomorrow...but I hear that we have seen the best of them all. We will see some of the following as we head south: Schilllingsfurst, Feuchtwangen, Dinkelsbuhl, Wallerstein, Nordlingen, Harburg, Donausworth, Augsburg, Friedberg, Landsberg, Hohenfurch, Schengau, Peiting, Rottenbuch, Wildsteig, Steingaden, Halblech, Schwangau, Castle Neuschwanstein, Fussen.

August 15

Enchanted hills of round deciduous trees surround us. We head out before breakfast into rainy and grey weather. Really, this is a very special experience, sweet old town after town with gorgeous farm vistas in between. Little home gardens are stuffed with flowers and vegetables. Huge sunflower heads bow at the top of thick stalks. A sign points off to Liederhausen. We continue on to Dinkelsbuhl, another walled city. So darn cute! A festival of some sort must be in process...hippy/goth young folk in black are the main participants.

There are areas along the way of 'put-up-quick' commercial buildings. No thought. Huge advertising signs.  The new is ugly, the charm is gone. Too much like home.

Bike riders packed for camping, wearing rain parkas, peddle to their next town destination. Lonely backpackers slog along in the wet. Geraniums! How do these people keep their flower boxes so perfect and full? Maybe they are plastic? (Just kidding.) We have the radio on. The German language is such fun to me. Fun and silly sounding! Nordlingen, the next pretty walled town. We drive through the old tower gates and travel slowly on the cobbled streets, stopping to take quick photos out the van windows. A rash of gladiolas. A striped knitted hat on a fence post. Solid German churches. 

Auchtalieber! A truck comes flying around a corner at us. Somehow it seems to turn flexible like a snake and misses us as we drive on the shoulder. 

Next town, Donausworth. Signs point to the Krankenhaus – sickhouse and the Laundrantsmant – laundromat. We keep going. Wild Impatients Imperialis. Mighty oaks edge the road through country farms. DETOUR. This often happens with no hint of alternate directions given. We look on the GPS maps to follow other roads that lead back to the Romantic Road (Romantische Strabe). A heavy downpour as we enter the town of Rain! And a sign pointing the way to Munster (cheese?). Asparagus fields are being harvested. 

Blue and white checked flags are flying. We are in Bavaria, the town of Sand. Everyone is at the circus. It is cold, like autumn. A socks and long johns day. Ausburg. A big city with plenty of its history showing, though there is old and new beside each other. We want to get further today so we continue along by scattered mountain chalets. Tyrolian hats sit jauntily on the heads of men. Distant bunched up mountain peaks stand guard behind farmlands.  Shops and restaurants look like our Bavarian facsimile, Leavenworth, in Washington State mountains! 

Finally we reach King Ludvig's home and castle, 'Konigsschlosser'. We park on the flat before the castle rise. David is ready with his camera. In the last of a wet misty sunset, the sun comes forward and casts light on the white castle above us. It sits on a bench of a mountainside and is surrounded by dark green evergreen trees. Stone mountains rise in the background. All shines with wetness.

Rick Steves gives us a winning tip to follow once again. Drive straight through 'touristville', past the ticket center and park in lot 4...same price as the other lots but closer to what we want to see and less filled. 

August 16

You probably know all about King Ludvig II (1845 - 1886)...but I will refresh your memory just in case. Did you catch a TV documentary on him several years ago? There are two castles here. Hohenschwangau is Ludvig's boyhood hangout, his father's royal hunting palace. (Schwan is swan.) It is my favorite. So very romantic and unassuming, if a castle can be unassuming. It is nestled up on the mountainside, not too far to walk to. It is the fairytale castle of my dreams. 

The other castle is Neuschwanstien (New Swanstone), the Disney-like dramatic castle that Ludvig the son built from his own dreams and desires, sitting much higher up on an opposite hill. He was labeled the 'Mad King' by his subjects, wanting nothing to do with leading his people or the politics of the position. His new Swanstone Castle was his pet and almost only activity. Ludvig's friends were people of the arts, including the composer Richard Wagner. The huge white romantic structure was seventeen years in the building. Ludvig lived in his dream home for only 2½ years until he was forty one years old. At this time, his people deemed him unfit for ruling as king and he was forceably taken from his castle. Two days later, his body was found in a lake. Suicide or murder?

It is raining hard. Unrelenting. I am satisfied to gaze from afar. David wants to go to the hunting castle to get some good photos. He buys a clear plastic pancho and makes his way through a throng of thousands, jostling shoulders and umbrellas, and following others in the walk uphill. When he arrives back I get a report. He was able to get many good photos helped by all the weather changes along the way. At one point, he had to cross St. Mary's bridge by foot and felt it to be a bit scary. It is a thin walking bridge and swings hundreds of feet above the bottom of a gorge. Dozens of people share the bridge at once, each feeling out the wet moving wood slats beneath their feet, smiles on their faces, dad's goading their children on. 'We must get to the castle' is the cry. David takes a horse and buggy home on a different route. 

We next travel through an alpine corner of Austria, into Switzerland near Konstanz on Lake Constance. It is vacation month for Europeans so the traffic is slow on this gorgeous lake route. Dahlias and crocosmia. Impatients imperialis. Window boxes full of petunias or geraniums. We come down from the foothills at Bregenz at the southwest end of Lake Constance and turn left at Amerikaweg. Sand sculptures are along the beach, good professional ones. We drive through the middle of Konstanz on handsome but bumpy cobbles. It is beautiful here, and a happening place in the summer while folks enjoy the pretty lake harbor. But we cannot linger, for one of the first times during our journey we have a schedule to keep. 

Our flight leaves for Miami in ten days. There is such a sadness to this fact. It would be so easy to continue until we are not fit to travel in this way! But at 75 and 72 our time on this earth is getting shorter. There are still some things we would like to do at home and family members and friends to catch up with. Okay, so we have ten more days...let's get going and play some more! We continue toward Schaffhausen, our gateway to the Black Forest.

An inlet of water remains at our side as we travel west through towns with many variations of timber patterns on the old buildings. The lowering sun adds brilliant color and contrasting shadows, especially on the boats in the harbor. Pretty girls walk dogs in the cool evening temperatures. BERNINA sewing machine headquarters. Tents set up on the park lawn. We see our forth wedding celebration in this one day.... wedding buses, a brand new truck with a wedding bouquet on the hood, a bride posing with a white umbrella (which she may have to use), guests gathering for an outside garden dinner. 

We are beside the Rhine river. We can see the Rhinefalls across the way, a place we visited with our friend Urs months before. And not too far away we find our night rest spot. A quiet place, small and green and at the river side. A cozy neighborhood restaurant is across the way. Gorgonzola and salami pizza and a local beer on tap hits the spot.

August 17

Early we are on our way. Two falcons hover and swoop over a field. It is breakfast they are looking for. A Porshe Boxter speeds by, being driven just like our English friend Mike, in and out of lanes, no slowing for curves. Looks like fun. We move up and down with the hills through Germany's truly beautiful land. A clump of men pump their bicycle peddles up hill. Groups of women walking, smiles and chatter. Motorcycles, men in black, in groups and single. These roads must be heaven to them. Rick Steve's little map in his German travel book is so helpful. I plug in the suggested towns and we see the best. It is very hard to imagine how such 'evil doings' came out of such a beautiful place. 

Staufen, a lovely little farm town where we begin our Black Forest tour. With all the rain we have had, mushroom collectors are in the forests, filling woven baskets. Autumn is in the air. I am ready for it. Thick red berries dot smallish ash trees. Along the conifer road grow fireweed, blackberry, lupine, heather and Queen Anne's Lace. Hikers, bikers and boaters decorate a shiny lake. Europeans adore the outdoors. Aha sits at the end of the lake. Small sailboats all in a cluster. In this part of the land you can pick your vacation lake destination or mountain loop bike trails. Titisee. Whew! People loaded. Shops, food, trinkets, doggies, kids, traffic jams. Old wood boat show. IST GUT on a back car window. IS GOOD. 

Pastures here are as neat as golf courses. At the forest edge we begin to gain height. Honk and wave and 'welcome' in response to our licence plates. We love it when this happens. Aquantik. A group of thirty people line up in a pose for a photo, a mountain valley behind them. They all came off the tour bus. The forested areas are yellow green. Where's the black of the forest? Maybe the pockets of shade? Furtwangen. Many modern buildings mixed with the old. Triberg. Another traffic jam in a popular mountain town. We walk this town. The wares are: German clocks, metal garden art, little yoddlers for your refrigerator door, flags, stuffed toy eagles, lace motifs to hang in your window, key chains, plastic flowers, fabric hearts, owls, Christmas ornaments, post cards, pine cones, mountaineer figurines and garden dwarfs. Buildings on the people loaded streets are: real estate, hotels, cafes, restaurants, florists, wine and beer, gifts and souveniers. Enough! Let's move on! 

Hausach. We skip the Black Forest Open Air Museum. Still the traffic is terrible...but we are glad we came. The high Black Forest road is very pretty. People are waiting at a big outdoor clock, it is nearly 3:00 pm. In a few minutes large wooden figures will come to life. The halted scene is a man sitting at a table...his wife standing above him with a rolling pin held in the air...we do not wait for the stroke of 3:00 to check out the action! 

A striking image; a horse with a zebra blanket over his back at a Gypsy camp. Houses built straight up the side of a hill...not the usual pretty jumbled roads. Freudenstadt. At a town gate we move through a tower gateway to long slim banners hanging across the street, eight on a rope, rope after roap. Fantastic. More stunning translucent banners of scenes in dark pastel colors, moving in the light wind. A welcoming town. 

We whiz by a Bear Park, well attended. Road rallies have chosen this beautiful Sunday to show us their special cars, most open topped with hair and scarves streaming behind, stylish road caps pulled down tight. At the bottom of a hill a bicycler stops to adjust his gears...and starts off again, his legs spinning fast, ready for the steepness of the hill to slow his wheels. A sign to Baden-Baden. A roadside house laughs at me with it's funny window face. Boat models ply a little pond, the remotes being worked by fellows lounging nearby on a bench. 

At 6:00 pm we are in the town of Speyer. David, when he was a hospital chaplain at St. Joseph's hospital in Chewelah, became pals with Sister Alberta. She would bring him German candy from her home town...Speyer. Her nephew still lives here and makes sure that she is well supplied with the candy. Sister Alberta is now in the same hospital in long term care. 

Speyer has a sense of calm and pride. The churches are beautiful and very large. Their tower bells ring clear and true. We walk through its streets for hours. A real town, not a tourist destination. The stores are tastefully high end, the clothes on manikans seem dressed by talented designers. Charming street cafes and restaurants, no fast food outlets. Well, maybe a few gelato bars if that falls into the fast food category. Folks wander the streets licking their favorite icy flavors. It is nine o'clock when we get our own gelatos and then head to the sideyard of the Catholic church to spoon some home soil into a plastic bag for Sister Alberta. 

August 18

We leave Speyer and shortly come across a sculpture to our liking. Hey! Look at that! It's a game...a huge game of 'Toss the Rings on the Peg'. The rings are colors of the German flag; red, yellow and black. Two of the pegs have made it on to the peg, the last red one leans agains the peg's side. It missed its mark. 

We put the city of Koln (Cologne) into the GPS, hoping we have time to see the great Gothic cathedral there and the world class art museum, but we have a ways to go, and other things to see. David stops for a photo of a unique and fresh modern tall square building. Geometric designs in pastel colors. Clocks on two of the sides, small door, a few little windows. What happens inside this creatively built structure?

We are following the Rhine in a northwest direction, vineyards of those famous Rhine grapes roll in rows as far as one can see and soon we are in Koln. Oh my, what a place this is! We drive to the heart where the cathedral is, a Gothic giant! I think they tried to build it to heaven as my eyes move up and up. It is hard to imagine the energy and time it took to build this place...workers hanging off the sides using their various trade skills. There are twin towers, many spiny Gothic spires shoot up, around and between the twins. It is a thrilling and awesome sight. I cannot get over its size. A model of one of the finials that tops the Cathedral towers, in original size, stands on the square, a symbol of the Cathedral's completion in 1880. 9.50 meters high, 4.60 meters wide. Bunches of claw-like spiny forms decorate it, the emblem it seems, of Gothic. 

The outside walls of the gigantic cathedral have lots of silly gargoyles and beautiful pious womens' faces of Saints, statues of important religious men, and swirly leafy bands of decoration... weird scary little cement characters scrunch into little corners, their jobs are to scare away the evil spirits. The very beginnings of this 'Bishopric' go back to the 4^th Century...maturing slowly to what we see here today. 

The interior is huge and powerful with its high vaulted ceilings. The stained glass windows are composed of 4 to5 inch squares of many colors, almost like a patchwork quilt of collected fabrics. Mosaic floors of highly skilled artisian's reveal motifs of animals and plants. A stained glass goat, a painted lamb on a background of red catch my attention. Most stunning; a golden display of the holy Queen Mary and her child, both with crowns, their long draping clothing decorated with beaded rosaries, hearts, crosses and precious stones, all this against a red background. 

We read that there are the skeletons of the three Magi within the church, the first people to see the baby Jesus. The remains lie at the heart of the church in a raised golden casket. David confronts one of the men in red and asks, “How is it known that these are the Magis' remains?” “Well, 1,000 years ago the skeletons came here as the earned spoils of war. Before this they were known to be in Jerusalem, then Constantinople, then Milan. The three bodies were too heavy to bring here so it is just their skulls that lie here now.” 

Everything one needs is right here. The train station, the history museum, the church museum, the Ludvig Art Museum. They encompass a few squares surrounding the Cathedral. It is windy and cold so we search for a place to have dinner. The best we can find is a steak house, sort of a run-of-the-mill U.S. sort of steak house. We ordered grilled turkey. Delicious!

Then we walk the area, first over a bridge on the Rhine that gives us a good view of the city and the busy boat traffic. Originally this was a train bridge, one of three. A walking span has been attached to the side divided by a metal mesh fence. Across the entire span, thousands of locks have been attached to the mesh. Marraige locks, meant as a symbol of securing the bonds of marriage. Many have names written or engraved onto them. And many are decorated in individual fashion. We have seen this tradition all over Europe, but never have we seen such an abundance! 

Back to the van, where we have found a parking place near our goal for tomorrow's venture. But can we park here for the night? Do we need to put money into the meter? David asks another car owner who just arrives. His take on it... “I have been parking here everyday for years without feeding the meter, and I have never got a ticket!” Okay, we'll stay.

August 19

The Ludvig Museum. We are in for a treat! Some of the interior is in reconstruction mode, as the monumental stairs, like a piece of art in themselves. It seems that stairs are important features in many notable museums, in North America also. We get into the elevator and when the door closes I say, “You know David, we could kiss in here and no one would know.” Response, “What a good idea!” 

Photograhy is the subject of the first exhibit we see. I must say that I am beginning look at photograghy more seriously. In this exhibit there are... visual documentaries to tell the story... photos that tell a less obvious story that invite the observer to look deeper into them... photos focusing on design and texture and placement of the image elements which reveal the photograper/artist's 'good' eye. I think all of these types here show the personality of the person behind the camera and also something special caught in the moment. I really enjoy my time going through this room. 

I take these words from the photo exhibit wall... “Such are the two ways of the Photograph. The choice is mine; to subject its spectacle to the civilized code of perfect illusions, or to confront in it the wakening of intractable reality.”

The next floor exhibits POP art. I must admit that I have a hard time warming to this style of art. There are the usual 'heavy hitters' here. I don't spend a lot of time. 

Another floor offers better fodder for me, Late Modern. Lots of Emil Nolde boldness and color brightness. The happy fantasy of Marc Chagall. Alexej von Jawlensky, Hermann Scherer, EL. Kirchner, Max Beckman, Peter Doig, Christopher Wool. I take photos and write down the names...some I am not very familiar with. Further research required. 

Included of course is Expressionism... Expressionism: Making the Unseen Visable. I always enjoy this group. It has been awhile since I read much about their formation and existance and never have I separated the movement to Germany. I read, on the wall... (somewhat paraphrased by me) 'At the beginning of the 20^th Century a new art movement emerged in Germany;  Expressionism whose name derives from the term 'expressio', latin for expression. The artists in this movement shared an anti-academic and anti-bourgeois attitude. They turned away from naturalism, convinced that an artwork could no longer be an illusionistic representation of reality. Their declared goal was therefore to give expression to their own feelings and perceptions. Color was liberated from its descriptive function, motifs became stylized and dynamic, the depicted forms were oten deformed, and perspective distorted.' I gather a few more names to research. Paula Modersohn-Becker and Franz Wilhelm Seiwert. All of this is inspiration on ways for me to experiment with color and application of my medium. 

As we moved from floor to floor we were presented with real images of sections of the cathedral through the frames of various windows...a thoughtful idea put in to reality for us art viewer's enjoyment. Variations on a theme!

This is a perfect museum in my eyes. High quality works are offered and the venue is not too large to tire one's body to exhaustion! 

Outside it is raining with gusting winds. My umbrella blows inside out! We run to the van. We will be in Holland soon. 

THOUGHTS and OBSERVATIONS:

> More people seem to smoke in Europe.

> On a hillside, some German words have been mowed into the grass, causing a subtle color change.

> Oh my. We are still doing the 'hearing game'. David says, “It's a train.” I say, “rain?”

> There are noises and sights that repeat through my life that make the mundane endearing! Like tires running through puddles and spraying the underside of the car. Do you know what I mean?

> This intense extended journey has helped me to clarify my interests and passions where my painting images are concerned...my expressions of stories and moments. It is wonderful to be so full of something to say.

> When tall buildings are up against each other and also line the streets flush with only a sidewalk between, it is very pleasing to the eye. 

> Everyone pulls on the emergency brake when they park their cars. I remember that I used to do that, but I don't anymore. David reminds me that that was in the stick shift days. Here, most people drive stick shift cars...a preference.