Everywhere in Bremen

Our first stop in Bremen was the Tourist Information office, to collect a detailed map and seek advice about the must-see places.  Outside the shop was this curious model.

Inside, cute soft toy variations were on sale.

In the window were displays of all kinds of interpretations of what appeared to be the “Bremer Stadtmusikanten” – the Bremen Town Musicians, of which we knew nothing.

Of course, having discovered them, we couldn’t move for seeing yet more variations on the theme.

The souvenir shops had plenty of them.

There were books and bags with what appears to be the city logo on them.  We learned it was from a Grimm’s fairy tale and quickly read the story to satisfy our curiosity.  The book we read was illustrated by our favourite Janosch which was a timely reminder of other birthdays, when we read how beautiful Panama is.

Walking along the river, we enjoyed seeing the theme stretched further, like on the cycle path sign here.

Then in the Schnoor, we smiled at the “Bremen Musicians by night” T shirt, too.

We thought that the people of Bremen could well be fed up of seeing the image all over the place, because really, everywhere we looked it was there.

Or at least, it was referenced.

Of course, we saw the original too!

And one last parting shot in the mural in the railway station on our way back.

Enough!

(Thank you, Bremen)

A day full of culture

Art, literature, music – what more could we ask for?

The weather wasn’t so clear when we set out this morning, with real Alpine skies overhead.  We were in for a changeable day’s weather it seemed.

From time to time, patches of sunshine broke through, though the clouds were never far away.  We were driving south east, towards Vaduz, and over the border into Liechtenstein, where our friends had recommended a visit to the Kunsthaus: the art gallery.

Travelling fast on the motorway, the traffic wasn’t so bad and we hoped we were right in thinking it was brightening up rather.

Though much of the journey was within tunnels and each time we entered one, we could never guess what the weather was going to be like when we came out the other end, several kilometres beyond.

We left that motorway behind, turned left and travelled towards the border.

Not that there was much to see.  Liechtenstein is more of an extension to Switzerland than a different country, from a visitor’s point of view, at least.

We parked the car for free and headed along the modern, pedestrianised main street, finding the Kunsthaus right there in front of us.  As we bought our entrance tickets, the desk clerk felt the need to warn us not to expect paintings in here, for this was a gallery of modern, conceptual art.  Did we really look that conservative (with a small c!) ?  We reassured him that it was fine, we’d be ok…

There was a small permanent exhibition, including a couple of Warhol prints, a small Liechtenstein work (of course!) and one or two works in neon by an artist I didn’t recognise.  But the main exhibition currently was Gary Kuehn’s “Between Sex and Geometry”.  To begin with, it took some understanding.  Reading the background to such abstract concepts auf Deutsch was a challenge, but gradually, we got to grips with what the artist was exploring and really enjoyed the chance to challenge our own preconceptions by chatting further with a couple of the museum staff.  We left inspired to find out more about the artist and his work, though we were ready for a stiff drink!

First, though, we thought we’d walk the length of the main street, as far as the parliament buildings here.  The sun was shining now and it was really warm: such a pleasure to be out and enjoying the fine morning.

The new entrance to the parliament wasn’t exactly a fine example of exciting architecture, I thought, though it sat alongside the older building and perhaps needed to conform.  The royal Family live in the castle/palace up there on the hill, looking down on their realm from above.

I seem to have taken the photograph of the old parliament building at a most peculiar angle.  My apologies!

We returned to the car to find several busloads of Korean visitors still there in the car park, all taking the same photograph – sometimes, it’s interesting seeing places through the eyes of others, isn’t it?

So that was it for Liechtenstein – the border on the road southwards into Switzerland was even less of an event than the other one: a couple of flagpoles and a small stone marker.

Our destination for lunchtime was Maienfeld, a pretty old town with unmissable connections with Johanna Spyri’s character, Heidi.  Though we had no intention of making a pilgrimage, when we’d identified the town as a possible destination this morning, I’d downloaded a copy of the book to my Kindle and was curious to see what was what.

But first, some lunch: a platter of Bunderfleisch and Alpkäse, washed down with a beer, of course.

We made our way through the town following the signs to “Heididorf”, admiring the sunflower heads floating in the water trough as we went.  Maienfeld is a wine growing town, too, and we passed several vineyards on the way – I think those are a relatively recent development, since I couldn’t remember Heidi and Peter snacking on the odd bunch of grapes in the story!

It looks as though it could be a good harvest this year.

Soon, we were in open fields and leaving our car in a well filled car park, we didn’t have far to walk to a wooden bench in the pasture, overlooking the mountains.

Here we were in Heidi’s flower meadow and though there were, of course, other people here, it was quiet and sunny.  What better thing to do than to get out the Kindle and read?

It’s an easy read and in an hour or so, I was already almost half way through.  We could have stayed longer but we were invited to a performance in Glarus, a few miles down the road and we didn’t want to be late!

So leaving Heidi’s meadow over there under the wooded mountain, we joined the motorway again and headed for Glarus.  We left the blue skies behind on one side of the mountain, though, for coming out of the tunnel, the first spots of rain appeared.  By the time we reached Glarus itself, it was torrential and set in for the rest of the day.  Just as well we managed to park right outside the concert venue, then!

So, a day of art, music and literature, though whether Heidi counts in the last group is open for discussion, I think.  Maybe that box was ticked by the readings of Dumas and Tolstoy which were interspersed with the Raff piano duets, then?  No matter, we’d enjoyed every bit of our day again, and saying a last goodbye to our friends for this time round, we returned to Rapperswil tired but happy.

Maybe I’ll manage to stay awake long enough to finish Heidi?!

and then Dan appeared

My bookgroup meets this evening, and after a last minute change of plan last month we’re looking forward to dinner on the house at the local pub, which will surely not divert the conversation from discussing this month’s title

It was an easy read as noted in the review I linked to above, but warm days and sultry nights demand nothing more, really.  I enjoyed it and am looking forward to hearing what everyone else thought and if they found the same character as irritating as I did.

As I moved the title into the “books I’ve read” collection on my Kindle, the next title came into view. 

Of course, I didn’t see it like that; my main issue with my Kindle being that I don’t see the cover and the blurb unless I go looking for them.  But I’d forgotten the prompt which led me to buy the book and simply went straight into the first chapter, taking an almost instant dislike to one of the main characters.  It was a good read, I found the setting and location of the story fascinating and instantly wanted to learn more about the Lamorna group of artists whose relationships form the backbone of the tale.  I wanted to know if these people were as they were described and if these events really did happen so did a search on the internet and learned a great deal about them.  I was glad to learn that the book stays pretty close to what really happened and though the events didn’t always turn out as I expected them to do, it was easy to imagine how in such circumstances, life wouldn’t be quite as straightforward as it could be.  I particularly liked the full spectrum of characters.  I didn’t like everyone, found one intensely irritating (as I suspect I was supposed to) and warmed to others as the story unfolded.

The trouble is, in googling around, I couldn’t help but come across this and him and from then on, any mental image of his character was of course, good old Matthew Crawley.  It didn’t help that as many reviews have noted, there are some broad similarities between Gilbert Evans’ character and the Downton one and as I finished the book, I rather hoped that as I didn’t seem able to avoid the film, it would be worth watching.  Sadly, the reviews are not very good (“it’s not a good sign during scenes with him and Florence when you find yourself admiring their earth-toned knitwear”) so I’ll plan to settle for the perfectly acceptable pictures which are in my mind, formed only from the written word (and an unintended image of Dan Stevens as one of the characters).

And for my next book…well, about as far away as a community of artists in pre-war Cornwall was one can get, I think.

And Dan is not invited to the party.

Book heap #1

Time to take a closer look at my Christmas books, I gathered the first five and settled down to read.

The first, Dan Price’s How to Make a Journal of your Life  is a small book in an interesting handwritten format.  Quite a bit of good advice in there which could be summed up in just a few words – just get on with it!

The next one, Old Bucky and Me, was a latecomer to the party.  Well, that’s not strictly true because it had been there for some weeks, because the parcel from our dear friends in New Zealand arrived at the beginning of December, before the Christmas spirit had really descended on the house.  I tucked away the goodies beside Paddington and Aunt Lucy and completely forgot about them until we had an email from Fiona on Boxing Day.  What fun to have more parcels to unwrap!

This first hand account of the events in Christchurch last year makes for stirring reading, especially in the light of more recent earthquakes.  Whilst the vivid news reports give a pretty clear picture of what the city looked like after the earthquake, there’s nothing quite like reading about the everyday experiences of an ordinary person to bring it to life.  I’m about half way through and find it hard to imagine how I’d cope – I guess the answer is, that I’d simply get on with it in the same way as everyone else.  But oh my goodness, the contents of this book really do make me feel thankful for everything.  As is often the case in such events, it’s the warmth and human kindness which shines through on every page.

Next in the pile is a long standing item on my wish list – so long that I’d forgotten all about it. David Gentleman’s Design is a fine example of the kind of book I’d never buy for myself but which I will dip into time and again to rediscover the beautiful images inside.

It’s only a small book, nothing at all like the coffee table size it suggests, but it’s packed with many fine examples of David Gentleman’s work.

The quality of the paper and print is very much in keeping with the subject matter, too and I’m looking forward to time to settling down to read the contents in detail.

I feel the fourth book in the heap needs no introduction at all.  Having read The Hare with the Amber Eyes on my Kindle, I had no hesitation in adding the new illustrated edition to my wishlist because I really wanted to see the details of each of the netsuke which feature so large in the story.  I don’t normally reread books at all but I couldn’t wait to get into this one again and am finding it as compelling a read the second time around as it was the first.  Brilliant!

It too is a beautifully produced book, printed on gorgeous, smooth paper in clear, fine print.  I remarked in an earlier post that the printed book appears to be making a comeback in a rather more considered form.  It seems as though publishers have discarded the restrictions of producing cheap and cheerful mass market editions in favour of creating real gems which are not only lovely to read but also destined for a long life – unlike the glued bindings which fall apart after a year or two.  That’s fine with me.  I’ll happily buy the read-once-and-forget-about-it novel on my Kindle, but pay more for the high quality, real book to own and to cherish.  Seems like a fair compromise.

 

Finally, the fifth book at the bottom of this particular pile.  The maverick of the bunch and the one about which the jury is still unsure.  I pop into the Photojojo website from time to time, so I really ought to have had a good idea of what was likely to be inside.  However, the kinds of things which seem perfectly ok on screen seem to diminish when on the printed page and I find the tone of the book a little irritating.

OK, it’s probably not meant for an old bat like me….

A whole page announces what a great book this is compared with some other, familiar titles and is representative of the style of the contents.  Reading this kind of thing on a web site or a blog, it’s apparent that there’s a kind of conversation going on and the mode is chatty and informal.  But put that on a printed page, in between two covers and it takes on a different guise.  Do I want/need a nbf in a book?

The actual contents are divided up into ideas of things to do with your photographs and how to take better photos in the first place.  Though there undoubtedly some good ideas tucked away here and there in the book, at this stage I find they are overshadowed by the format. 

So, for now, I’ll sit on the fence with this one and give it time to win its way to my heart.  In the meantime, I’ve just got to a fascinating bit of The Hare with the Amber Eyes…

Back to the beginning

I’ve just finished this rather compelling book and now think I need to go right back to the beginning and read it again.