Small Frustrations

At home we have a relatively efficient broadband connection.  Not the fastest - our rural location means that optical fibre and cable are unlikely to be on offer in the foreseeable future.  But, generally speaking, we can use the internet to do what we want without too much angst.

Here in the eastern reaches of Germany, it's not quite as easy.

I wrote the last blog posts in a smoky cafe in the market square in Weimar, because I felt the hotel charge was extortionate.  The connection there was fast and efficient and cost me virtually nothing as we bought drinks as well.

We are now in Dresden and our elegant, first class hotel offers "fast wifi" at a cost marginally less than the previous one.  We logged on and prepared for catch-up.

Except that it won't upload any photos.  Attempting to post the first of three recent photos of the day to my blog, the progress is so glacially slow that the page falls over before it succeeds.

Patience is called for.

I'm not good at that.

Update on Thursday, July 30, 2009 at 3:28PM by Gill Thomas

Aha!  We've discovered that it's the wifi signal to our room which is weak - by taking baby laptop and sitting elsewhere in the hotel, we can manage better.

Photos are going to appear soon!

A different perspective of an infamous place

We drove from the woods of Thuringia into the high open countryside of Saxony this morning. The countryside is full of windmills – groups of a dozen or so on every hillside as far as the eye can see.

The city of Jena didn’t look inviting enough to stop by, so we continued on towards Dresden, taking detour to visit another castle we’d heard of.

We parked in the square and took a quick look around. These small towns are so picturesque.

Walking up to the castle, we heard music – 75 of Germany’s best string players were staying here on a music retreat and were rehearsing in the castle yard. Standing there amongst them were a couple of cutouts of two former residents of the castle and across the yard were some more.

We decided to take a guided tour during which we heard some familiar stories – of Airey Neave, Pat Reid and Douglas Bader.

Have you guessed where we were yet?

We saw the hidden radio room, the makeshift glider and the homemade sewing machine. Fancy that, a group of professional men imprisoned for some considerable time make a sewing machine from scratch? Yet with this, they were able to make stage costumes - and false uniforms as well. The stories of both successful and thwarted escape attempts were rich and varied and we marvelled at the ingenuity of the captives.

The French tunnel, dug with a tool the size of a knitting needle and a dinner knife was amazing and we tried hard to imagine how they had managed to dispose of the spoils as they dug deeper into the ground. When excavating the tunnel recently it took 3 lorry-loads of earth away – and yet these men disposed of it by taking pocketfuls away at a time.

Our tour finished in the chapel, from where the french tunnel had been dug, and from where we were led onto the terrace high above the river Mulde.

Though clearly, the main interest of most visitors to the castle is the story of those six infamous years, the castle has a longer history to tell.  Most recently, the site of a hospital and care home, but formerly the home of the Elector of Saxony and a prime hunting castle set in parkland, it will soon be home to the Musikhochschule of Saxony and another chapter will begin.  

See what interesting places having historians in the family brings me to?!

To The Wartburg

Perched on top of a hill just outside Eisenach to the west of here, we’d seen the spectacular Wartburg as we drove here. We knew it was a special place and that visitors flock there in their thousands, so we made an early start.

Glorious weather and grand views from the top – yes our car is down there in the car park – we went straight to the ticket office and bought three places on the mandatory guided tour.

Our guide was terrific. He had one of those deep brown German voices, spoke so clearly that we didn’t struggle to hear and we understood enough of what he told us to make it worthwhile. Once again, everything in German and though a leaflet in English was available, we notice how the French, Italians and Spanish visitors struggle here.

Inside was a “real” castle though it had been rebuilt and restored and little was original, it seemed. That didn’t matter to us – the guide’s commentary enlightened me with a bit of German history (the two historians in the family knew most of it already of course) and the interiors were beautifully decorated and sparsely furnished.

“St Elizabeth’s Bower” was a gem with incredible mosaic walls. By hanging back when others moved on, I was able to get some good photos – it helped that I’d discovered (and remembered to use) the ISO setting on my camera, too. The guide was patient and understanding!

The patterns were so diverse and the mosaics so very well executed that we could have spent hours in this room alone, but of course, we had to move on.

The Minstrel’s room was a delight. Not only were the walls painted with trompe d’oeil fabric “wallpaper”, the huge mural on one wall was painted as a tapestry trompe d’oeil as well, depicting one and the same room complete with trompe d’oeil fabric “wallpaper” – this amused me greatly and once again, I could have happily lingered longer here.

The paintings throughout the castle were in a charming style, reminiscent of those old story books found on our grandparents bookshelves with tales of woodland heroes, merry men and brave knights of old. We loved them!

The tour finished in the Great Hall where concerts are held and grand occasions celebrated. Our guide finished his tour and left us to wander through the remaining museum collections at our own pace at which point we realised that, though we knew that Martin Luther had been at the Wartburg for some time, we hadn’t seen any references to him so far.

Here they were. This was where he’d taken refuge and where he’d translated the Bible into German. His working copy of the Bible was there, as was his handwritten translation. What a treasure – and in fine condition, too.

Our way out of the castle was through the inevitable gift shop where small children pleaded for wooden swords, shields and armour and where one rather older young man eyed them in the knowledge that he too would have once given eye teeth for such things!

In Weimar

There’s heaps to do here in this most cultural of cities. Anyone who’s anyone has been here at some time: Goethe and Schiller are the main characters, but Liszt, Nietsche, Johann Sebastian Bach, Martin Luther, Walter Gropius, Thomas Mann, Paul Klee, Walter Kandinsky, composers Berlioz and Hummel, the artist Boeckling, Hans Christian Andersen, the conductors von Bulow and Abendroth, composers Peter Cornelius and Joachim RAFF!! In this, the anniversary of the Bauhaus movement there’s special emphasis on the Weimar Bauhaus group and even the hotel napkins at breakfast this morning promote the Bauhaus festival of 2009.

Now of course we turn up and the place closes. Once again we find that Monday is not the best day to be a tourist but in this city of tourists, wouldn’t you expect that at least half the museums would remain open? And when purchasing a “Weimar card” in the tourist info office for cheaper entry into museums, wouldn’t you expect to at least be warned that most of those featured on the card were closed?

So, a frustrating day all round. Thank goodness the city itself is picturesque and interesting enough to keep us enthralled for a few hours as we enjoy the sunshine and potter about. The Liszt House was a high priority, for it was here that he met Joachim Raff; not that our hero got so much of a mention in the composer’s museum. Staffed by two formidable women “of a certain age” (wearing slippers and reading a gossip magazine, no less) we were admitted to the museum and given headphones for a German language commentary. When declining three headsets and choosing to take just the one, the response was one of shrugged shoulders and an “as you wish” attitude. We found the museum to be dry as dust, in spite of much multi-media content and the exhibit was fundamentally a time line of his work with commentary and musical illustration.

We walked over the park to Goethe’s garden house where, at least we had some insight into the man’s personality with a brave palette of paint colours chosen for their emotional qualities – his colour wheel is one of those images frequently portrayed on postcards here.

Most frustrating was the current closure of the Bauhaus museum, signposted from the motorway as part of this year’s Bauhaus celebrations and heavily publicised throughout the city. Clearly we were not alone in finding this rather odd as whenever we passed, we found a group of people muttering by the door.

We settled for a look around the museum shop, unsure whether this made things better in that we at least got to see what we missed or worse, because we realised what we had missed

.

We consoled ourselves once more with the products of the Thuringia kitchen at the oldest pub in Weimar, the Black Bear – Kloesse (potato dumplings) and hearty stews washed down with an ample supply of the local brew of course.

To Weimar, via Dusseldorf airport

First stop this morning was Dusseldorf airport, to meet Edward who’s joining us for the rest of the trip. Our carefully made plans worked perfectly and as we parked the car and went into the terminal, we heard the announcement that his plane had landed and he was soon there with us. Good fun to have him along; lovely to have his company.

Driving through the German countryside was easy and we soon passed the former border between East and West, now marked by a single sign by the side of the road.

Arriving in Weimar late afternoon, we took a quick walk to orientate ourselves before finding a table at the Weisses Schwan, one of Goethe’s hangouts.

Cheers!