Europe 2015

Many of you will recognise the Leonard Cohen song title. I haven't taken Manhattan yet but give me time. Looking at a map Berlin seems to have only a few centres of interest, but it is deceptive. Moving out in a kilometre or two radius from Alexanderplatz are lots of little hidden enclaves. Take the area around the old St Nicholas church for instance. This was the small beginnings of Berlin in the 13th century where a village was established by the river. One or two buildings have been recreated in the medieval style to reflect this. There are two major events that impacted on the people living here in the last 70 years The first one relates to the fact that in the area once lived the main Jewish population of Berlin, which was deported during the war to concentration camps and never returned. The other one relates to the splitting of Berlin into two cities, when the Communists built the Berlin wall. One of the enclaves in the old Jewish quarter was a series of buildings with interlocking courtyards and this has been gentrified by new owners, and turned into a tourist destination. Right next door to these courtyards are another yard which contains the Anne Frank Museum as well as a museum to the brush factory owner Otto Weidt who was a Schindler figure who managed to employ blind and deaf Jews during the early years of the War, and was responsible for hiding others and buying food on the black market to help many of them survive. For a while the alleyway was the place to see new graffiti art, but things change and there is always a new place for the artists to do their thing popping up. My next blog will show some of the graffiti at the East Side Gallery. It is the last kilometre and a bit of the Berlin Wall left standing, and in the years around the fall of the wall artists were invited to paint sections of the wall. Stupid adolescent tagging has desecrated many of the artworks, but there are still enough to make it a tourist hotspot, and I walked along it on a 35 degree day to capture what I could....

Look Clara, it's uncle Fritz...

The St. George, looks like a good place for lunch

well cover by the church

momma bear

poor little orphans

old bears retirement home

St Nicholas the oldest church in Berlin 1220

chapel added 1452

As seen from the river

The best ever St George and the dragon

the action seems frozen in time

and it's one scary dragon

turn around from the statue to this sight

have no idea which street i was on

one of my 'being lost' finds

complex of interlinked courtyards

in an art nouveau style

full of artisan shops and cafes

another buddy bear

and one more

Alexanderplatz is full of stalls and stages

New Synagogue 1866 rebuilt after reunification

Seats 3000 people

Holds services and is a museum

In the Anne Frank museum courtyard

are other small museums

and some graffiti art

like baaalice in wonderland

and peek a boo

graffiti overlaying graffiti

outside the berlin museum rooms

beautiful iconic art

Achtung Baby is the name of an Album by the band U2, and U2 is the name of the underground line which runs through the city of Berlin from east to west. On my first foray into Berlin yesterday, I discovered that the U2 station, about 100mtrs from where I am staying, will take me to just about all of the attractions of Berlin. I began by heading for the Brandenburg Gate, and the Reichstag Parliament Building, which are in the centre of Berlin. Following a bunch of tourists on the way took me to the Holocaust Memorial, which is only a block away from the Brandenburg Gate. I decided not to join the line for entry into the underground museum, this time, but instead thought I would just walk into the maze of blocks 2711 of them that represent just a few of the 6 million Jews-men, women and children senselessly murdered by the Nazis in WW2) They were put there as a tangible reminder to future generations of Germans that the horrors of the holocaust really did happen. As I got deeper into the field of blocks and they started to get higher and close in around me, I began to have feelings of helplessness, oppressed by the height and weight of the blocks, and a deep sadness at what the place represented brought tears to my eyes. I turned back to the outer perimeter and found a shady tree to sit under until I could stop the tears. I read last night that the architects of the memorial designed it purposely "To produce an uneasy, confusing atmosphere " to allow one to experience the place viscerally as well as intellectually. "The whole sculpture aims to represent a supposedly ordered system that has lost touch with human reason" I would say, from my own personal experience, that they have done a good job of achieving their aims. From there I walked around a corner and up the road to the Brandenburg Gate across from the Reichtag, and the welcome shady embrace of the Tiergarten Park. The temperature had climbed to 34 degrees by now, and the hordes of tourists were gathering at all the right places. After taking a few photos I squeezed into a #100 bus to take me further up the road to Alexanderplatz. This square is dominated by the TV Tower with long queues outside waiting to buy a ride up to the top. This is the oldest part of Berlin the area where it was first settled, and from here the old churches and museums are easy to get to. It is also crowded with tourists and locals with lots of places for them to eat and to shop for souvenirs. I was starting to feel the heat so I headed back to the U2 metro and was home in 10 minutes. The buddy bears are scattered all over town. They were introduced to Berlin in 2001 as an artistic event in which 350 of them were made and painted by a variety of artists. Afterwards many were sold at auction to raise money for charities. The ones you see today are a few of the originals which are privately owned by the shops, businesses premises, and hotels where they are displayed....I am starting to like Berlin...

piece of the old Berlin wall

Stumbled into the Holocaust Memorial

The words are honest

It looks like a cemetery

and draws you in

away from the life on the streets

until you no longer see it, but feel the horror..

of the past on a deep emotional level

First sighting of the Brandenburg Gate

Built in the 1790's

Victoria in the chariot drawn by four horses

The German Parliament Building

The Reichstag Building

the Tiergarten park in the centre of Berlin

She takes no prisoners

one of the memorial sites in the park

stones naming concentration camps

surround a water memorial

In Alexanderplatz is the TV tower

next to St Mary's Church

Two young daredevils on inground tramps.

just completed a forward somersault

TV Tower and Town Hall (Rotes Rathaus)

Tv Tower and St Mary's

I just shoot em as I see em.

A buddy bear

and another

another

and another

and one more

Berliner Dom or Cathedral

the Spree river flows through Berlin

Entry to Underground and the U2 line

Art in the city

Very skilful guitarist and his fans

just around the corner

view from my desk

The next day of wallowing in art took place at the unlikely looking (from the outside it looks like any office building) Trade Fair Palace. Inside it works really well, as it should as one of the first functionalism (form follows function) buildings built in Prague in 1926. Since it is easier to walk down stairs than up them, I took the lift to the top and worked my way down the levels stopping halfway to grab a bite at the cafe on the ground floor. This turned into an exercise in delayed gratification since the Klimt paintings I really wanted to see were on the first floor. However I enjoyed the two floors of Czech 19th and 20th century modern art, and then I reached the amazing collection of French art of the 19th and 20th centuries. On this floor they included a whole room full of early Picassos, and paintings from Claude Monet, Vincent Van Gogh, Delacroix, Gaugin, and Toulouse-Lautrec, plus a dozen other well known painters. Eventually I reached the first floor and reached the large painting of the Virgins by Klimt. It was wonderful to see it up close, but difficult to take a photo of since it was covered in a sheet of plastic which reflected the strong lighting in the room ( this is a common problem when trying to get good photos, but we do what we can) There were two more Klimts in the room. The landscape didn't photo well, but I was happy to capture Woman behind a Muff. I spent five hours slowly working through this large collection and have only included what I think were some of the highlights of the day for me..... I spent another day in the city, but decided not to do another blog on Prague. I must be getting ready to return to New Zealand, since I think I may have done too many cities on this years trip. Only one more week in Berlin, and then I can put my camera away for another year...

seven floors of the ultramodern gallery

Hours of pleasure

the artist

his wife

he liked painting women

in nature

old woman in Serbian costume

sun reflecting on a stream

morning bathe in stream

Bum in the sun

Alfons Mucha famous Czech art nouveau artist

sorrowful return

close up

All Souls Day

self portrait Henri Rousseau

Picasso

Picasso landscape with bridge

Early Picasso self portrait

Picasso

A room full of early Picassos

Moulon Rouge Toulouse-Lautrec

Gaugin

Gaugin

Van Gogh

Cezanne

Claude Monet

Claude Monet

Renoir

Delacroix..Rider attacked by leopard

Carpeaux..sculptor of La Danse

so lifelike

Cleopatra of course

amusing

weird

Disturbing

disturbing contemporary art

and the same

entitled My Father

is this deep or not?

she's an oil painting

small but perfect

Gustav Klimt

The virgins

One of my favourite artists

close up

and again

Klimt lady with a muff

close up

disturbed Edvard Munch-...dancing on the shore

more Edvard Munch

self portrait Munch

folding screen

with scary masklike faces

like they have been taken over by demons

haunting image

one of my favourites

Asian baby with flowers...the end..

I just spent two days self-indulgently walking around parts of the Czech National art gallery, which is scattered between several buildings in Prague. It was great. and the photos in this blog are only a fraction of those I took. The first day was spent up on the Castle hill where two palaces hold Old world and Baroque art from Czechoslovakian artists and a fair scattering of European Masters. Amongst the Old European Masters that I recognised were Reubens, Van Dyk, Goya, El Greco, Breughel, and Rembrandt. There were some paintings I wanted to take home with me, but they wouldn't let me. There were also many stunning paintings by artists I have never heard of. The most disturbing painting I saw all day was the Tearful Bride painted by Jan Sanders Van Hemessen in 1450. The information about it on the internet is scarce, but it is supposed to be a Parody on the tearful bride who is a virgin and afraid of the coming wedding night. I believe that satire is often a cruel form of humour, and I don't find it funny. However I believe that the raw vivid emotion captured in this painting elevates it above parody, and that once you have seen the painting it becomes one of those that can not be forgotten....

one of two Art Palaces next to the Castle

first palace courtyard

japanese style garden

portrait 1

portrait 2

portrait 3

portrait 4

portrait 5

portrait 6

portrait 7

portrait 8

strange looking children

love the hat

she reminds me of someone

portrait 9

portrait 10

nice bust

another nice Bust

life size and lifelike

lovely palace ceilings

and more

only glass cased item I took photo of

Mary, Jesus, John the Baptist

on motherhood

view from art gallery window

Second Palace used as art gallery

gallery

lovely ceilings

more painted ceilings

tiny little art nouveau room

with lovely ornate

ceiling and

walls

Painted by El Greco

portrait 11 painted by Goya

portrait 12

portrait 13

portrait 14

portrait 15

Painting by Breughel

part of a large painting

more of the large painting

Nice outfit

man of sorrows

more sorrowful man of sorrows

large screen with 12 saints

one of saints

another

looks like a da Vinci, but isn't

unusual madonna and child

The Tearful Bride.1540 . a disturbing Dutch Parody

I did spend a morning in the Old Town Square, but the night before I took my camera out on the way to my favourite restaurant and took some photos of the nicely finished buildings in the area. If you spend the time to look up it's amazing how much trouble the builders went to in the early 20th century to individualise each building. One of the sad things is that if you get down to the street level, stupid taggers have done their best to make every street look like it was in the ghetto. In Prague my favourite eating place is an Italian Restaurant about 100 yards down the street. In Rome my favourite Restaurant was Chinese (it must be the Irish in me). It is a quality restaurant so the prices may be a little high for Prague, but the quality of the food is the best that I have eaten so far on my trip, and I'm worth it. Having said that, the soup (which was a meal in itself), the huge bowl of Risotto (I took half of it home for lunch the next day), and the small vase full of Tiramisu, plus a pint of lager came to just NZ$19. The previous meal I had there was a thick chicken and vegetable soup with floating gnocci, and a huge bowl of Spaghetti Bolognase covered in Parmessan cheese, plus a 1/2 pint of lager came to NZ$13. I limit myself to every second night cos I can't handle those size of portions every day. So at about ten am the next morning I headed out on the tram which took me half way to the Old Town Square. I got off at the right station and then proceeded to get lost( not a lot lost though, just a little bit lost) It didn't matter because I found another square to look at called Republik Square and that had a few really cool buildings on it like the Powder Tower (which was originally the Old Town Gate, but then it was used to store gunpowder in the 17th century and so they changed it's name) By then I noticed a steady stream of people following tour guides down a certain street, so I joined them and it wasn't long before I got to where I was supposed to be Prague Old Town Square. It is a huge square surrounded by monumental buildings that have in some cases been there for hundreds of years. After I had walked all around it I noticed a couple of hundred people gathering in one corner, so I strolled over to have a look. There was the oldest working astronomical clock in the world, and it was almost time to do its thing, so I squeezed into the crowd to try and get a photo of what was going on. On the dot of 11 o'clock the bells started chiming, the little statues started to move and the top doors upened so you could just see the 12 apostles moving past. The crowd was dead silent while this was going on, but when the golden rooster popped out and made a loud SQWAWK noise everyone burst out laughing. After that bit of excitement I decided that following the crowds was a good idea, so I followed them down lots of little shopping lanes and arcades, until we came to the river and the Charles bridge. It is one of the must see places in Prague because there is always a crowd on the bridge and several musicians or bands play on it every day, and there are lots of artists and craft stalls selling souvenirs all along it. The 30 statue groupings were a focus for people taking photos or selfies and everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves. On the other side I found a tram stop and by 1pm I was home having a well earned cuppa having walked for miles...

in my street

up the road

up the road

down the road/ tram stop

tram stop building

Seen from my room balcony

around the corner

across from restaurant

this too

tram passing restaurant

Creamy spinach soup with salmon & dill

Ham & sundried tomato risotto & chicken breast

with parmesan (enough for 2 meals)

Boxed 1/2 the risotto to order Tiramisu dessert.

But didn't expect it to come in a huge "vase"

Powder Gate/Tower 1475

Municipal House Art Nouveau

Venue for Classical Concerts on Republik Square

Church on Republik Square

Finally found my way to Old Town Square

Old Town Hall

Each building on the Square is unique

The Jan Hus Memorial

Burned at stake for Heresy in 1415

one of four bands playing in the Square

It is a big Square

with many interesting buildings

like the "Kinsky Palace"1758 now an Art Gallery

for victims of Prague Uprising-We Remain Faithful

Interesting plaque on side of fish restaurant

Medieval astronomical clock 1410

attracts huge crowds on the hour

the doors open and 12 apostles are shown

death rings the chimes

The crowd is hushed then

SQUAWK says the rooster and everybody laughs

Gothic Church of our lady before Tyn. 14th century

more pretty buildings

and more

closer view

This one holds a Starbucks

This a theatre

and this one the Hard Rock Cafe

last view of pretty buildings off Square

Charles Bridge Tower on Old Town side

Built in 14th century/close up of details

view down river Vlatava

View across to Castle

Full of Tourists

View upriver

Bridge is 10 metres wide and 620 metres long

decorated by 30 statues from 1700

and half a dozen bands or performers

the spot where Saint John was drowned

Rubbed for luck

Saint John of Nepomuk

Bridge Tower on the other side

Top of building seen from bridge