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Strasbourg and Nancy (and Metz)

Posted by Jim St. George on August 25, 2018

Posted in: Europe, France, UNESCO World Heritage Site. 2 comments

Flowers and beautiful architecture – we loved Strasbourg

I got a little behind here, apparently having too much fun to post pictures and so on. After our stops in Germany, though, we moved on to two two-night stays each in Strasbourg & Nancy, the major cities of the historic regions of Alsace and Lorraine, respectively.

Strasbourg was definitely the star of the show, simply one of the most beautiful cities anywhere. Just across the Rhein from Germany it has been a bridge between France & Germany for centuries, a fact reflected in the architecture, churches, and cuisine. The historic city center was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site back in 1988, the first time an entire city center was so designated, and it sure seems to warrant the honor.

More of Strasbourg’s beauty

The city’s cathedral, Notre-Dame de Strasbourg, in its late-Gothic style is certainly the highlight. Topping out at 466 feet it claims to have been the world’s tallest building from 1647 to 1874, but my sense is that other buildings also claim to have been the tallest in that pre-modern period as well. It is pretty well documented, though, that it is the tallest building standing today built entirely in the Middle Ages.

Me and Mark with Mat outside Notre-Dame de Strasbourg

Awe-inspiring certainly describes the cathedral and for us it was particularly fun to watch Mat’s face as it came into view. We’ve seen a lot of these old cathedrals but if you’re from a small midwest city and haven’t been around the world a lot, it is pretty awesome. And of course if you can climb the spire you must, so we did. Great views and not really that hard.

Otherwise Strasbourg is just a fabulous city to walk around in. The canals and the flowers and the buildings are all just beautiful. The weather was perfect. There’s a great modern art museum If you walk just a little way out of the historic city you come to the European Parliament, right in the same area as the Council of Europe and the European Court of Human Rights. We found it poignant to be here while our President appears hell-bent on destroying all of it.

Outside the European Parliament. We think the world is a safer, better place when European countries collaborate rather than wage war. Apparently the President disagrees.

Strasbourg is definitely worth a longer stay, but as we knew Mat wanted to see lots of different things we stopped for only two nights before moving on to Nancy, the historic capital of Lorraine. I have to admit, after the beauty and excitement of Strasbourg, Nancy was something of a letdown. It is certainly beautiful, with the UNESCO-recognized Place Stanislaus, built in the 18th century by King Stanislaus of Poland who was also Duke of Lorraine, taking the place of honor. We had the disadvantage of arriving there on the holiday of the Feast of the Assumption which inexplicably means that nearly everything is closed. (I was reminded of our stop in Poitiers four years ago, now, when I needed to go to the emergency room on the Feast of the Assumption and got lousy service from the skeleton crew available. Note to self: avoid France on August 15!)

King Stanislaus of Poland, also Duke of Lorraine, stands in the center of Place Stanislaus. Strange to think of this very, very French city being ruled by a Polish king.

So after a fairly dull first day in Nancy we decided to take a day trip on our second to the nearby city of Metz, the modern capital of Lorraine. That worked out well; the train ride was, as always in Europe, gentle and relaxing. The city was interesting; the recently opened Pompidou Center-Metz, an extension of the major modern art museum in Paris, was fun to tour, and St. Stephen’s Cathedral was another stunner. The latter has the largest expanse of stained glass windows in the world, including not just glorious old windows but also windows by the modernist Marc Chagall. Impressive.

And then again, after just a two-night stop it was off again, this time to Paris.

Did I mention that I think Strasbourg is beautiful? Here it looks more French than German.

Mat discovering the beauty of an Aperol Spritz

Even the entry to our hotel was beautiful

Notre-Dame de Strasbourg

Imagine the terror of walking down the streets of Strasbourg, enjoying the flowers, and stumbling onto a crocodile!

Some of the ornate work inside Notre-Dame

Getting ready for a little lunch

Gustav Doré was a 19th century Strasbourg native, to whom a room in the modern art museum was dedicated. We both liked his stuff, particularly this Calvary scene.

And then there was this, umm, hunk of metal that spoke more to Mark than it did to me…

There was art out on the street, too

This spooky guy was looming over us at dinner one night

These flowers were all over Strasbourg

As we left Strasbourg, Mat wanted to leave ashes of his late brother Dexter in the canal. Dex died just a couple months ago and the wounds are still pretty raw so this was perhaps more powerful than the picture makes it look.

This is a view of Notre Dame de Strasbourg, with all its flying buttresses, on the climb up the bell tower.

Me, en route up to the top. We loved the way the stairs were almost out in the open.

The view of Strasbourg from way up high

Nancy is also important as the first time Mat tried steak tartare. He was an exceptionally adventurous eater, particularly for a 14-year-old. And he certainly seemed to enjoy this dish!

Mat & Mark outside the golden gates to Place Stanislaus in Nancy

More of Place Stanislaus

St. Stephan’s Cathedral in Metz, site of the world’s largest expanse of stained glass

You don’t see a lot of modern art stained glass windows in great cathedrals but here we have some Marc Chagall windows

And more modern art

Metz is also home to an extension of Paris’s Pompidou Center, the major modern art museum in France. One “piece” on display while we were there was the Dream Room, which was pretty dreamy.

Mat learned that he liked this kind of art

And the kind of art that consists of huge strands of spaghetti that you can walk through

Finally, Metz’s attractions included an area with all sorts of guys like this hanging out, just waiting to make friends

Heidelberg

Posted by Jim St. George on August 15, 2018

Posted in: Europe, Germany. Leave a Comment

Heidelberg’s Old Town with the castle looming above

I’ve wanted to come back to Heidelberg for a very long time. I came here first in the mid-1970s when I was in the Navy stationed in Naples and my brother was in the Army in nearby Wiesbaden. I remember it as this beautiful old college town on the Neckar River.

Fast forward forty-plus years and I finally made it back. I certainly didn’t see anything that I remembered as it’s at least possible that things change over the decades. It is, though, still a beautiful old college town. The University of Heidelberg was founded in 1386 and thus is one of the oldest universities in the world. Its nearly 40,000 students account for a quarter of Heidelberg’s residents and as a result the city has a wonderfully youthful sense about it.

Mat & Mark sitting along the Neckar River

From my perspective there were two main attractions here, the old castle and the Philosophers’ Walk. The old castle looms over the city. Built originally in the early 15th century it was variously expanded and destroyed as peace and war alternated in the 16th and 17th centuries. When the local prince tried to rebuild the castle in 1764 lighting struck – literally – and ended any efforts to restore the castle. Today the ruins are evocative and even romantic. So romantic, in fact, that while we were wandering around the gardens a guy next to us knelt down and proposed to his girlfriend! (She said yes….)

Mat & Mark up in the remains of the castle

The other highlight was the Philosophers’ Walk. Across the Neckar from the old town but on the university side of the river, the pathway offers great views of the city and castle and is supposedly where the ancient university’s scholars would walk and talk. Today the path leads to the top of Heiligenberg, the hill opposite Heidelberg proper, to ruins of an 11th century monastery. It made for a wonderful climb on a summer afternoon.

The view of Heidelberg and the castle from the top of Heiligenberg (Saint’s Mountain)

Not such a highlight was the University. I was expecting to find some campus with beautiful old buildings that had withstood all the turmoil Germany experienced in the 20th century. Maybe it’s there somewhere, and there are pictures on the web I can find of beautiful old buildings, but the part of the campus I found was as ugly as anything one could imagine. Just these horrible 1970s- or 1980s-era buildings with no redeeming qualities whatsoever. Sad.

Some of the ugly buildings on the University’s modern campus

One more view just to show I’m not exaggerating

The Old Bridge across the Neckar River

A view of the town and river from the castle

Up in the castle stands the world’s largest wine cask. That’s Mat above it, looking pretty small in comparison.

Mat & Mark in the town square

We can always find good food, including this lovely summer salad

Mat had his first burrata cheese in Heidelberg. It was a hit.

Pretty fancy, huh?

En route up the Philosphers’ Walk

And an old tower at the very top

One more view of the river and Old Bridge

As we were leaving Heidelberg we came across this window display. Perhaps the strangest ever.

Amsterdam

Posted by Jim St. George on August 11, 2018

Posted in: Europe, Netherlands. Leave a Comment

Mark & Mat toast his arrival. Mat’s drinking a Karne Jus, orange juice and buttermilk. Thus we learned right from the start that he’s an adventurous eater.

Here’s what’s weird about Amsterdam. I’ve spent a lot of time here. On a number of occasions, particularly 10 or even 20 years ago, I would do long-haul flights with connections through Amsterdam both on work trips alone and on vacation with Mark. It was super easy to get into the city from the airport so I or we would go in, go to a museum, have breakfast and/or lunch, walk around, just your general tourist stuff. But I had never spent a night there. Finally, that oversight has been corrected.

We had four nights in Amsterdam, two on our own and two with my great-nephew Mat who will be traveling with us for two weeks. And again I was reminded what a great city this is for walking around. The canals are beautiful, there are almost no cars, and the weather is usually temperate. Things have changed somewhat, though, since I was last here. The pot was legal then, but it’s even more common now; just walking down the streets you’re regularly smelling it. Global warming has certainly struck more intensely too: it was up in the 90s for two of our days here, way too hot for a city like this. And way, way too hot to take a boat tour of the canals in an open boat as we did.

The canals this time of year are beautiful

Some things don’t change, though, including two of the great art museums you’ll ever go to. The Rijks Museum (National Museum) has an awesome collection that, not surprisingly, focuses on Dutch art. Rembrandts for days but Vermeer and Steen and lots more. It was easy to spend three hours here and wish you could come back the next day.

This was my favorite from the Rijks Museum, a painting Rembrandt did of his son Titus dressed in a monk’s cowl. The audio guide explained that by this point in his life Rembrandt had declared bankruptcy and was actually working for Titus, as in his employee. Strange.

But the next day was the Van Gogh museum and that was every bit as good. Just an amazing collection of his work with excellent descriptions and a great audio guide. At some point you just had to wonder what the value of the collection would be. A Van Gogh that sold in 1990 for $82.5 million would be, just adjusting for inflation, $150 million today. And there must have been a couple hundred of his pieces there. You do the arithmetic.

And a really unusual piece from the Van Gogh museum. He painted this Japanese-influenced piece as a gift for his beloved brother Theo on the birth of Theo’s first son, whom he named Vincent. And that Vincent was the founder of the museum. Shortly after finishing this, though, the elder Vincent committed suicide. Terrible story, and we were reminded that Van Gogh created this incredible body of work in just ten short years. Truly remarkable.

Four days and then it was south to Cologne. We’re spending two weeks with Mat and, for him, making a series of much shorter stops so he can taste a bit more of Europe during his two-week holiday than if we did our normal three- and four-night stops. So from here on out it will be a series of two-nights stops in Germany and France before we get to Paris. Paris, naturally, deserves four nights even if you’re 14 and in a hurry to see Europe.

Mat in front of a multi-media illustration of one of Van Gogh’s most famous self portraits.

A portrait of Gerard Andriesz Bicker reminds us that obesity is not strictly a modern phenomenon

And there was food. We went to lunch twice at a seafood restaurant that offered this wonderful “plateau” of seafood

One of the most remarkable things about Amsterdam is the number of bikes everywhere. This multi-level bike parking area near the train station must hold thousands of bikes. Walking around the city you really don’t have to worry about cars – there just aren’t many – but you have to be very careful about accidentally stepping into a bike lane. That could get you killed.

Lots of flowers in Amsterdam

See?

Another hollyhock

Parkland near the Rijks Museum

Amsterdam: bikes and canals

Canal life is good

We did a lovely hour-long tour on the canals. Unfortunately the temperature was in the 90s and the boats go too slow to generate a breeze so we baked.