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highlights from my Hanseatic tour
Nov. 17th, 2006 09:51 pm- Sunday morning after the event wound down, a group of us (rather, a couple groups, we kept meeting up) went walking through downtown L&uumb;beck, seeing churches, the city museum (which doesn't allow pictures, which is unfortunate given all of the fantastic archaeological finds that they have) with its special exhibit on Hanseatic coinage through the ages, and finally ending up at the market square where we had crepes and donuts (essentially mini versions of the French pillow donuts my mom makes, and which I need to learn how to make myself someday) for lunch, and where I picked up 100 grams of a very strong flavored and smelling but very mild textured two-year old white cheese (from someone who was originally from Amsterdam!).
- Sunday evening, returning to Giano's place and being plied with books, and books, and more books - every time he came into the livingroom where I was holed up with books, he had more for me to read or look at. I skimmed a book on home cheese making (and came to the conclusion that while my foray into bread making has worked wonderfully well, cheese making on the other hand requires that we have control of far more things than we actually have control over - humidity, heat, etc. I don't think I'll be trying cheese making at home any time soon), read a book on recipes found in a couple of 3000 year old Sumerian and Babylonian tablets, read a book on pre-historic cooking, read a book Art, Culture, and Cooking (or something like that), which had reconstructed recipes in the back, flipped through the Visconti Book of Hours, and another facsimile of a 12th C manuscript written in a lovely clear hand and with gorgeous pictures including various just-barely-preheraldic-representations of arms. (Of course, I didn't read all of the books on Sunday, but over the course of the time I was there.)
- Monday, getting to go to the grocery store and loading up on sausages. We just can't get good sausages here in the Netherlands; they aren't spicy enough and they're too finely ground. As sausage and sauer kraut was a common stock meal for us in Madison, I figured I should take advantage of my chance to get hopefully good sausages!
- Wandering around Hamburg in the light rain, having nothing better to do than walk where I wanted to walk and take pictures when the mood struck. I started off down by the docks, and then basically wandered around in the "there's a church steeple", walk towards that, "there's another church steeple", walk towards that, method of navigation. When I got tired or cold, I'd hop onto the train and go to another stop which Giano recommended. I meandered around all morning and most of the afternoon until it suddenly started pouring. I knew I had a comfy spot with good books waiting for me back at Giano's apartment, so I headed back there.
- Franzebrötchen. Mmmm!!! I'd go back to Hamburg just to have more Franzebrötchen.
- Having medieval Islamic food for supper, complete with extra company. Tasty, quick, full of lentils and beef and eggplant and wonderful spices.
- The little bookshop underneath the Radhausmarkt, where I was for less than 10 minutes, but still managed to come away with a treasure - Maps and Mapmakers of the Aegean for only €18, with pages upon pages of full color plates of pre-1600 maps! I like maps.
- Tuesday, getting a guided tour of the Hamburg Historical Museum (I hadn't known before that it was in Hamburg that the Beatles had their first big break) from Giano, and then a guided tour of the entire rest of the down-town area from Vanessa. We started walking around noon and walked all over until 3, seeing random neat buildings, getting to hear bits of history, the sort of tour where there's always something interesting to see and where the things are things you'd never find on your own, or wouldn't recognize them as special if you did. Around 3 we went to the Art Gallery, and spent two hours there. Normally when it comes to art galleries, I don't like viewing pictures with other people. I don't really want to discuss things, I just want to look at them and enjoy them. (I like art, but I know very little about it.) This was not the case with Vanessa; she and I have very similar ideas about art (My definition of art: If I can do it, it's not art. I can paint a canvas a solid shade of green, ergo, it's not art. I can't look at a piece of jewelry and translate what I see into little blobs of paint that look incredibly detailed from far away and melt into nothingness when you look close. Ergo, the Dutch masters, the impressionists, etc., are artists.) There were a few particularly nice things about the gallery - the first was when we walked into the room of the Dutch masters, and not only did I see a painting I recognized, I even knew whom it was by before I looked at the label. There's a painting by the same guy (Hochgeest) of nearly exactly the same shot (the tomb of William of Orange in the Nieuwe Kirk in Delft) in the Mauritshuis. And then I looked at some of the others, and noticed right away the landscapes by the van Ruysdaels (Jacob and Simon). I had no idea that simply after going to the Mauritshuis twice that I'd soaked up enough of the art to be able to identify new pieces correctly! The other very neat extra was that we were there during a Casper David Friedrich exhibit - rooms upon rooms of glorious representations of sunlight and moonlight. I'd almost be interested in going back to Hamburg while the exhibit is still there to be able to take Joel to it; I think he'd enjoy it.
By then it's nearly 5, my train back to Amsterdam came around 5:40, we were getting hungry and footsore so we went back to the train station, grabbed something to eat (including a Franzebrötchen to bring home for Joel), and then sit for 20 minutes or so until my train came.
Had an uneventful trip back, whiled away mostly by reading one of the two books Giano lent me, 1066: The Hidden History in the Bayeux Tapestry, fascinating and fairly persuasive. The other book he lent me was the Visconti book of hours, so I can ooh and ahh over each individual page to my heart's content. This is my security for him coming to Amsterdam so that I can return his wonderful hospitality. I had a delightful time in all respects, not the least of which is that I came home so ladden with goodies that I felt like Santa Claus when I was unpacking my bag.
- Sunday evening, returning to Giano's place and being plied with books, and books, and more books - every time he came into the livingroom where I was holed up with books, he had more for me to read or look at. I skimmed a book on home cheese making (and came to the conclusion that while my foray into bread making has worked wonderfully well, cheese making on the other hand requires that we have control of far more things than we actually have control over - humidity, heat, etc. I don't think I'll be trying cheese making at home any time soon), read a book on recipes found in a couple of 3000 year old Sumerian and Babylonian tablets, read a book on pre-historic cooking, read a book Art, Culture, and Cooking (or something like that), which had reconstructed recipes in the back, flipped through the Visconti Book of Hours, and another facsimile of a 12th C manuscript written in a lovely clear hand and with gorgeous pictures including various just-barely-preheraldic-representations of arms. (Of course, I didn't read all of the books on Sunday, but over the course of the time I was there.)
- Monday, getting to go to the grocery store and loading up on sausages. We just can't get good sausages here in the Netherlands; they aren't spicy enough and they're too finely ground. As sausage and sauer kraut was a common stock meal for us in Madison, I figured I should take advantage of my chance to get hopefully good sausages!
- Wandering around Hamburg in the light rain, having nothing better to do than walk where I wanted to walk and take pictures when the mood struck. I started off down by the docks, and then basically wandered around in the "there's a church steeple", walk towards that, "there's another church steeple", walk towards that, method of navigation. When I got tired or cold, I'd hop onto the train and go to another stop which Giano recommended. I meandered around all morning and most of the afternoon until it suddenly started pouring. I knew I had a comfy spot with good books waiting for me back at Giano's apartment, so I headed back there.
- Franzebrötchen. Mmmm!!! I'd go back to Hamburg just to have more Franzebrötchen.
- Having medieval Islamic food for supper, complete with extra company. Tasty, quick, full of lentils and beef and eggplant and wonderful spices.
- The little bookshop underneath the Radhausmarkt, where I was for less than 10 minutes, but still managed to come away with a treasure - Maps and Mapmakers of the Aegean for only €18, with pages upon pages of full color plates of pre-1600 maps! I like maps.
- Tuesday, getting a guided tour of the Hamburg Historical Museum (I hadn't known before that it was in Hamburg that the Beatles had their first big break) from Giano, and then a guided tour of the entire rest of the down-town area from Vanessa. We started walking around noon and walked all over until 3, seeing random neat buildings, getting to hear bits of history, the sort of tour where there's always something interesting to see and where the things are things you'd never find on your own, or wouldn't recognize them as special if you did. Around 3 we went to the Art Gallery, and spent two hours there. Normally when it comes to art galleries, I don't like viewing pictures with other people. I don't really want to discuss things, I just want to look at them and enjoy them. (I like art, but I know very little about it.) This was not the case with Vanessa; she and I have very similar ideas about art (My definition of art: If I can do it, it's not art. I can paint a canvas a solid shade of green, ergo, it's not art. I can't look at a piece of jewelry and translate what I see into little blobs of paint that look incredibly detailed from far away and melt into nothingness when you look close. Ergo, the Dutch masters, the impressionists, etc., are artists.) There were a few particularly nice things about the gallery - the first was when we walked into the room of the Dutch masters, and not only did I see a painting I recognized, I even knew whom it was by before I looked at the label. There's a painting by the same guy (Hochgeest) of nearly exactly the same shot (the tomb of William of Orange in the Nieuwe Kirk in Delft) in the Mauritshuis. And then I looked at some of the others, and noticed right away the landscapes by the van Ruysdaels (Jacob and Simon). I had no idea that simply after going to the Mauritshuis twice that I'd soaked up enough of the art to be able to identify new pieces correctly! The other very neat extra was that we were there during a Casper David Friedrich exhibit - rooms upon rooms of glorious representations of sunlight and moonlight. I'd almost be interested in going back to Hamburg while the exhibit is still there to be able to take Joel to it; I think he'd enjoy it.
By then it's nearly 5, my train back to Amsterdam came around 5:40, we were getting hungry and footsore so we went back to the train station, grabbed something to eat (including a Franzebrötchen to bring home for Joel), and then sit for 20 minutes or so until my train came.
Had an uneventful trip back, whiled away mostly by reading one of the two books Giano lent me, 1066: The Hidden History in the Bayeux Tapestry, fascinating and fairly persuasive. The other book he lent me was the Visconti book of hours, so I can ooh and ahh over each individual page to my heart's content. This is my security for him coming to Amsterdam so that I can return his wonderful hospitality. I had a delightful time in all respects, not the least of which is that I came home so ladden with goodies that I felt like Santa Claus when I was unpacking my bag.
