Visiting Germany can be a strangely disorienting experience. It’s mostly modern despite its history but it also has age. That age is often skin deep given reconstruction after the bombings of WW2. So there will be age next to ‘60s modernity or old looks with new construction. Or aged palaces with modern materials and churches aged outside but blandly sparse with neat walls inside. It can be sad. I feel the Germans have dealt with it will with an absence of denial and a humble contrition. (As for climate and other denial, Australia has much to learn these days and the dignified European treatment of WW1 could teach us something, too. It’s off the topic, but England and Scotland now use no coal for electricity production). But also, Germany can be enlivening. It has been an intellectual and cultural centre and has some great collections to awe tourists. Otherwise, I was stunned by the effectiveness and integration of public transport (more to learn). Here are some pics, especially from the Alte Pinakotek. This is the main gallery in Munich for pre-modern art, to C18th or so. I loved the earlier, Renaissance works, enjoyed a limited collection of mediaeval and felt less for the often huge, swirling, baroque and later. So I loved the Durer and a large Perugino and another Leonardo and a few small but teaming Brueghels and a series of Italian Madonnas with John the Baptist and Christ child and was fascinated to see a very early Rembrandt self-portrait but not so much the swirling Tiepolos and Rubens and the literal Caravaggios. As for the public transport, it’s ticketed, connected, signed to perfection and frequent. Not easy outside a real city. Some pics.
Visiting Germany can be a strangely disorienting experience. It’s mostly modern despite its history but it also has age. That age is often skin deep given reconstruction after the bombings of WW2. So there will be age next to ‘60s modernity or old looks with new construction. Or aged palaces with modern materials and churches aged outside but blandly sparse with neat walls inside. It can be sad. I feel the Germans have dealt with it will with an absence of denial and a humble contrition. (As for climate and other denial, Australia has much to learn these days and the dignified European treatment of WW1 could teach us something, too. It’s off the topic, but England and Scotland now use no coal for electricity production). But also, Germany can be enlivening. It has been an intellectual and cultural centre and has some great collections to awe tourists. Otherwise, I was stunned by the effectiveness and integration of public transport (more to learn). Here are some pics, especially from the Alte Pinakotek. This is the main gallery in Munich for pre-modern art, to C18th or so. I loved the earlier, Renaissance works, enjoyed a limited collection of mediaeval and felt less for the often huge, swirling, baroque and later. So I loved the Durer and a large Perugino and another Leonardo and a few small but teaming Brueghels and a series of Italian Madonnas with John the Baptist and Christ child and was fascinated to see a very early Rembrandt self-portrait but not so much the swirling Tiepolos and Rubens and the literal Caravaggios. As for the public transport, it’s ticketed, connected, signed to perfection and frequent. Not easy outside a real city. Some pics.
1 comment:
"England and Scotland now use no coal for electricity production". I'm wrong in making that statement, but at least England has been known to survive without electricity from coal for significant periods (now getting on to 2 weeks). "Britain is setting new records for going without coal-powered energy. In the latest milestone, it has gone for two weeks without using coal to generate electricity – the longest such period since 1882. / The coal-free fortnight comes just two years after the National Grid first ran without coal power for 24 hours." ( https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2019/may/25/the-power-switch-tracking-britains-record-coal-free-run , viewed 8 Jun 2019)
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