Home Again: views from Hannover and the Harz Mountains

We're back from our trip! We celebrated Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year, at reform synogogue services in Hannover. Tonight is Yom Kippur Eve.

We had a wonderful time. Hannover has a "Red Line" walking tour (with guidebook) which was perfect for keeping me busy while Dan was at the conference during the day. I really enjoy this type of walking tour-I always go into all the buildings along the way so it takes me days rather than hours to finish. Here are just a few highlights plus photos from the wonderful trip to the Harz Mountains organized by the Leibniz conference.

This simple and elegant monument in the plaza of the Opera House (right behind the monument) is the Hannover Holocaust Memorial.
It is the most powerful Holocaust Memorial I have ever seen-each person's name, age or date of birth and place and date of death is inscribed on the sloping sides. They finally have a gravestone.
I think I went to every museum in Hannover-large and small. Here are just two of the wonderful things I saw that I wanted to share: a pair of antique dolls ( taken through the glass case).
Most evenings we went out to dinner with other conference participants-it was nice to finally meet many people that I've heard Dan talk about for years. We did go to the opera one night (The Marriage of Figaro) and this is the door knob of the Opera House! Pretty cool!
Saturday, the conference organized a trip to the Harz Mountains (bird seed, anyone?). I've discovered that the Harz Mountains are really a plateau of rolling hills and
beautiful forests.
We made a friend...isn't he gorgeous!
The trip was organized around Leibniz, of course. Besides math and philosophy, he was interested in industry and general problem solving. The silver mines in the Harz Mountains had terrible problems with water in the mines...the solution was to use water wheels to run the pumps to get the water out! Leibniz thought he had a better way-windmills-or at least a closed water system that then utilized the water pumped from the mines to run the water wheels. It wasn't actually put into practice at the mine he worked with but both were later used at another mine.

We saw a model of a water wheel...
sluice and pump house.
And a real water wheel...look at the size of it!
How did they get enough water to run the water wheels? They dug channels to bring water from higher, more distant mountains-these covered miles and miles-
and they created reservoirs to collect the water from local streams and creeks-creating lastingly beautiful places.
Now that we're back, Tuesdays Tomes will resume-I definitely had no time to read on our trip!

Hannover: Gardens and Bricks

While DH was busy at his conference (this part of the trip was "part work" for him and all vacation for me :) I took a bus tour around Hannover. I had been there two years ago but there was still lots more to see. The tour took us to the Herrenhausen Gardens-Ducal Gardens that are done in the formal Baroque style.

Look at this wonderful vista and the two gorgeous fountains! Unfortunately the high spray of the back fountain blends into the sky but you can just see the spout behind the round fountain.
Here you can see one of the formal mazes-with two special Hannover differences: 1) flowers and 2) the maze is cut very low (those aren't mutant giant flowers!)
Our hotel was in the old quarter and right down the street was the Old Town Hall...the streets were too narrow for me to get a picture of the whole building so this is from the internet.
Isn't that quite an amazing brick building? I just love the crazy high frontage. This is the most southern building in Germany done in the North German Brick Gothic style. Parts of the building date from 1410.

I was able to get some fun close-ups...here you can see not only the inside of the Gothic entrance but see that round metal loop-that was for the pillory-punishment was public and right in front of the Town Hall.
Historians don't know why this was added into the brick work on the side wall...maybe this is how the townsfolk felt about the local government!

Leaving Copenhagen-a City of Canals

This is the school building directly across from our hotel...I loved watching the ivy get redder and redder over the past week. The sun finally came out and so did the green awnings.I never realized that Copenhagen is a city of canals. We really enjoyed our canal tour...isn't that an amazing church spire?
the new opera house...
getting dark as the day grows older and clouds denser.
Finally, leaving Denmark ...that's Jutland taken from the airplane! On to Hannover, Germany.

A Visit to Sweden

We took a day trip to Sweden! I just loved the idea of taking a half-hour train ride to another country!

We first went to Lund-to see the historic university there (yes, that was DH's choice and you can see how delighted he was.)
Wandering about-into museums and churches- we saw this absolutely wonderful floor! Double wedding ring anybody? I'm thinking of giving drafting this a try.

Now I have seen lots of half-timbered buildings-in England, Denmark, France and Germany but this is the first time I have ever seen a half-timbered brick building! Brilliant!
Then it was on to Malmo...but it was getting late and cold so we just looked at the wonderful red and white lighthouse from afar. (Its right in the center-behind me! :)
And its back to Copenhagen. This was taken on the bridge through the not very clean train window.

Historic Sewing from Copenhagen

We had a little computer problem at our hotel...they suddently changed networks and after that no one could get on-line! Fixed for now...

One of the highlights of our visit to the Open Air Museum in Copenhagen was the Lace Making School. A farmer's wife opened the school to teach her skills and of course, for the extra income.

I had never seen leather used on the bobbin lace pillows...I wonder if it simply made it easier to move the bobbins about...any ideas, anyone?

Do you see that half globe in the upper left of the picture...that is a glass globe filled with water and hung in front of the candle-apparently it diffused the candle light better! (You can see some more hung on the wall-waiting for the students to arrive and use them :)

In the pantry of the same house, little lace-like doilies covered the shelves...but look closer-they're cut from newspapers!
At the same museum, there is also a restored 1930s co-op store with shelves filled with bolts of fabric, a sewing machine for sale on the top shelf, and
in another cabinet, different sewing trims and do dads!
Fun stuff, huh?! Just outside the shop, in the hall is a pay telephone (you put the money in the box next to the phone-on the honor system). So, if you just had to tell to your friend about the lovely new cottons the shop just got in...well, you could!
The Copenhagen Open Air Museum (Frilandsmuseet) is definitely worth a visit - lots of old farm houses from all over Denmark and southern Sweden (Scania) have been reassembled just as they were-including the gardens and any out buildings. The wells and ingenious methods for pumping the water are all reproduced. Lots of old farm tools too.

Hello from Copenhagen

Hello from Copenhagen! We arrived Saturday night and were met at the airport by our son who had arrived earlier that morning. We checked into our hotel and then were off to meet friends for dinner.

Yesterday we went to the Workers Museum which was very interesting. Besides the informative placards, the period rooms and the shopping street were fascinating.

Here's a photo from a 1950s workers apartment...pretty cool!

After that we went to the Rosenborg Castle and saw the Crown Jewels-or at least a selection of them. Fantastic. There was an absolutely gorgeous natural pearl necklace (you know what I mean-the pearls weren't perfectly round)-each pearl must have been the size of "jawbreaker" candy! And the diamond necklace-oh boy, the square cut diamonds were almost as big!

Three crowns were displayed but one was absolutely incredible with little figures and dolphins in ivory.

Besides the treasury, we also made a tour of the rooms of the castle. The most interesting-an all mirrored "closet". Fantastic!

Then we met friends again for dinner, including the bride and groom-to-be. They're off for a pre-wedding "honeymoon" to Amsterdam and will be back in time for the wedding on Saturday.

We're planning lots of interesting trips around Copenhagen...today we just went to the City Museum and saw the archaeological excavation of the first castle in Copenhagen-the ruins under the Christianborg Palace. Built by Bishop Absalon, the founder of Copenhagen in 1167, we really enjoyed tracing the old castle/city walls.

LOL! I took the little camera because it fits in my jacket pocket but alas no batteries! I've just fixed the problem and will have photos later this week!