Exploring Germany's Deutsches Museum in Munich with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Exploring Germany's Deutsches Museum for Science in Munich, Germany with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

The Deutsches Museum in Munich, Germany beckons visitors to deepen their knowledge of the sciences they already know and discover how other sciences and technologies evolved often by viewing original machines or replicas.

The first thing that will surprise visitors to the Deutsches Museum is the amount of wood and brass you will see. Early scientific equipment was often made of wood and highly polished, so that it still resembles a work of art.

 
The Deutsches Museum houses a boggling array of items, including planes, cars, full-size boats, a replica of Foucault’s Pendulum, and a reproduction of Galileo’s workshop. You really cannot appreciate more than one or two galleries at a time on a visit. 

During the visit I spent with my husband, we spent most of our time in the topography and mapping and mathematics galleries.

This is especially true of land surveying equipment, models, and globes used to make topographic maps. Topographic maps show the shape and elevation of land. Topographic maps help with disaster prevention and land use planning and are especially necessary in Alpine landscapes.

The mathematics gallery will bring back school day memories for many visitors. For example, even though scientific calculators had been invented, I still had to learn how to use a slide rule to calculate logarithms, the opposite of exponents, in geometry class in high school. I wonder if today’s engineers would know how to use slide rules if their scientific calculators quit on them.

Further on in the mathematics section, there was a large wooden Mobius Curve that you could pick up and handle. It allowed you to see how it was an infinite curve by looking at upper case letters that became lower case letters without turning it over. 

An Albrecht Dürer copy of a geometric design drawing by Leonardo da Vinci illustrated the close ties between Germany and Northern Italy as well as the general human delight in spiraling shapes that remind viewers of the Book of Kells or The Lindesfarne Gospels.

After cursory tours of several other galleries, we set out to find a meal that was not the typical sausage and beer that is described as typical “Munich-style” cuisine in most guidebooks. We found a small Bavarian café, where I tried out my budding German and some new foods. 

I ate Zagreb-style schnitzel, which is Croatian pan-fried veal coated with breadcrumbs and stuffed with cheese and ham. It is served with fries and took the edge off a foggy winter day that reminded me that the Alps were there even if I could not see them.

My husband had rindersteak (Round Steak) with red wine sauce and rotini pasta. This satisfying dish and mine were accompanied by a salad made of juicy tomatoes and cucumbers.

Our meals fortified us to walk around Munich’s neighborhoods and along the Isar River. The fall colors of the trees in a descending winter fog from the Alps held out promises for hikes and strolls through town despite the cold; we will be back.

By Ruth Paget, Author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Medieval Contributions to Theatre by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

 Medieval Contributions to Theatre by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

The chapter title “The Age of Expiring Chivalry” in Calvin Thomas’ A History of German Literature could just as aptly be named “The Rise of Church Theatre.”

Thomas describes Easter plays in detail as Easter is the more important holiday in Europe than Christmas. There several kinds of plays presented by churches in open-air spaces that connect us with Europe’s past albeit in a fragmented form. 

The plays orchestrated by the Church that Thomas describes include:

Easter plays – Pertains to the discovery of Jesus Christ’s body and his resurrection

Passion plays – Enactments of the trial, suffering, and death of Jesus Christ

Christmas plays – Depiction of the birth of Jesus

Shrovetide plays – Carnival plays before the fasting period of Lent before Easter

Thomas points out key elements about these productions that planners of small and large theatre acts should keep in mind:

*They were performed outside as open-air spectacles

*These dramas began as late-medieval performances and ended as spectacles by the fifteen century, “employing an army of actors” (Google page number 109, Book page number 3)

*The performances lasted several days

These plays functioned like the sculpture on the French Gothic cathedrals for teaching the illiterate Bible stories. Spectacles must have brought in necessary revenue as well, especially if they lasted over several days.

Thomas points out that Latin and German were used to narrate the plays, which does make them important for literature. Thomas complains that the play texts that survive are more akin to stage directions; they probably resemble a director’s copy of a screenplay.

Some of the stand-alone acts that we associate with circuses or as children’s entertainment have come down to us from church Easter theatre; these include clowns, any kind of horseplay, and scatological humor according to Thomas.

Many of these plays are still performed in Germany today for adults and children alike. These performances draw in tourists to contemporary Germany; they invite the spectator to hearken back to a medieval soul and assume the position as town baker, butcher or candlestick maker and play your role in society.

The Passion Play at Oberammergau outside Munich, Germany is still performed every seven years.  There is a museum in town devoted to the history of the play.

By Ruth Paget, Author of Eating Soup Like Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Exploring the Runes and the Edda with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Exploring the Runes and the Edda with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Books about literature often provide a shortcut to learning about another culture. In the case of the German language, readers can find clues about how the cultures of Germany, Austria, German-speaking Switzerland, Lichtenstein, and Luxembourg function.

As I read through the first half of A History of German Literature by Calvin Thomas on Google Books, I felt like I was reliving many of the experiences I had shared with my daughter when she was a grade school student at a Waldorf School. 

This is not a farfetched claim when you consider that the founder of the Waldorf Schools, Rudolf Steiner, was Austrian and founded his first school in Stuttgart, Germany in 1919. Steiner’s philosophy focuses on the performing and visual arts as a means for teaching, which makes the mystical and medieval texts of the German language come alive.

Thomas relates in the very beginning of his book that the German runes are a form of paganism. He says that no extant literature exists which uses the runic alphabet. When my daughter and I made clay pebble tablets and inscribed runic symbols on them, which resemble Sumerian hatch marks, I told her, “People who could read runes were thought to be magic by everyone else. That’s why reading is still considered magic now.”

I believe that runes hid codes and showed my daughter how to set up codes similar to vignière ciphers to communicate with me. These codes may have been beyond her years, but they provided us with afternoon entertainment during long winter nights. 

The entertainment for the Germanic peoples most probably came from what were eventually written down in the thirteen century Icelandic Edda that formed the corpus of the Norse myths. Thomas deals with these myths only briefly as he was focusing on indigenous literature, but these myths appear to be important to German speakers as well.

Thomas writes that it was only in the twelfth century that “gleeman’s or minstrel’s tales were written down.” The two most famous tales were The Niblung Lay and The Lay of Gudrun. What is interesting here is what Thomas shares about how storytellers memorize their tales for presentation. 

Storytellers use “stereotypical phrases and prolixities which stamp the gleeman’s style.” (Google page 33, Book page 48). This creates flat characters, but allows the storyteller to focus on action and plot, perhaps accompanied with body movement.

Thomas further notes that “the gleeman’s art is discernable in this repetition, also in a marked fondness for fantastic adventures, hair-breadth escapes, cunning tricks and disguises, and in general for the wildly fabulous.” (Google page 48, Book page 63)

As I watched school performances where young children recited poetry each in turn, I understood why their teachers had them do this from reading Thomas’s A History of the German Language; Literature is based on the foundation of oral literature’s strong plot structure, especially when accompanied by music.

By Ruth Paget, Author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Visiting Bad Mergentheim (Germany) with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Visiting Bad Mergentheim (Germany) with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Bad Mergentheim is a must-see destination for lovers of iconography developed by the early Christian military and charitable orders in the Holy Land. This site “was chosen as headquarters for the Knights of the Teutonic Order in the sixteenth century” according to the French guide Michelin.

The Teutonic Order in the Holy Land was developed to protect and profit from the pilgrims to Jerusalem. The Teutonic Order became a religious order in 1198 after its knights came back to Germany following the failure of the last crusade to secure Jerusalem.

The Teutonic Order has both Catholic and Protestant members, reflecting the religious divide in contemporary Germany. The order was dissolved by Napoleon in 1806 and later reconstituted as a religious and charitable institution in Vienna.

Hitler outlawed the Teutonic Order in Germany in 1938, because it was loyal to the papacy and not to him. However, Hitler retained the powerful and emotive icons of the Teutonic Order for use by the Nazi party. Perhaps Nazi adoption of the symbols of this order may have made Nazism more palatable to everyday Germans, who associated the order with its charitable works.

While my husband toured the Teutonic Order’s museum, which is housed in a twelfth century castle, I sat in the castle’s courtyard as a bell concert was going on in the castle church. I made sketches of signs and symbols in the castle’s courtyard.

After the bell concert, a group of children came into the courtyard and played a cute game of some sort of tag called “Moustache.” Safety was tagging the church. Crows flew around the church spire, making shadows every now and then.

After the swastika, the iron cross is the icon most associated with the Nazi party. This is an evil use of an icon devoted to the Virgin Mary, but it does not need to be the eternal association of this icon.

In fact, I think Germans should proudly display this icon, with its original form with the white background around it. When the black cross is displayed with its white background, the icon works benevolently.

In the book Deutscher Orden 1190-2000: Ein Führer durch das Deutschordenmuseum im Bad Morgentheim (Spurbuchverlag, 2004) by Hg. Von Maikie Trentin and Udo Arnold, which is only available in German, the authors state that the black cross on a white background represents Jerusalem and refers to the Virgin Mary. Some icons may represent the dimensions of towns, but in the case of what is called the “Hochmeisterkreuz (Grand Master’s Cross)” I think color and not sacred geometry is at work.

White is a reference to the purity of the Virgin Mary, which Deutsche Orden 1190 – 2000 also says refers to lilies associated with the Virgin Mary as well. This color association is not innate, but it is taught so early to Catholic and Orthodox children that it becomes culturally innate.

Black is what I would call an innate color reference, because our brains associate black with soil without hardly thinking about it. Soil gives life through food just like a good mother and probably explains why we call the ground beneath our feet “Mother Earth.”

Both the cross, which became associated with Christianity, and the white field surrounding the black cross make strong associations with caring motherhood. The Nazi party certainly wanted to acquire the devotion that mothers have, and that is why they adopted the Hochmeisterkreuz of the Teutonic Knights.

The difference between innate and culturally acquired color associations explains why the Nazis dropped the white background. Culturally acquired color associations such as white with the Virgin Mary are not as strong as innate color associations such as the black of soil that comes from nature. 

Did the Nazis know this when they adopted just the black cross? Most probably.  German art historians pioneered the study of the hieratic and highly iconic work of prehistory. They appear to have been especially familiar with the artwork of the militaristic Akkadians.

In Bad Mergentheim, I liked seeing how contemporary Germans are repossessing the Hochmeisterkreuz (Hochmeistercross). This April (2011), throngs of Germans were visiting this place to understand the good and bad of the Teutonic Order. One café, in particular, called the Café in the Schlossgarten makes a pastry featuring little Hochmeisterkreuz decorations that you can enjoy after visiting the museum.

Grandparents and parents can easily bring their children and grandchildren to a fun outing in Bad Mergentheim and finish visiting the museum and grounds with cake.

By Ruth Paget, Author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Exploring Urban Ecology in Metz (France) with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Exploring Urban Ecology in in Metz (France) with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

As my husband Laurent and I drove through innumerable tiny tunnels in the mountains to get to Metz, France from the area around Saarbrucke, Germany, I looked forward in anticipation to visiting this town where water is king.

Metz is built on a series of islands in the Seille and Moselle Rivers. As we drove into town, mist rose off the canals to make it look like Amsterdam in winter. It is appropriate for Metz to look like another European city, since it has been an axe of exchange among cultures and countries for centuries.

Metz has been a European city for three thousand years, and it is sagely constructing its future with its neighbors with the SAAR-LOR-LUX industrial complex oriented towards electronics, information technology, and communication. “Lux” refers to Luxembourg and “Saar” refers to Saarbrucke, Germany. (Brucke means “bridge” in German and Saar refers to the river that the bridge crosses – German is a very logical language).

The European orientation of Metz affects not only industry, but cultural institutions as well as our “balades” through Metz would prove. Before launching into the gastronomic delights that Metz offers its visitors, I have to explain what the French word “balade” means. 

To serve as a point of comparison, in the United States when we walk for our health, we often do it by huffing and puffing on a treadmill at a club while profusely sweating. The French prefer long, tranquil walks during which they can learn about culture and history as they appreciate nature. What I have just described is a “balade” and not a “promenade.”

Metz has attained its great balade status with the outstanding management of its natural environment. Urban ecology was pioneered in Metz by professor Jean-Marie Pelt. Pelt’s theory helped create the European Institute of Ecology according to Un Grand Week-end a Metz by Sylvie Becker and Francis Kochert. Grassy parks, canal and riverside walks, and the pedestrian-only city center invite balade after balade in this three thousand-year-old European town.

On the way to our cousins’ home in Metz, we drove by the Porte des Allemands (the Germans’ Gate or Doorway). I chuckled when I remembered how I asked our cousin’s mother, “Why do they call it the ‘Porte des Allemands’?”

She replied, “The Germans come here quite a bit for long term stays, so we gave them their own door.” My husband Laurent and I laughed at this response, but I knew there was a lot of pain and suffering behind the remark.

When the Third Reich took over the Lorraine in the Second World War, for example, not only did they invade, but they stayed. One day children were taught in French and the next day in German. Moreover, children were immediately reprimanded for speaking French and not German in school. Children learned German Gothic lettering and German-style architecture appeared along the fashionable Avenue Foch.

I was impressed with our cousin’s mother for being so European as to say, “The past is water under the bridge. Let’s build a European future.”

The real story of the Porte des Allemands is that it is a remnant of a medieval era fortified wall that was built between (1230-1480) on the Seille River. The entry gets its name from its proximity to the order of the Frères Hospitaliers de Notre-Dame-des-Allemands, which belonged to the larger order of the Teutonic Knights.

When we arrived at our cousins’ apartment, we climbed the five flights of stairs to their beautifully decorated apartment and prepared for a languorous Saturday lunch. We started with cocktails. Laurent had an orange-flavored bitter liqueur added to his beer. That looked tempting, but I had an anise-flavored pastis more typical of the Riviera than Metz that made the cold day full of sunshine for me.

For lunch we had two decadent pastries filled with cheese and ham. One was a tourte Vosgienne made with ham and an egg-cream custard-like filling called La Migaine. “La Migaine” is one of those Lorraine in-group words that Lorraine dwellers use to confuse Parisians and protect all their gastronomical goodies for themselves.

The other tourte from Lorraine had a lattice-work crust decoration that made it almost too good to eat. It was full of sweet flavored ham and melting, savory cheese. Of course, I had a few slices of that, too.

Our cousin prepared the most magnificent cheese platter I have ever been offered in France. She must have had fifteen different kinds of cheese on her plateau, which included a perfectly ripe camembert, Brie de Meaux, Morbier, two kinds of Gouda, Emmenthal, and a creamy Italian cheese whose name I have forgotten. Our cousin served a biting Roquefort on its own dish, and I could almost feel the cool side of the caves where the cheese is cured.

I had a coffee and wanted to go to sleep under the table. However, when in France, you must balade for a few hours after a meal like this to help you digest your food.
We took a two-hour walk around Metz. We walked along the Quai de Régates, where you can even rent boats for evening dinner cruises to loll along the Moselle and Seille Rivers as you quaff some mirabelle (yellow plum) eau-de-vie. 

The Temple Neuf (Protestant Church) came into view at the tip of yet another island in the Moselle River. The Temple Neuf was built between 1901 and 1904 during one of Germany’s many annexations of France. The citizens of Metz have an uneasy relationship with the Temple Neuf as it represents German militarism and lacks French finesse in it architectural style.

French and Japanese finesse is manifest in the architecture of the Centre Pompidou-Metz. The Centre-Pompidou Metz features selected works from Europe’s largest collection of modern art – the Centre Pompidou in Paris. The Japanese architect Shigeru Ban, who studied with American architect Frank Gehry, and the French architect Jean de Gastines have created a flexible interior and exterior space that can easily host temporary exhibits of modern and contemporary art, dance, music, cinema, theater, and workshops for children and teens.

The building itself interested me more than the art during our visit. The Centre Pompidou – Metz is built on the space that formerly housed the Roman ampitheatre. The architects render homage to this space’s history by featuring tiered outdoor benches that can be used for watching theatre, dance, opera, and movies.

Inside wide open spaces allow for viewing of the art and for hosting the fundraiser cocktail parties that the arts need to survive even in countries that subsidize the arts like France. There were so many people visiting the Centre Pompidou-Metz the weekend that we were there that I could only do two floors. 

I know I should enjoy modern art for its aesthetic value, but I end up laughing at much of it. I think many modern artists play jokes with their art such as Man Ray’s Man Sleeping and a Bancusi severed head that was on display.

After a one hour nap, we walked from downtown to the Esplanade. The Esplanade used to be a military grounds and now is a vast rectangle bordered by trees that overlooks the canal and Mont Saint-Quentin. Saint –Pierre-des-Nonnains, the oldest church in France is located at the top of the Mont. It was built in the fourth century.

I did not think there were religious edifices older than the Baptistery of Saint-Jean in Poitiers or the crypt at the Abbaye of Jouarree with its stunning Merovingian Wall, but ancient Metz was constantly unveiling her mysteries to me.

Our corner table at the La Guinguette Restaurant on the Esplanade had a stellar view on St. Pierre-aux-Nonnains, which is illuminated at night making its pure yellow stone shimmer.

La Guinguette is a cute name for restaurant, which recalls the little restaurants and dancing halls that dotted the Marne River in the nineteenth century called “guinguettes.” La Guinguette in Metz serves the theater and movie crowd.

On the way to the restaurant, our cousins showed us the Arsenal built under Napoleon III (1808 - 1873) that has been turned into an acoustically perfect musical mecca for all genres of music. They have season tickets to the Arsenal concert series and walk to and from their apartment to enjoy the shows. I suspect that La Guinguette is their après-spectacle dinner spot.

Everyone ordered scallops and risotto except me. I had a rable de lapin farci au cavier d’aubergines with a side of two pankoufles. Translated into English this savory dish is rabbit saddle stuffed with eggplant caviar and braised in wine sauce. The Pankoufle is a kind of potato pancake that reminded me of a Jewish latke.

In fact, I would say that a pankoufle is an upscale latke. It is a thick pancake made with grated potatoes, grated onions, parsley, and some flour maybe to hold everything together. I had two of them to soak up the wine sauce from the braised rabbit.
The pankoufle reveals an aspect of Metz’s history that is not so well known today. The Jews have been present in Metz since the Middle Ages, and Metz was the center of an important center of rabbinical studies at that time.

Another important religious group that was present in Metz was the Huguenots, the French Protestants who followed the way of either Luther or Calvin. In 1570, almost half of the population of Metz had become Calvinist according to Un Grand Week-end à Metz, which became problematic when the Edict of Nantes was revoked by Louis XIV in 1570. The Edict of Nantes was issued on April 13, 1598 by Henri IV to guarantee religious freedom in France.

When they no longer had religious protection, the French Huguenots emigrated en masse to tolerant cities such as Berlin. According to Un Grand Week-end à Metz by Sylvie Becker and Francois Kochert, the Huguenots of Metz led by pastor David Ancillon were especially active in the economic and cultural development of the capital of Brandenburg.

All of France suffered when the talented Huguenots emigrated abroad, but Metz seems to have recovered its élan better than other French towns. On the balade back to the hotel, I thought of how ravishing the buildings looked with their soft, almost coy illumination.

I slept like a baby that night, because we had to get ready for more gustatory delights the next day!

I started the meal off with another pastis. I like the refreshing taste that that anise-flavored drink leaves in my mouth.  Our cousin made another beautiful hors-d’oeuvre tray with fresh vegetables. I ate more than my share of those wonderfully sweet French radishes that are not spicy like their American cousins.

For lunch starters, we had green asparagus tips with unctuous, spicy mayonnaise and foie gras. I had not eaten foie gras for seven years and felt like I was being re-initiated all over again to that silky, smooth, textured substance that melts in your mouth.

Then, we ate what our cousins normally eat as their Christmas Eve dinner: Morilles à la crème. Morilles are the cone-shaped mushrooms with a sponge-like texture that you can find in the abundant forests around Metz. Our cousin's husband prepared the morilles in cream sauce in a buttery and crumbly pastry shells. The pastry shells tasted just great as the mushrooms, but more crumbly. The mushrooms reminded me of a tender, juicy steak.

For dessert, our cousin served a five-berry fruit salad with as much Chantilly (whipped cream) as you wanted. Coffee followed and then it was time to balader.
We walked along the canal, which the French rather scientifically a “plan d’eau.” Our first stop along our balade Saint Etienne Cathedral. The cathedral was built over three centuries from 1220 to 1522 and features the flamboyant Gothic style with its characteristic pointy, flame-like window arches.

The pure yellow stone used to build the cathedral invites touch. When we arrived in the doorway, I placed my forehead into the cold, humid stone and inhaled what is for me the perfume of real France. According the Un Grand Week-end à Metz, the cathedral’s architect Pierre Perrat (circa 14th century) made a pact with the devil to build France’s most beautiful cathedral. When he died, Perrat was not buried, but encased in one of the cathedral walls.

From the cathedral, we walked to the house where Rabelais lived in exile from France. Rabelais wrote a rather snarky book called simply The Third Book here, too. His former home is located at the corner of the streets named de la Jurue and de l’enfer ( the street of hell). I wonder if that street name gave him any ideas for The Fourth Book.

From Rabelais’s house, we walked to the Place Saint Louis with its comfy feeling arcaded walkways. This area took on the name Place Saint Louis in 1707 according to Un Grand Week-end à Metz, but it has been in existence since the Middle Ages. In the Middle Ages, the area was called the “place de change” for its banking activities carried out by Germans and Jews. I laughed when I saw a restaurant named La Migaine – I hoped they served some very creamy quiche Lorraine pies in there.

After another quick nap, we set out for dinner at the Le Toqué Restaurant on Metz’s rue Taison. This whole street is cute, because it is devoted to the Graouilly. “Graouilly” is another Lorraine word designed to keep Parisians in the dark about what is being talked about.

“Graouilly” is Lorraine-speak for “dragon.” All the store signs suspended over the streets feature a dragon in them. The Lorraine legend says that Metz’s first bishop Saint Clément (third century C.E.) killed the graouilly that represented the pagan faith. The people of Lorraine demonstrate their subtle sense of humor when they joke about the graouilly.

When I first came to Metz, the newspapers were reporting that excavations for an underground parking garage had to be stopped, so a team of archaeologists could be called in to examine the graouilly bones. Since I was a Parisian at the time, I had no idea what a graouilly was; Lorraine-speak worked that day when the American Parisian, asked herself, “I wonder what era those bones are from?” 

Now, I am somewhat in the know for the meaning of graouilly and la migaine at least.

Quiche was not on the menu for the evening though; that is lunch food. We began our meal in this cozy, little restaurant with Kir. The Kir was made with Bourgogne-aligote and black currant liqueur. I had not had one in seven years and it tasted just fine on a cold, drizzly night in Metz.

We began our meal with an appetite teaser soup made of butter, cream, and mushrooms. It was hard to keep track of what everyone ate as I sipped a generous glass of Grès Saint Paul – a nice wine from Burgundy.

I remember that I started with a terrine “d’autrefois.” The words “d’autrefois” signals that your French grandmother would make a terrine like this. I know what goes into a pork terrine, but just enjoy the pork mixture and the creamy white stuff that holds it together.

Next I had a souris d’agneau with ratatouille and puréed potatoes. A “souris” in culinary terms is not the critter you chase around the kitchen, but what appears to be the meat on a foreleg. The Grès Saint Paul from Burgundy went well with the lamb with its berry flavors.

For dessert, I had a crème brulée made with mirabelle, the yellow Lorraine plum for which the Lorraine is famous. Mirabelle plums are turned into a strong eau-de-vie in the Lorraine. It is this eau-de-vie that flavored the crème brulée with a savory finish in the mouth.

Coffee followed with a morsel of chocolate. Countries with a Germanic past or influence always serve chocolate with their coffee.

Snow began fall as we walked back home and continued as we drove through tunnel after tunnel in the mountains around Saarbrucke, Germany. Trucks from Spain, Slovenia, and Poland threw ice from their roofs onto us and made driving a real thrill.
I thought of how pretty Metz would look in the snow. 

Despite its natural beauty, Metz failed to achieve status as a World Heritage Site the first time they applied I think, because they focused on its Imperial Germanic architecture and military structures. Metz’s role as a pioneer in urban ecology might earn them the World Heritage Site designation, if they try again. It is always worth a shot to try; nothing ventured, nothing gained.

By Ruth Paget, Author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Visiting the Alps and Mozart Sites in Salzburg (Austria) with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Visiting the Alps and Mozart Sites in Salzburg (Austria) by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Heading into Austria from the Southern Bavarian region of Germany into the undulating Alpine foothills of the Austrian Tirol region makes for a pleasant afternoon drive.

As my husband and I passed over the Innsbrücke, the bridge of the Inn River, I noticed that the water beneath us was almost touching the bottom of the bridge. 

A little further inland, we passed the Űbersee (Super Lake). The water of the Űbersee was high up on its banks, but many people were grabbing the opportunity to go out in their sailboats.

This was the first time that I had visited the Alps, which make up most of the topography of Austria. I took multiple photographs of the soaring craggy Alps, but kept asking myself, “Where’s the snow on top of those mountains?” Alpine flowers grew above the tree line, but snow should have been where those flowers were.

When we arrived in downtown Salzburg, the water in the Salzach River was swelling up to almost churning with its rapid fire current. We enjoyed the sights as we drove along the Salzach River on Müllner Street to Old Town (Altstadt).

UNESCO has classified Old Town Salzburg as a World Heritage Site, leaving it crammed with tourists. The buildings along Müllner Hauptstraat had entrances that opened up not onto a courtyard of a single building as in Paris, but courtyards with many buildings and shops. These single entrance mini-towns were equipped to help Salzburg, a salt mining center, fend off invasion.

We parked the car by the courthouse and enjoyed walking to the Mozartplatz (Mozart Place) and listened to part of a free concert by a live orchestra of popular music. We ate lunch at a nice, outdoor café away from the hubbub, but close enough to hear the music; I ate a Greek salad and my husband had spaghetti alla carbonara.

We crossed the Nonntaler Brücke and walked along the Imbergstrasse, full of Baroque buildings. 

Austria shares a border with Italy. According to the Michelin Green Guide, the prince-archbishops of Salzburg “essentially dreamed of making [Salzburg] into a second Rome.” (p.57) The Austrians beat the Italians at the Baroque architecture game, because the painted limestone of Austria articulates architectural structure and details better than the polished yet mottled surface of marble used to construct many Italian buildings.

The Austrians used restraint in painting their buildings in pastel colors to accentuate an architrave here or an entire wall there, leaving white surfaces to bring out the straight lines of Doric columns, for example.

Another architectural triumph of the Austrians is to make architectural features protrude in relief as necessary to define symmetrical relationships between surfaces. You can look at the exterior of an Austrian Baroque building and almost know how the interior is designed. Finally, the pastel colors play off the soft hues of flowers in summer and glisten in the bright, snow-covered Alps in the winter.

While my husband walked on to the Mozart House, I sat by the Salzach River on a shaded bench and looked over at the Hohensalsburg Fortress and the Dom (Cathedral). I used to love walking around towns and cities, visiting every church that was open in my path. 

I have had an interest in religious iconography since I was nine when I started reading everything I could on Egypt; I wanted to be an archaeologist. Sculptures, in particular, can relate the hidden beauty of many of the world’s religions.

Mozart’s religious and secular music still beguiles us. Yet the architecture of Baroque Salzburg that Mozart grew up with is what influences Mozart’s music the most I think and makes it appealing to contemporary listeners.

Mozart’s music calms one down to listen to it, so that listeners can find the organization in it and focus. The symmetrical buildings of Baroque Salzburg with rooms defined and articulated on building exteriors by color and relief seem to have helped Mozart create equally mathematically satisfying music.

I wonder if Mozart did not compose music for his favorite buildings in Salzburg and Vienna.

By Ruth Paget, Author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Visiting 13th Century Rothenburg (Germany) with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Visiting 13th Century Rothenburg-ob-der-Tauber with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget 

My husband Laurent and I set out for Rothenburg in Bavaria, Germany and ended up admiring the ride through Baden-Wurttemberg region as well.  Baden-Wurttemberg is a very diversified region. We started out by driving through the edge of the Schwarzwald (Black Forest), which is actually dark blue and green.

There are homes along the way in Baden-Wurttemberg that resemble Swiss Chalets. I kept expecting Snow White and the Seven Dwarves to pop out of these houses at any moment. The houses have extremely slanted roofs, so that snow will fall off them easily. Many of the roofs are covered with solar panels. The Germans use every resource available to them.

There are huge, modern white windmills with three propellers capturing energy made by the wind all along the autobahn to Rothenburg – another tapped into resource. You can also see town gardens every now and then along the autobahn. Apartment dwellers in cities have the right to a plot of land for gardening in Germany.

Baden-Wurttemberg is also home to many vineyards on its hilly slopes. There is even a town called Weinsberg on the way to Rothenburg. Vineyards run over every hill (the best wine is grown on slopes). The place reminds me of Burgundy in France, but on a larger scale. The varietal grown is Riesling, which is drunk in its preferred semi-dry state by Germans.

Once you reach Weinsberg, you are at the border of the Bavaria region. This region resembles the wine region of Baden-Wurttemberg, but the land is dedicated to agriculture. The soil here is dark, black, and moist earth. Snow and rain make Germany agriculturally productive and verdantly green in spring and summer.

Rothenburg’s nooks and crannies are all postcard photos waiting to be taken in this medieval town, beginning with the crenellated towers topped with turrets above the gates opening into this walled city above the Tauber River.

We walked through the cobbled streets, taking pictures of the signs hanging over the streets of pretzels at the baker’s shops and dragons at the taverns. The gabled homes are painted in pastel colors. Other homes have criss-crossing timber designs while even more homes feature a mixture of pastel colors and timber. Coats-of-arms are sculpted right onto the walls of the more well-to-do residences.

The St. Jakobskirche (Saint Jacob’s Church) dates from the fourteenth century and has several sculptures depicting Santiago de Compostela pilgrims. There is even a statue of a Santiago de Compostela pilgrim in front of the church, wearing the typical wide-brimmed hat with a string to protect against the sunlight and rain.

The church documentation did not say if the church was a pilgrimage route to Compostela or not, but the presence of these statues suggests that it was. The art insider’s secret to identifying a Santiago de Compostela pilgrim is the presence of scallop shells.

Across from the church, we went to a local family restaurant located in a hotel called the Reichs Kuchenmeister. A beautiful wood interior with planters of flowers and upholstered booths awaited us. 

Three generations of Bavarian families sat at tables around the restaurant. Beautifully dressed and coiffed children conversed easily with grandparents and parents as they sat up straight with elbows off the table and ate with their fork in the left hand and knife in the right.

We hung up our coats on the coat rack; you always hang up your on the coat rack in Germany and never place it on your chair. It is considered uncouth to do otherwise.

We ordered the three-course menu and red wine. The wine was actually called schwarzriesling, or black Riesling. I am not sure how this wine is made – if it’s a mixture of varietals or a single varietal called schwarzriesling. In any case, the wine tasted of raspberries. The wine was served in what I thought were oversized glasses until the seductive perfume of the raspberries wafted over to me before I even picked up the glass. 

“Oh, this is going to be good!” I thought to myself. The wine was excellent with the duck we had as our main course.

To begin our meal, though, we started with a white wine soup with lebkuchen croutons. Lebkuchen is German for gingerbread. Nuremburg, which is right up the autobahn form Rothenburg, is famous for its lebkuchen. The lebkuchen of Rothenburg is pretty good, too, especially on top of white wine soup.

Our second course was duck breast braised in red wine sauce. The fat on the duck breast was deliciously crunchy despite the braising. I love duck breast especially when it comes in beautifully fanned out slices, but I was bowled over by the gorgeous side dishes that came with this meal.The first side dish that impressed me was the baked apple half topped with a sweet not tart cranberry sauce that left the fruit intact.

Next came the Bavarian dumpling made from flour. Dumplings are made from flour in southern Germany where the soil is rich. In northern Germany where the soil is poorer, dumplings are made from potatoes. The delicate texture of the dumpling melted in my mouth especially as I used pieces of it to soak up the wine sauce.

Once I finished the braised duck breast and wine, I served myself some braised red cabbage. I thought this would be sour, but instead it was sweet and savory at the same time. I just let it unctuously melt in my mouth. Cabbage cuts the grease in duck and makes it more digestible. There are all sorts of culinary secrets like this in gastronomy, but they take a few decades to learn.

Dessert was a light treat. We ate a rum-laced gelato that topped tart apple sauce. Coffee followed and was served with a small chocolate morsel like they do in all countries with a Germanic influence. This Bavarian meal was equal to and superior to many of the meals that I ate in French restaurants during the seven years that I lived there.

More walking around town ensued with a walk back to the car along the ramparts high above the Tauber River. The day was overcast and the mist rose off the Tauber River just like the sfumato in da Vinci paintings. Rothenburg is Germany’s medieval gem.

By Ruth Paget, Author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Laurent Paget Photography

Laurent Paget Photography

Laurent Paget Photography

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