What a month!

After a month of non-stop going I am enjoying a few down days before the fun starts again!

The last week of September I was off to Belfast for the Society of Archivists Conference and annual general meeting.  I took the train up which was really a nice experience and let me see a bit of the countryside. I had forgotten it was a bank holiday in the UK (of which Northern Ireland is part) on the Monday I arrived and I have to say it really did seem like a ghost town.  I had arrived the day before the conference so I could do a little touring about and walked from one end of the town to the other.  I did a boat tour of the harbor ad saw the areas where the Titanic was built as well as the botanic gardens and city hall. 

The conference itself was very interesting and different than those is the states. Each "session" has 3 speakers, but there are no breaks so it makes it difficult to mix & match conference sessions.  Also, everyone goes to lunch, tea, dinner in one big group - a bit too much togetherness for me.

I ended up coming back a day early since I got a second interview for a position at the National Gallery of Ireland - still waiting to hear....

The next day we were off to Germany!  There is so much we did I will just highlight a bit here....

We met Reeves's parents in Dusseldorf and saw his old house which is now an Italian restaurant!  We did a bit of touring about, saw the area where his old school was (now a whole new complex of building) and then went to dinner in the altstadt (old town) at a restaurant which they used to frequent 25 years ago.  Some good traditional German food to start the trip.

 Reeves Family's old house - now an Italian restaurant

We had a bit of a misadventure on our way to the Harz mountains.  While zipping along on the autobahn our car started loosing power and we were forced to pull over and wait almost 3 hours for a tow truck to rescue us and get us to a new car.  We had to be delivered to the nearest airport to pick up a new car because it was a Sunday of a holiday weekend - not the easiest when you are trying to get things accomplished. 

Our broken down Peugeot - if you are offered one as a rental - JUST SAY NO! (even the rental agent said this!)

So we ended up getting into our hotel just in time to celebrate our 12th wedding anniversary dinner a bit weary but no worse for wear.

We stayed in the tiny town of Ilsenburg, which was a nice central spot to visit the scenic town around the area.  Our first day was spent in Goslar, the town were my family called home over 100 years ago.  My great-great-grandfather was a master gun-maker here in the late 19th Century and his wife and children came over to America in 1909 after he had passed away.  It was a picture-perfect town which had been untouched by the bombs of WWII and its 14th-16th Century building had been beautifully restored.  It was fascinating to think my family had walked these same streets, gazed upon the same churches and lived their lives in this perfect little town.

 Overlooking the town of Goslar      Us in the town square of Goslar with the Rathaus (city hall) behind

To break up all the touring we took a half day hike the the Harz national park.  Gorgeous deciduous forest with wonderful varieties of wild mushroom and blackberries everywhere.  While we didn't try the mushrooms, the berries were delicious! The afternoon was then spent in the town of Werigerode, another charming town whose town square was bustling with a local market day. 

On a side note, the hotel in which we stayed was very charming.  The breakfasts & dinners were taken in this wonderful glassed conservatory overlooking the lake on which the hotel was situated.  Our room was on the top floor which was set into the roof line with 2 dormer doors, also looking over the lake.  While we had to watch our heads so we wouldn't run into the 300 year old beams running through the floor to the roof peak.

Our hotel in Ilsenburg -  Zu den Rothen Forellen

The next day we were off to Hamburg. What an interesting town and much larger than I expected. We took a boat tour of the gigantic and active port. A statistic they told us was that a ship comings into a port in Long Beach would take 5 days to turn around (unload and load) and only 12 hours in Hamburg! They didn't say why this is (security, unions, etc.) but it did underscored the efficiency.

In the courtyard of the Rathaus in Hamburg

Our hotel in Hamburg was quite a treat - it was the Hotel Abtei and is a converted stately home which was furnished with real antiques. It had a Michelin starred restaurant that seated only about 10 people.  We had a wonderful and lavish dinner there one evening.  The breakfasts too were quite elaborate with silver teapots and Christophe flatware.

The front elevation of Hotel Abtei in Hamburg  The sitting room which is attached to the dining room

Reeves and his mother, Rhea, at cocktails before our dinner at Hotel Abtei

Our next destination was Lubeck, northeast of Hamburg and built on an island.  Greatly influenced by maritime production, being set close to the Baltic Sea, we had a fun dinner at the Shiffergesellschaft, a place which still hold meetings of the shipbuilder's guilds.  The building was spared the WWII bombs (unlike 1/3 of the island) and is over 350 years old.

A view of the ceiling of the Shiffergesellschaft and the model ships - the oldest dating to 1607

En route to Berlin we stopped by the beach to see the Baltic sea and for me to collect a single seashell to add to my collect. There were the most charming wicker beach chairs punctuating the sand, but it seemed far too cold, even in the brilliant sunlight, to ever imaging this as a "seaside" resort.

 Seaside at Travemunde on the Baltic Sea

We spent the rest of the day at the town of Schwerin and their castle - amazing afternoon with a brilliant blue sky punctuated by fluffy white clouds - quite the backdrop to photograph the castle set on an island.

Schwerin castle in the glorious afternoon sunlight

Berlin was our last destination and we arrive just in time for dinner at the hotel.  Reeves and I had only one full day in Berlin as real life was waiting, but Reeves's parents stayed on for a week of lectures and tours. 

A soggy morning at the Brandenburg Gate - can you see the rain on Reeves's glasses?

The day we were there it poured rain in the morning which after a quick run by the Reichstag and Brandenburg Gate, drove us into the German History Museum.  Just opened a couple years ago in what was former East Berlin, this is one of the best museum displays which I have ever seen.  Germany, obviously, has a very turbulent and tragic history, especially in the past 100 years and the philosophy behind the collection was not to dictate a point of view, but present evidence which asks questions of history and the viewer so they can conclude their own ideas and "truth". The collection was also a great combination of textual documentation interspersed with physical objects - I have never seen such a collection which draws so heavily on its written archival  history. Definitely a must see if you are in the Berlin area.

It was a very fun and busy trip and has inspired me to start reading more of my German history.