Rails, wines, worlds

The Strahov Monastery, Prague

Monasteries have libraries – sometimes more, sometimes less flashy. But often suitably grand environments for books that deserve the best. In Prague, the Strahov monastery has a couple of nice library halls, one for philosophy from the late 18th century, and one for theology from the 1670s (philosophy on the below left, theology on the right).

Below is a facsimile featuring the historical silhouette of Prague in 1493 (left) and an excessively ornamented cover of the Strahov evangeliary worked on between 9th and 16th centuries (below right).

Below left a medieval gothic Saint Catherine later used (after 1498) as an inside cover of an early printed volume (incunable), and a pontifical with an illustration showing kneeling Emperor Charles IV and bishop Albrecht (right).

The monastery was founded in 1140 when some Premonstratensians were invited from Germany to set it up (the medieval appearance is below left). As monasteries go, the cloisters is not particularly impressive (below right).

The current church interior is baroque (below left and right).

The winter (left) and summer (right) refectories were more elaborate than your usual workplace canteen.

The library has had some setbacks in its history, as the Hussites burned the books and artefacts, and the Swedes looted everything again during the Thirty Year War. It was moved to the National Library in the 1940s and returned to the re-established monastery after 1989.

Ceský Krumlov: A castle for many seasons

The rich are different from us – and were even more so in the past. Now they only have more money but in old times they had privileges – they struck their own money, had their own bearpit, and maintained their own army units.

The castle at Ceský Krumlov has belonged to a series of noble families, the Rosenbergs, the Eggenbergs and the Schwarzenbergs. When one family died out, the property was given to or inherited by another. The owners’ coats of arms decorate the walls (below left), if there isn’t something more elaborate on them (below right, the ballroom).

The bear pit comes from an attempt to tie the Rosenberg family to the Italian Orsinis (ursus – bear). The Orsinis were supposedly related to ancient Roman aristocracy, and in this way the Rosenbergs hoped to enrich their lineage. Consequently, the rooms are covered with many a bear skin, and the pit still has three live inhabitants (below left). The Schwarzenbergs featured on their own coinage (an imperial taler with a Schwarzenberg below right).

The uniform of the Schwarzenberg Guard is below left, naturally in the house colours of blue and white. All the three families were close to the Emperor, which means that you had to show it with your decorations – all three were knights of the Golden Fleece (below right).

Furthermore, the house saints are still present. Unfortunately the older St. Reparata (below left) looks like something from the adventures of Tintin, but the newer reliquary of St Callixtus at the altar of the main chapel is a bit more high-class affair (below right).

For entertainment you needed a theatre – this is one of the oldest in Europe (below left, in the building behind the courtyard). And in this part of the world, a brewery was naturally a must (below rght).

But even being filthy rich did not protect you from the vicissitudes of the 20th century. The Schwarzenberg properties were confiscated by Gestapo and nationalised by the Czechoslovak government after the war.

Wroclaw, gnomes and all

As befits a city in a region that has a colourful history, Wroclaw has had its share of overlords. Besides Poland (kingdom and republic), also Bohemia, Hungary, Austria, Prussia and Germany have ruled it. Thus it is befitting that it is still disputed whether the name comes from a Bohemian duke (Vratislav), or somebody else with the same name.

The gnomes? They started to appear some time ago and now have become an integral part of the townscape. In particular, younger citizens have maps that they can use to spot as many as they can.

The churches of the Baroque era reflect the need of the counter-reformation to impress the faithful. The chapels of the Wroclaw cathedral confirm this (below).

Wroclaw also has a series of islands on the river Oder, and after the Second World War there was some discussion among the Allies whether the German-Polish border should go along this part of the Oder instead of the current delineation (the river with the cathedral below left).

The university also reflects the city’s history. The current main building was constructed in the first half of the 18th century to house the Jesuit Leopoldina Academy (established in 1702). It became the Friedrich Wilhelm Silesian University in 1811 and Wroclaw Univesrsity in 1945 (below).

Jagellonian University

A clock that plays Gaudeamus Igitur with an academic procession, or a chocolate bar from 1787, anybody? Old universities have their curiousities, and the Jagellonian University founded in Kraków in 1364 by Casimir III has more than most.

To satisfy your curiousity, the chocolate block was made to honour the visit of King Stanislaus August Poniatowski (perhaps he did not like chocolate, as it is still there, below left). Had he fancied it, he could have enjoyed it in the Stuba Communis from the mid-15th century that served as the meeting and dining area of the professors living in the building (below right).

The central campus has been built around the Collegium Maius, from the 14th century (the courtyard is below). The courtyard includes the musical clock that provides the performance.

The current clock is the fourth, and after the introductory Gaudeamus Igitur, plays a court tune from mid-16th century while an academic procession of figurines moves past. This includes a bedel with the usual staffs in front (below left), Queen Jadwiga and King Ladislaus (below middle), a couple of other notables and the Rector Magnificus with his chains (below right).

Notable alumni of the university include Copernicus, four Nobel laureates and pope John Paul II. The Jagellonian Hall (below) honours professors and alumni alike.

From the scrapheap of Berlin history

Berlin is well-known to have an overload of history. In fact, so much that some of it has been cleaned away to the cupboards. One such is in the Spandau Zitadelle, where unwanted statues have found their last resting place. Here we have a whole range of medieval knights, Prussian electors and kings, assorted supporting characters, and a selection of baddies from the DDR times.

Doria Pamphilj – An embarrassment of riches

The Palazzo Doria Pamphilj is the largest in Rome still in private ownership. The family has its roots in Genoa and have appeared in history under various guises. They fought for the French at the battle of Crécy, led Genoa (Andrea Doria), had the papacy (Innocent X), and were princes of the Holy Roman Empire (Reichsfürst, seen below left). A later descendant became the mayor of Rome after liberation in 1944.

The palazzo reflects the riches gathered along the way. If you are the pope, you need a portrait painted by Velasquez (above right) – and your bust by Bernini (below left). Of course, no self-respecting princely family can be without the mummified corpse of the family saint in the family chapel (below right).

Names hanging on the walls include Rafael, Filippo Lippi, Caravaggio, Titian and Pieter Bruegel, among others. And there are a lot of walls (below).

Of course, a couple of rooms full of antique statues is a must (below left). In the private apartments you need a bathroom with a very large ‘bathtub’ – they hadn’t invented jacuzzi when this was built (below right). To ensure the preservation of these riches, they are managed by a foundation – conveniently, this also keeps any possible future black sheeps of the family from laying their hands on the artistic heritage.

Exhibiting Vermeer

Usually, when museums stage exhibitions of Johannes Vermeer, they are built around a few paintings by him and complemented with other genre paintings from the Dutch golden era. This is because there are only 37 known Vermeer paintings, and it is difficult to build a one-man show. Thus the 2021 Dresden exhibition was built around the restored ‘Girl reading a letter‘ (below left), and the Dublin/Washington/Paris exhibition of 2017 covered the other masters of the genre painting besides Vermeer (with eight of his paintings, including the ‘Milkmaid’, below right).

Now Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam has managed to gather 28 Vermeers into one blockbuster exhibtion (the attribution of one of the paintings is suspect). Such is the popularity of the Dutch golden era art that although the exhibition is open until 4 June, it has been sold out.

After visiting, it must be said that the Rijksmuseum has managed the arrangements very well – there was no need to queue, there was enough space around the pictures for people to see and move around, and the number of visitors around was reasonable (below).

Vermeer is particularly popular as he manages to combine the sense of an acutely observed reality with the feeling of fiction and stories lurking behind the carefully constructed scenes – without ever explaining or preaching. Thus the interpretation of the story is left to the viewer. Below are the ‘Girl with a pearl earring‘ and the ‘Geographer‘.

This feasibility of open interpretation, and the fact that Vermeer is such a well-known part of the canon of Western art, have made it attractive for other artists to make references to Vermeer and expect the viewers to make the connection. As an example, below are the Vermeer and an interpretation of it by the Finnish artist Kaj Stenvall (1999) – all interpretations are left to the viewer.

Cape Horn, Beagle Channel and the Chilean Fjords

Cape Horn is the famous southernmost point of South America, the meeting point of Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. It is named after the city of Hoorn in the Neherlands by Willem Schouten and Jacob Le Maire who sailed around it in 1616. Even though it is notorious for stormy seas, strong winds, currents and icebergs, this time the sea was was calm (below).

The 240 km long Beagle Channel was named after HMS Beagle that surveyed it in 1826-1830. The Beagle carried onboard also Charles Darwin, who saw glaciers for the first time and praised their beauty. However, since those days the glaciers in the so-called Chilean Fjords have diminished considerably. Below, a glacier turning into a waterfall.

The Chilean fjords and channels were explored in colonial time by the Spaniards seeking to Christianise the local indigenous people (Chono, Alacalufe and Yaghan).

The channels are used by ships in order to avoid the frequent heavy weather in the Drake Channel south of Cape Horn. Some still do not make it.

Puerto Williams founded in 1953, is the capital of the Chilean Antarctic Province, a naval base, and the center of the region (below).

The rapidly changing weather creates fascinating light and cloud effects throughout the region.

Port Lockroy, Antarctica

Port Lockroy is a former British base on a postage stamp-sized island off the larger Wiencke island on the West coast of Antarctica. The bay was discovered in 1904 and named after Edouard Lockroy, a French politician helping to fund the French Antarctic Expedition.

It has been renovated over the years since 1996, and is now a historical site administered by UK Antarctic Heritage Trust, with a museum reflecting its time as a base between 1944 and 1962.

In the summer when cruise tourists come, the site is manned by a few people tending the museum, shop, and post office.

Otherwise the site has been taken over by gentoo penguins and skuas (below right).

As there was still snow on the ground, the penguins had not yet been able to lay their eggs, but were busy collecting stones (below left) from the water’s edge using the ’penguin highways’ they have created on the snow (below right).

Andvord Bay and Paradise Bay, Antarctica

Andvord Bay (64° 50’ S, 62° 33’ W) on the Antarctic peninsula was again discovered by the Belgian Antarctic Expedition of 1897-1899 under Adrien de Gerlach. It was named after Rolf Andvord, the Belgian consul in Christiania (Oslo) at the time. The adjoining Paradise Bay was named by whalers around 1920.