Author Archives: miladysboudoir

Die Marienkirche Lübeck

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Our walks through the alleys and courtyards and visits to the three houses with connections to Nobel prize winners only occupied the late afternoon on the day we arrived in Lübeck and the morning of the day we left. That left all of one day to visit a gallery, a museum and relax (yes, we did that as well!) on a river boat trip. On our final morning we also managed to fit in a visit to the huge and dominating St Maria Church (Die Marienkirche). And, would you believe, it is not the only vast church in Lübeck. Another day and we might have visited them all.

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Compton Village Circular Walk

Last August I visited Surrey on an Art Fund tour – Surrey Arts and Crafts. I only managed to write here about the afternoon we spent at the Landmark Trust property Goddards. But we did spend a whole day at Watts Gallery in Compton. The Artists’ Village is fascinating and includes an amazing amount of G F Watts and his wife Mary’s work.

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Lübeck : City of Nobel Prize Winners : Thomas Mann; Willy Brandt; Günter Grass

 

The excellent Buddenbrook Book Shop

Lübeck is proud to claim three Nobel Prize winners among its residents: Thomas Mann (1875-1955) Nobel Prize for Literature in 1929);  Willy Brandt (1913-1992) Nobel Peace Prize in 1971; and Günter Grass (born in Danzig in 1927 died Lübeck 2015) Nobel Prize for Literature in 1999. All three claim this Hanseatic city as their home. The writer Thomas Mann was born here and for the first 18 years of his life called this city on the river Trave his home. The politician Willy Brandt was also born in Lübeck and, similarly, spent his formative years in the Hanseatic city. The author Günter Grass moved to Lübeck at the age of 68 – to be, as he once stated, “closer” to Thomas Mann and Willy Brandt.

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Germany, Bornholm and Sweden : a quick resumé of a three week tour

Where to begin? Where to begin? I arrived home on Wednesday after my wonderful visit to Germany and Scandinavia and now comes the hardest part – sifting through photographs and deciding which to include and which to discard.

Here is just a taster selection and I hope to expand on some of the visits and walks during the next couple of weeks.

At Buddenbrooks House, Lübeck

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The Adventures of Milady in Rügen with Elizabeth von Arnim

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On Wednesday I start this summer’s “Big Adventure”. In 2013 I spent a month working at a B&B in Switzerland and last year and the year before I took myself off to Ireland for 4 weeks and 3 weeks successively. This year I’ll be travelling in Germany, Denmark and Sweden visiting Lübeck, the Baltic islands of Rügen and Bornholm, walking the Osterlen Way before finally spending two nights in the Swedish university city of Lund. Originally I had hoped to travel quite independently by ferry and car but there are no longer passenger car ferry services between the north of England and northern Germany or Scandinavia. I think there is still a service to Amsterdam but that is as far north in Europe as you can get these days. So, to save precious time, I’m flying to Hamburg and back from Copenhagen.

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The Singing Ringing Tree

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Yesterday I met my friend Ann at The Singing Ringing Tree. I had read about this sculpture or Panopticon, just over the border in Lancashire, in one of those magazines that you find in the pocket of your airline seat. It sounded fascinating. And indeed I can now say that it sounds fascinating too. The wind blows through the open pipes and amazingly creates music when you get close up to it (it’s a few 100 metres from the blustery car park).

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The Walled City of Girona

We spent the last two nights of our trip in Girona itself. We had booked an apartment which turned out to be ideally situated for the Historic Centre, grocery and bakery shops and actually faced the starting point of the Girona Walls Walk which had been highly recommended to us as the ideal introduction to the city.

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The Walls from our Balcony

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Spanish Signs

Another theme that seems to have come out from my photos is that of signs! I was very impressed by the footpath signage, and indeed by the paths themselves, throughout our walk. ATG devise their own distinctive (and copyright) routes but they do cross over with many local, national and even international footpaths. The GR route is one.

“The Grande Randonnée (French), Grote Routepaden or Lange-afstand-wandelpaden (Dutch), Grande Rota (Portuguese) or Gran Recorrido (Spanish) is a network of long-distance footpaths in Europe, mostly in France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Spain.” [source]

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