The Beautiful University City Erlangen

 

Today I visited Erlangen by train.

The strange photo above shows a reflection in a shopwindow:  Erlangen, a venerable old university city, at the moment presents the "International Comic Salon" - the biggest German Comic Festival with more than 25.000 visitors, exhibitions and readings - and many young people dressed up as Anima or Manga figures.  

Erlangen and I: Long time no see - too much moving house, too many (wonderful) family news - thus I had almost forgotten how vivid this city is. Soon I will give you a deeper impression with historical and architectural details - Erlangen in the Free State of Bavaria was first mentioned anno 1002 - but today I only went to the famous "Trempelmarkt" - a flea market, where I bought some books and two pictures (done in the Forties). 

Snowdrops and daisies - the third, lily of the valley was "snatched" right before my eyes. 😊

Both are beautifully framed, but I cannot manage to give you a better picture or turn it into the right position, sorry.

They are drawings by Elsa Beskow, a Swedish illustrator of children books (1874 - 1953) - my paintings are a bit faded in colours. 

After that I discovered a beautiful tea shop where you could sit outside in the welcome shade of a backyard, with many English roses. 

I am so happy that now I discovered a city of beauty, youth and luxury! Only one hour away with the train! 

 

Megalomania

 

Here you see an opened box that's filled with (some of) my dreams. And "expansive delusions" - the most appropriate word I could find. 

Garden dreams. 

This box contains masses of seed packets witt luring pictures of wonderful flowers - inside: seeds. 

Why "expansive" delusions? Well: nowadays I have only a balcony. (Soon I will have two, but that's another story.) 

Many of the seeds I bought are older than a year - dreams need time to grow. And the thought of the Pharaoh's Tombs, where seeds were found that germinated after thousands of years, fills me with hope. 

The "Historic Sweet Peas" - in keeping with their high price - bear beautiful names: for example "Miss Willmott", who was a wonderful very eccentric gardener who spent her immense fortune on her gardens - cautiously I only bought one packet of seeds. Ellen's passion for gardens and plants ruined her fortune - and Warley Place, her English Garden, detoriated.  

Speaking of expansive delusions: even as I still worked in my big garden in Hildesheim, all those different plant-beauties together in that box wouldn't have found enough place to grow. 

And I had no gardeners. 

Different from Miss Willmott: she employed up to 104 gardeners! 

"and was known for being a demanding employer; she would reputedly sack any gardener who allowed a weed to grow among her flowers". Ha! 

Voorlinden Museum (Main course): Stilte in de Storm

 STILTE IN DE STORM - Silence in the storm 

We all know "the calm before the storm". The exhibition organisers of this exhibition in Voorlinden say that who will defy a storm must step into it - "The place where calm reigns and brightness (transparency) originates". 

It makes me think of my highly beloved story by Tove Jansson: "The Filifjonka who loved catastrophes". (Please, please read it, if you can find it!)

The exhibition asks you "to set the world on pause, step into the eye of the storm" - and feel what happens to you inside. 

Above you see the gorgeous work "L'Addition" by Elmgreen & Dragset - 1961 &1968, Denmark& Norway.

Loneliness, man and nature, tracks we leave after us - a very impressive installation. 

Arturo Herenandez Alcázar (1978)

Mexico Black Kites 

The artist shows us the violence that swept over Mexico by drug-cartels. An interesting story behind that. 

Claire Tabouret (1981)

"Weaving Waters, Weaving Gestures"

Above you see a woven tapestry "The Blue Sentinels" (I hope that I am correct here).

These are only a few samples from the exhibition - and of course there were the beloved art pieces that are always there: 

Leandro Erlich (1073): 

Swimming Pool (2016)

which you can enter without getting wet, look up and see visitors as if you dived into a pool. Stunning! 

For me there was another kind of art that remains too: 

A view from inside out into the beautiful park. 

PS: I almost forgot to mention the following installation: 

Marina Abramovic (1946):

Counting the Rice 

You as a visitor could be part of it - You get a lab coat and noise-cancelling earphones, 500 gram lentils and rice, an hour and a task: to count them. 

Now: being a grandmother with a wide knowledge of fairy tales, of course it reminded me instantly of ??? 

You will have the answer! 

 

The museum Voorlinden (hors d'oeuvre)

 For a wonderful week I was in the Netherlands. And it was sunny!! I had the chance to bath in culture! 

E.g. we visited Voorlinden (Wassenaar, near Den Haag) - the museum which always entchants me. The modern building is surrounded by a beautiful garden designed by the internationally famous garden architect Piet Oudolf. Three seasons in the year this garden is blooming! 

I think it is a sympathic trait that most Dutch people are very fond of eating and conviviality - "gezelligheid" - and they not only call delicious eating "lekker!" (which means "yummy!") but people, situations, things or conversations are "lekker!" too. 

Thus we visited the Landhuis Restaurant first, a pure English brick manor house (1912),  part of the Voorlinden country estate of  40 hectare. R.J.Johnston built it together with the geometric garden. 

We got a very refined version of the Dutch Apple tart - an ignoramus might  say: "very manageable" - it was the first time that I met this tiny sister of my beloved  common Nederlandse apple tart (which is so satisfying, especially topped with cream on the huge cake slice).   The sophisticate and very delicious petiteness is only topped by its  price.   

The museum Voorlinden was opened in September 2016 by King Wilhelm Alexander. 

Come on, stroll with me the few steps from the manor house to the fascinating modern architecture of light!   

I'll add another blog, "Morsels of literature"

 "Again: a new blog!", you might think, and "How long will she do it this time?" 

Well - I read a lot and sometimes want to share it with you. I am not very versed in making up a new website - I made a mistake and wrote "morselsofgermanliterature.blogspot.com" - though I will choose from every literature that pleases me. But I don't know how to change the once installed web address. Thus I started with a book I find really funny - and think that Raymond Briggs in that morsel is talking about the difficulties of "Digitalis". 

Enjoy! 

Snowdrops and I - we both have stamina!

 

Every year I am looking for the first (wild) snowdrops. 

By now I know where to find them. 

 

The snow has gone (and I am not that sorry about ist), this year it seemed  to me the longest winter we ever had. Though I know that we still are in February, and anything can happen. 

Though I love winter. My birthday at the 29th of December. 

I have very early memories of winter: 

when my sister was born - she is three years younger than I - my parents brought me to a village nearby to enable my mother to recover from birth - it turned out as not such a bright idea, as I didn't know the people where I should stay. 

I was crying and yelling all of the time, and at last, to appease me, they went out and fetched some snow in a tin, and I see still the moon standing in the sky, feel the cold and the smell of snow - and they put it on a red glowing old stove and I watched the drops dancing on the iron rings on the stove and heard the hissing of the melting snow. 

When it stopped I started crying again. 

I had stamina. 

More than the grown-ups. 

 

Finally, in sheer exasperation, one of the grown-ups brought me back to my parents, with the very last bus. 

 

 

 

Winter in Bavaria - without (many) Words

 

                                                        My balcony (with hope for spring - look at the tag)

                                                          My car  (make an educated guess!)

                                                      View from my parlour

                                                   View from my kitchen window (ravishing!)

View of the landscape 

The Berliner Fernsehturm as Model

 Dear You, 

the world seems to become crazier every day - though a glimpse into literature or history books will show us that "There is nothing new under the sun" (with the huge difference that now WE are afflicted...) 

Sometimes afflicted in a way that I can not imagine - think of Yael - I can only helplessly feel and pray for her. 

And I feel a bit ashamed about moaning in my blog about petitetesses, everyday catastrophes like power cuts or snow in masses. 

But that is my life. 

In the picture above you see my cozy Danish lamp, an orchid that will flower (again!) soon, AND if you are very attentive: a ravishing model of my great friend, THE point of orientation in Berlin: the Berliner  Fernsehturm - Berlin's television tower. 

The real one is with 368 meters the highest building in Germany, built in 1969 in East Berlin. The copy above I found on a flea market in Berlin (and willingly paid a lot) - an original, one of the models that were sold on the day of the opening of the Fernsehturm. 

You can use it as a lamp, too!  Though, come to think of it: I will - after one test - not try it again - my last personal power cut is too fresh in my mind...      

"Dancing in the Dark" by and with Bruce Springsteen - because of the electricity cut in my house!

 

IF - and that is really seldom the case - IF in the morning I do not feel like a Mexican spring bean, I have a magic cure: I watch this video and 

                             AM ALIVE! INSTANTLY! 

So sexy. So vivid. So young! 

Last week I could only dance in the dark. 3 evenings & 3 nights I had a veritable blackout in my Bavarian apartment.  

Two electricians tried to find the fault - no way. 

People joked: I just had arrived from Berlin - where (maybe even the International Press has reported it) around Christmas our Capital Berlin had for more than 4 days a total blackout concerning 49.000 people; old ones, sick ones, little babies - no heating, no warm water, no electricity for cooking, no light. Hospitals had to be evacuated, sports halls were opened to give warm shelter.   

Berlin once again learned how  very vulnerable we are - it was - not for the first time - the attack of an anarchic Left Group which calls itself Vulkangruppe, "fighting for the climate". (They shed a few crocodile tears because in one of the four affected quarters lived not "the rich" but poorer people).   

So my Bavarian blackout was harmless: thankfully the oil-heating worked, outside were minus 7 degrees! I was astonished how quickly I adapted to the situation: first night: utter chaos and confusion, second night: already prepared, torch beside my bed, coffee machine in the hall (because in the morning the electricity mysteriously worked again - though not in the kitchen), third night: I almost expected to live in this sort of routine for the rest of my life ...     :-) 

Well: now everything is working again - though nobody knew what had happened or WHY - the electricians are - metaphorically spoken - 

DANCING IN THE DARK! 

Now I Am Here - I Decided to Stay in Bavaria

 From Berlin... 

... to Bavaria:

Dear You, 

I hope you missed me a bit. I missed you.  

Moving from Berlin to Bavaria gave me a very hard time - sometimes I thought that it was too much and I would never make it, going over the top. 

For FOUR weeks I packed - all by myself - can you imagine that? 

I packed 124 removal crates. And (really!) lost my sense of time. 

Felt like King Barbarossa who sat banished in The Kyffhäuser Mountains - or like Rip van Winkle, who fell asleep for 20 years in the Catskill Mountains.  

My huge apartment in Berlin had 175 square meters. 

My "tiny" secondary home in Bavaria has about 80 square meters. 

Both homes were fully furnished by me...   

The worst was the choice what to keep and what should go to another place, that's why I had to do the packing all by myself. Of course I had hired (very expensive) movers - but they should not decide which Berlin books would accompany me to Bavaria. 

I felt like Hamlet - but instead of "To be or not to be?" you heard me mutter "To keep or not to keep?" 

My self-image became some deep dents. 

"Am I a hoarder? A pack-rat?" I spoke under my breath. 

In Berlin there were so many THINGS. Well: 175 square meters gave me widths and place. 

I packed for three destinations: 64 removal crates for my new home in Bavaria. Many many crates for my house in Hildesheim - the attic was my rescue. 

Here you see only a tiny part. 

(And I am no fool: deep down I know that what is there presumably will not be touched by me ...for a long time.. forever?) 

One day while packing I decided that 7 huge crates, filled with all the diaries of my life, should go to the attic in Hildesheim too. Was that wise? I don't know - but it too gives me a feeling of freedom. (And I can always carry them back 😊)

Many crates (mostly books and DVDs) went to my son & daughter-in-law in Bavaria. 

And many, many things I just gave away to people who wanted them. 

The worst beside packing was the horrible pressure: to know I had to be "ready", come what may, on the 12th of November. The day the movers would come with two very huge removal vans, so the flat had to be empty (and cleaned - have you ever cast an ashamed glimpse at the kitchen floor behind a stove or refrigerator had been moved after 15 years?) 

OH! Those beautiful tiles from 1902! Boo-hoo! 

Come on, Britta - get a hold of yourself! You were not forced to move - there was no other reason than your own decision to move - because it became a little bit tiring to run to and fro between Bavaria and Berlin! And YES: you pondered a long time, choosing between the capital of Germany, your DREAM-CITY since you were 14 - and your dear, dear triplet-grandchildren. 

Heart won. Reason too. 

I can rent a suite in the best hotel in Berlin for the money I will save now. And even I am not getting younger! I love my family. I can... Here I stop, don't want to bore you. 

I am happy. Exhausted, but happy. 

And that is a very good feeling. 

  

Yes, Nuremberg has decidedly a cheerful atmosphere...

 

... if one opens up to perceive it.  

I confess that maybe something "from a former life" (😄) hindered me to see that cheerful feature. Too much Middle Age atmosphere -  not for nothing also called the "dark age" - and while other people enjoyed the picturesque views and half-timber houses, I read the name of a beautiful bridge: "hangman's bridge", and that name was taken from real life...

 

So: I was biased and prejudiced. 

For a while - 

but I am still capable of learning. 

And thus I made a plan: 

To learn more about the city in my neighbourhood I took the list of 14 ice cream parlours and went on the last  beautiful and sunny Sunday of August to the number one "best ice cream"- winner of 2025: 

"Ice cream parlour" just as an aim to discover a part of Nuremberg that was unknown to me. 

It was lovely! And the surroundings so beautiful! Old houses from the time around 1902 - the quarter is called "Gärten hinter der Veste", which means Gardens behind the fortress - so: the Imperial castle. I talked with a couple enjoying their ice-cream - and learned a lot.  

Here you see an especially fine house there: 

So I am very eager to visit the other 13 ice cream parlours - widely scattered over unbeknownst (to me) Nuremberg. 

The tested ice cream was very good! 

 

"The Home as a Hobby"

"Nobody has the right to be bored in a half-made home. A home which is not a fair expression of us at our best, a home which lacks what it might have, a home which is in any part more ugly or in any part more uncomfortable than it absolutely need be , .. a home which cannot be run without waste, a home which by any detail gets on the nerves of its inhabitants and so impairs the harmony of their existence - something ought to be done about such a home... Why not make the perfect home a hobby?" 

If you asked yourself "Has dear Britta become lazy, uninterested in blogging, or - what the hell is she doing?" you will find an answer in the quote above. Arnold Bennett wrote 1924 an article (as part of a series "Making the Most of Life") for The Royal Magazine (the quote is by Sarah Ban Breathnach's book "Simple Abundance") 

It fits. As you know I have my "second home" in Bavaria, very near to the triplets, and I furnished it as a holiday flat - for me, quite nice, BUT... now I spend almost three quarter of my time here (one quart, though not even that each month, in Berlin). 

So I started to think. Looked around - and of course found many imperfections, but also good traits. 

Yesterday a painter came to give an estimate what it would cost to paint the ceiling of the parlours. (Painters are not easily to be lured into your home nowadays: as it is still summer they are painting the frontage of houses in powdered pastels as long as the weather permits..) 

I am really keen to know how much money it will cost - because I have only rented the flat, and if the white gloss hand painting will cost the equivalent of a gilding I will not do it. 

(Plan B: buying a beautiful costly lamp for the dining table - that would be mine IF I ever move, and much easier to be stored away than a ceiling in the unlikely event of moving again...   :-) 

PS: The charming picture above is an illustration by "Rico Puhlmann: Fashion Photography 50er - 90er" at the Helmut Newton Museum für Fotografie in Berlin - I enjoyed every minute there!