Malmo to Stockholm

A quiet day in Malmo yesterday, wandering through town and catching up on washing. It's not really a tourist town, but I think would be an easy place to live (apart from the winter weather!). 

It's a real garden city at this time of year. The sun was out, lots of picnics and celebrations in the parks, rent-a-boats on the canals, coffee in the gardens. Just lovely.

We're currently on the train to Stockholm, where it's apparently a balmy 17 degree max and raining, but I'm sure it'll be wonderful anyway.

Lubeck, Germany to Malmo, Sweden

I'm sitting in the lounge of an enormous car ferry for a restful 9 hour trip between Lubeck in Germany and Malmo in Sweden, and am finally catching up on the blog. Unfortunately it's been drizzling all day and there's not much to be seen of the coastline scenery we were hoping for.

We had our last night in Germany in the pretty medieval town of Lubeck. We only had a few hours so wandered round town in the afternoon, and then continued the multicultural theme and went to a Greek restaurant for dinner. Turned out to be in a street of restaurants where there was live music - not just a guy with a guitar, which is what we thought initially - but a full-on street party and sing along. John Denver, Neil Diamond. Country Road. Sweet Caroline. Four Non Blondes - hey, hey, hey, what's goin' on...... 😀 

As latecomers, though, we were seated inside. As the demand grew out in the street, the waiters kept picking up tables and chairs and moving them outside. The room got emptier and emptier until there were just two tables left inside (us and one other couple) and a great big empty space, with staff rushing past us, back and forth from the kitchen and out the door with half litres of beer balanced on trays.

Definitely a meal to remember.

We're not far out from Malmo now, with Denmark on the left. The rain has stopped so we're going to get some air. More to come in a few days...

More trains - on our way to Lubeck

St Jacob's Church, Lubeck

Late afternoon, Lubeck

Bridge between Copenhagen and Malmo

Malmo from the ferry

Berlin

An uneventful train trip to Berlin, thank goodness, and we're in a great little apartment right in the centre of town.

I found it hard to get a grip on this city though. It's edgy and eclectic and open-minded, full of restaurants and bars and shopping and things to do. But it's also a city that hasn't just acknowledged its dark history: the past is front and centre and on every street corner. The Berlin Wall is a tangible presence on street after street, its former route outlined in a double row of cobblestones that run under the traffic. Large portions of the wall still exist as living street art galleries, and the 'death strip' between East and West Berlin is now often parkland - sometimes memorial, sometimes petting zoo or volleyball court.

There are museums and memorials everywhere that unflinchingly tell the story of the Third Reich and the Holocaust. The Topography of Terror museum is on the very site of the Gestapo headquarters. The Jewish memorial covers nearly 20000 sq m, row after row of grey coffin-shaped slabs that you can easily get lost in. 

So it's kind of a confronting place to visit in a lot of ways, and many of the things we did still had a connection to the city's history. We did a bike tour this followed the route of the Wall, and saw an incredible art installation at Checkpoint Charlie (every photo of which is dominated by the McDonalds in the background) that put us 4m high on scaffolding and gave a realistic impression of looking from West Berlin over the wall into the death strip and the East. 

We did an underground tour that took us into an air raid shelter beneath a subway station, where thousands of Berliners took shelter before and during the Battle of Berlin. In some areas of the city, nothing is older than the 1990s, because there was nothing left after the war and it has taken that long to rebuild.

We also made a trip to the peaceful Commonwealth War Cemetery outside Berlin to visit the grave of Col's uncle, Jack, who died as a 21 year old pilot officer during World War I. It was a special and moving thing to be able to visit, particularly on Pam's behalf, since Berlin was essentially closed to the world when she might last have been able to visit her brother's grave.

Of course, we also ate some good German food - Col finally got his pork knuckle! And in recognition of the multicultural character of the city, we also ate Spanish, Mexican and Italian 😀

The Jewish memorial

Jack's grave in the Commonwealth War Cemetery

An ever changing art gallery on the Wall

Our guide for the bike tour, in front of another section of the remaining Wall

Memorial for those who died trying to escape 

Glowing - Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church

Checkpoint Charlie

Stunning photography installation 

Brandenburg Tor

Amsterdam

Reims to Amsterdam should have been an easy train trip, but one small mistake over a station name at the beginning of the day escalated into a series of larger problems. It was all sorted eventually, but took the investment of quite a few more Euro, three extra hours travelling, a detour via Brussels and a lot of stress 😩 

Thankfully Amsterdam was worth it. Loved the crazy crooked buildings sinking forwards, backwards and sideways into their footings, and the thousands of bicycles - twice as many as there are people in Amsterdam, apparently. There was the little kid calmly reading a book in the kid carrier as her mum, pedalling hard, flew round the corner and over the canal bridge. Adults squeezed into the carriers too. And dogs and more dogs. Lots of deconstructed IKEA furniture going home (not much else else fits up the staircases). 

We did a great food tour with Hungry Birds; and then met up with Lou and Paul again for a couple more days for the obligatory (and enjoyable) canal tour; a trip out to the windmill museum, where Lou and I had the honour of posing with cheese; and we all outdid ourselves with an Indonesia rijsfastel, or 'rice table'. We jumped on and off trams, picnicked and played in lots of parks (and saw flamingos in one). 

The World Press Photo exhibition was stunning but sobering as well, capturing the heartbreak occurring in so many places round the world.

We finished the week with another sobering visit, to the attic rooms in which Anne Frank and her family hid for two years during WWII before being betrayed - another reminder that Amsterdam, like the rest of Europe, isn't just all about summer blooms and bicycles.

Reims

Reims was a respite after the bustle of Paris, quiet and orderly. And only one steep winding staircase to get to our little apartment! Luxury.

Reims has one of the three main Notre Dame cathedrals in France. Having seen the damage from the 2016 fire in the Paris cathedral and the extensive rebuilding taking place there, it was something special to see the beauty of Reims Notre Dame, risen from rubble after World War I (athough there were still many headless angels from the anti-religious frenzy of the French Revolution two centuries before). Amongst all that beauty, a lead light window by Marc Chagall stood out, positioned so it could be seen the full length of the Cathedral. 

We made the most of 3 days with a rented Fiat 500, and zipped through the vineyards to visit the town of Chalons-en-Champagne, where we went on a small electric boat ride through the town canals with special effects through the long tunnels - dragons, monsters, and some interesting 60s psychedelia 😀

In keeping with the champagne theme, we went to Epernay and promenaded up one side of the Avenue de Champagne and back down the other. The Avenue is supposed to be the most expensive street in France - not just because of the spectacular champagne houses above ground, but also the xxxx million bottles of champagne stored in kilometres of tunnels below the street. We'd visited the house of Mumm in Reims, and had an excellent tour there, so just found ourselves a nice cafe and a glass of bubbles with lunch - which happened to coincide with my lovely book club friends raising a glass over dinner in Brisbane. 

We also took advantage of our little Fiat for a day trip to the medieval town of Bouillon in Belgium, only 90 mins away. We clambered all over the castle, watched a raptor show, heard about the local hero of the Crusades (still not convinced they were a good idea ;<) and ate gelati (had to make up for the broken streak). Lovely day. 

One more thing about Reims - in an old red school house, now the Museum of the Surrender, we visited the room in which World War 2 in Europe officially came to an end. The event was a day before a second signing in Berlin, which Stalin insisted on. The walls of the former classroom were still covered in the original maps - transport routes, weather, troup movements, major battlegrounds; and straight-backed chairs stood around the big wooden table like soldiers themselves. Quite extraordinary to think what happened in this very ordinary classroom. 

The Marc Chagall lead lights in Reims Cathedral

Street scene, Reims

Col's taste test at Mumms

 Bouillon, Belgium

Epernay

Avenue de Champagne

Paris

We left Milan in the pre-sunrise darkness and caught the long distance train, through the mountains to Lyon, and then on through fields and fields to Paris. 

Despite the recent riots across France, the centre of Paris seemed to be its usual self, open for business and bursting with crowds. Maybe a few more gendarmes around? Certainly a lot of sirens, but we didn't see anything out of the ordinary for Paris.

So we made our way to our accommodation. We were expecting quirky. We weren't expecting the 5th level (basically 9 flights of ancient, crooked stairs), or a few fairly basic maintenance and cleaning issues (Col needing to fix an aged free-standing air conditioner, for one). But the location was wonderful, and we just made sure we didn't forget anything when we left for the day ;>

We crammed a lot into the week: cruising the Seine on the tourist Batoboats, Monet's waterlilies at the Orangerie, and a night bike tour and cruise. 

Coincidentally Lou and Paul's plans overlapped with ours for Paris, so we caught up again and spent a couple of lovely days exploring some more. We found the rooftop view of Paris from Galeries Lafayette, the beautiful Samaritaine department store, and chanced upon a haunting performance in Saint-Eustache Church by a choir from a Europe-wide music festival.

Then we topped off the day with dim sum for our 40th wedding anniversary, celebrated with two dear friends and part of our original wedding party. What could be better? 

Col on the Paris Eye

A portion of Monet's waterlilies

Some of the many staircases in our
 accommodation

Our street

Lou topping up on water at a street fountain

Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama painting the Louis Vuitton building