Realm: Touristing Subrealm: Maps
Sep. 10th, 2005 04:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
choco_froshSo yesterday we had only one class in our language course. I could have told them that this was a bad idea. Anyway, after the three of us had had our grammar class, I hopped on a train for Konstanz to visit Grace, who´s doing a language course there. Yes, it´s complicated.
I got rather less work done on the trip than I´d hoped. I spent part of my 50 minute layover in Munich wandering around obscure parts of that city (mem.: next time, get a city plan). And I spent a good deal of the trip looking at the scenery: bits of it reminiscent of parts of Maine, other bits reminded me of England, but you don´t get the combination of THAT scenery with THOSE buildings. Nor does either of them have churces with baroque onion domes. But more importantly, I was looking at the alps.
On a map of the Konstanz area from 1503, the alps appear in the background as a mass of improbably tilted rocks. The real alps first came into view about midafternoon--shrouded in mist and, when we got closer, almost equally improbably shaped. So I spent a good deal of time looking at them... I´ve missed mountains, and it will be nice having them to look at this year, even if theý´re only a hazy line on the horizon.
(On the same map, the Bodensee is shown with the Rhine running through it as a separate current. I thought this was a rather simplistic misunderstanding on the engraver´s part until today, when if I understood our guide correctly (not certain) she said that it pretty much does, and indicated an area of odd whrlpools and general choppiness near the lake shore, beyond which the Rhine flows out, a surprising shade of blue-green. But I´m getting ahead of myself)
After two trains, I got to Lindau, a former free city which has been part of Bavaria since the nineteenth century--hence why I could get there for E.17--and which is built on an island in the lake, so that you feel a bit like you´re taking a train into Esgaroth on the Long Lake in The Hobbit. And after three trains and a bus I got into Meersburg, at the feet of the old episcopal castle across the lake from Konstanz, where >I´d arranged to meet Grace. Trouble, is, I´d neglected to mention that I was coming in by bus...this whole expedition kind of got arranged at the last minute. As a result, Grace was understandably confused when she discovered that Meersburg does not in fact have a train station, and apparently took a ferry to (slightly) the wrong place. BUT she found the bus stop before I arrived, and we splurged on dinner and walked around the town a bit (in the drizzle) before heading home to her dorm, which is even more ghetto than mine.
This morning we indulged in such exciting and romantic activities as retrieving Grace´s laundry and buying Q-tips. OK, and Grace showing me around Konstanz, including the rebuilt fourteenth century house we´re going to be living in. This afternoon: tour with assorted of her fellow language course people (I met some of her friends), which we eventually ditched, partly because our guide was not of the highest calibre, to say the least. As a whole, though, extremely wierd in one respect: I´d studied maps of the city extensively but never been here, so I knew that, for example, one took Johannigasse to get to the Münster, but was continually confused by altered street names and the fact that the location of the Rathaus had changed. Stuck in the middle ages, as usual...
And now for something completely different. Public art: one thing about Germany is that there is a good deal of support/tradition for putting interesting religious/historical/random murals on the sides of buildings. Pretty cool, though more of a feature in Regensburg than here. Here in Konstanz, though, are some assorted odd mondern monuments to the Council of Constnce, including the massive rotating statue of Imperia down by the harbor (rumored to repestént a, er, lady who er, entertained both Emperor Sigismund and Pope John at the Council), and the Kaiserbrunnen, a fountain from the 19th c., more recently refurbished with busts of emperors, assorted rabbit/fish hybrids with Viking-style hair plaits, and an allegory of the great schism (a three-headed peacock wearing tiaras). I was amused. Also a monument to some local wit, with a plinth of strange faces including one where water dripped out of its nose. OK, you had to be there. Thought of Adam at the one and Seth at the other.
So I´m now writing this from the Universitätsbibliothek, said to be one of the most confusing university libraries in the world (though anyone who said that probably hasn´t been to Yale or Williams). The university, at least, is colorful, interesting, and lofty in its architectural style. So it wins some points over Regensburg, which really is a monument to 1960s design and grey concrete. sigh.
PS Turns out there still IS a Schreibergasse--it runs parallel to Konradigasse. The Goldene Rose, which was supposedly formerly the Purgatory Trinkstube where all the scribes hung out, is on Konradigasse, though. confusing.
I got rather less work done on the trip than I´d hoped. I spent part of my 50 minute layover in Munich wandering around obscure parts of that city (mem.: next time, get a city plan). And I spent a good deal of the trip looking at the scenery: bits of it reminiscent of parts of Maine, other bits reminded me of England, but you don´t get the combination of THAT scenery with THOSE buildings. Nor does either of them have churces with baroque onion domes. But more importantly, I was looking at the alps.
On a map of the Konstanz area from 1503, the alps appear in the background as a mass of improbably tilted rocks. The real alps first came into view about midafternoon--shrouded in mist and, when we got closer, almost equally improbably shaped. So I spent a good deal of time looking at them... I´ve missed mountains, and it will be nice having them to look at this year, even if theý´re only a hazy line on the horizon.
(On the same map, the Bodensee is shown with the Rhine running through it as a separate current. I thought this was a rather simplistic misunderstanding on the engraver´s part until today, when if I understood our guide correctly (not certain) she said that it pretty much does, and indicated an area of odd whrlpools and general choppiness near the lake shore, beyond which the Rhine flows out, a surprising shade of blue-green. But I´m getting ahead of myself)
After two trains, I got to Lindau, a former free city which has been part of Bavaria since the nineteenth century--hence why I could get there for E.17--and which is built on an island in the lake, so that you feel a bit like you´re taking a train into Esgaroth on the Long Lake in The Hobbit. And after three trains and a bus I got into Meersburg, at the feet of the old episcopal castle across the lake from Konstanz, where >I´d arranged to meet Grace. Trouble, is, I´d neglected to mention that I was coming in by bus...this whole expedition kind of got arranged at the last minute. As a result, Grace was understandably confused when she discovered that Meersburg does not in fact have a train station, and apparently took a ferry to (slightly) the wrong place. BUT she found the bus stop before I arrived, and we splurged on dinner and walked around the town a bit (in the drizzle) before heading home to her dorm, which is even more ghetto than mine.
This morning we indulged in such exciting and romantic activities as retrieving Grace´s laundry and buying Q-tips. OK, and Grace showing me around Konstanz, including the rebuilt fourteenth century house we´re going to be living in. This afternoon: tour with assorted of her fellow language course people (I met some of her friends), which we eventually ditched, partly because our guide was not of the highest calibre, to say the least. As a whole, though, extremely wierd in one respect: I´d studied maps of the city extensively but never been here, so I knew that, for example, one took Johannigasse to get to the Münster, but was continually confused by altered street names and the fact that the location of the Rathaus had changed. Stuck in the middle ages, as usual...
And now for something completely different. Public art: one thing about Germany is that there is a good deal of support/tradition for putting interesting religious/historical/random murals on the sides of buildings. Pretty cool, though more of a feature in Regensburg than here. Here in Konstanz, though, are some assorted odd mondern monuments to the Council of Constnce, including the massive rotating statue of Imperia down by the harbor (rumored to repestént a, er, lady who er, entertained both Emperor Sigismund and Pope John at the Council), and the Kaiserbrunnen, a fountain from the 19th c., more recently refurbished with busts of emperors, assorted rabbit/fish hybrids with Viking-style hair plaits, and an allegory of the great schism (a three-headed peacock wearing tiaras). I was amused. Also a monument to some local wit, with a plinth of strange faces including one where water dripped out of its nose. OK, you had to be there. Thought of Adam at the one and Seth at the other.
So I´m now writing this from the Universitätsbibliothek, said to be one of the most confusing university libraries in the world (though anyone who said that probably hasn´t been to Yale or Williams). The university, at least, is colorful, interesting, and lofty in its architectural style. So it wins some points over Regensburg, which really is a monument to 1960s design and grey concrete. sigh.
PS Turns out there still IS a Schreibergasse--it runs parallel to Konradigasse. The Goldene Rose, which was supposedly formerly the Purgatory Trinkstube where all the scribes hung out, is on Konradigasse, though. confusing.
Um ...
Date: 2005-09-10 03:25 pm (UTC)-g
no subject
Date: 2005-09-10 04:48 pm (UTC)That is also awesome.
You should send pictures of yourselves on the actual Schreibergasse. I think you're practically obligated to, by your livejournal name.