Normandy – A Fortunate Journey

Over the past weekend I was fortunate enough to have the chance to travel to the northern coast of France, to the region know as Normandy. Since I arrived in France I had wanted to visit the beaches of the D-Day Invasion and the site of the American Cemetery. The trip to Normandy came the weekend before our major project was due. I had to decide whether it was more worth my time to see the beaches of D-Day and the fortified monastery of Mont Saint-Michel. It was a more difficult decision than it may seem. I was far behind where I wanted to be and the weekend would be the perfect chance to catch up. But the obvious revelation hit me; I might not get to see these things again, at least not on this trip.

The trip began on Thursday as we headed over to Paris by train. We stopped to see an Art Fair at the Grand Palais, a magnificent piece of turn of the century architecture. The Grand Palais was originally constructed as an exhibition hall the Universal Exhibition of 1900. Its glass roof and Art Nouveau iron structure were a marvel for its time. It was very entertaining to view art in such a grand space. The art pieces on display were presented by a number of prominent local artists. After spending a few hours exploring the exhibit, we departed for the train station. Our next stop was Bayeux.

In Bayeux we spent the night exploring the city and having a great French dinner and woke Friday for a tour of several D-Day sites. The tour started at Pointe du Hoc, where a group of U.S. Army Rangers climbed a cliff to assault a Germany fortification at the top. The fortification is one of the most well preserved in the region and many of the bomb craters are still there. After that we went down to Omaha Beach where 3000 some American Soldiers lost their lives. The beach had few historical treasures left. Only a few remnants of German bunkers in the hill side, but it was not hard to image what it would have been like to run across that beach into the storm of chaos. While I was there I ran back across the beach, imagining what it might have been like. After leaving the beach, we visited the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial. Many may recognize it from the movie Saving Private Ryan. Visiting the cemetery was an almost surreal experience. I wish I gotten to spend more time in these places but our tour did not allow for that. I didn’t really get the chance to connect with the spaces. I’m sure I would have cried at the cemetery or the beach, I had found myself with more time. After the tour was over, we took a train to a town called Pontorson to visit the Abbey at Mont Saint-Michel.

Mont Saint-Michel is a fortified monastery built on a tall rocky tidal island. The island is surrounded by extraordinarily flat ground that is exposed when the tide fades. When the tide goes out, it goes out for miles. The monastery was a marvel of human construction. The spire towers over the barren landscape and can be seen for miles when the fog has lifted. From inside the top of the monastery, you get the impression that it was literally built among the clouds. I found it hard to believe that humans were capable of building something so fantastic. The rooms of the monastery go down into the rock and im sure I only got to see a portion of the catacombs that exist below. When the tide goes out it becomes possible to walk around the outside of the fortification.  Walking among the barren sands gives an even greater contrast to the towering structure. When wet though, the sand turns to quicksand, which will really only suck you down if you are missing half your brain and don’t notice that sort of thing. After spending an entire day exploring in awe, we had to depart and head back to Lille.

The weekend was full of experiences I could only dream of back in Fargo. In the end I experienced both somber tragedies as well as unparalleled awe. I wonder what next weekend will bring.

The City of Music I Did Not Hear

 Gasometer

 National Library

 Street Car Shed

Schonbrunn Palace

 Palmenhaus Schonbrunn

 Ornate Victorian Iron Structure

 Vienna

 Vienna Natural History Museum

 Museum Entrance

    Random Art Nouveau Building                 Neo-Gothic Parliament Building

 Butterfly House

Munich and Vienna: Part 2 - Vienna

We left Munich early Saturday morning on a train to Vienna. On the way we traveled through Salzburg, where the Sound of Music was set. We arrived in the early afternoon and checked into our hostel. After that we met up with an old high school friend of Jeremiah’s, who is teaching in Vienna. We met at a place called Gasometer. It’s a series of apartment buildings built into a complex of four old natural gas storage facilities. Each is a large brick cylinder that was retrofitted with a different design, each by a different architect. I have wanted to see these in person for a while because I am a huge fan of adaptive reuse design. Unfortunately the apartments are secured and I couldn’t visit them or see their atrium's. I was also disappointed by the fact that there was a rather crude shopping complex, tastelessly inserted into the lower sections, connecting the four buildings. While, from what I know of the project, the residential portion is quite successful and inventive, the shopping portion was poorly done and is a stain on an otherwise magnificent old structure. After visiting Gasometer, Jeremiah’s friend showed us to a great Austrian restaurant, before parting ways with us. After a great meal, we returned to the hostel to get ready for the next day.

The next day we met Jeremiah’s friend at a place in Vienna known as Schonbrunn Palace. The complex is a large palace and a massive garden, with a maze of branching paths and coves with statues and fountains. The gardens even have the world’s oldest zoo. At the back of the gardens is a large hill overlooking the entire site and well as a large part of Vienna. The view from the top is spectacular. In the Gardens is a Palmenhaus (Palm House or greenhouse), which is a great example of turn of the century architecture. It was one of my favorite visits during the trip. The large building was filled with a wide variety of plants supported by a beautiful Victorian structure. We spent a great deal of time exploring the Palmenhaus and the rest of the Gardens. After a while Jeremiah’s friend had to depart and left to find lunch. After Lunch we went to visit the Vienna Natural History Museum. The museum was filled with all manner of minerals animals and plants. It was a very classical museum with great architecture that really made the space feel scholarly. The architecture enhanced the wealth of knowledge. We stayed at the museum until closing time, after which, we got dinner and went to bed.

On the third day we explored many of the older historic buildings around the city; parliament, government buildings, libraries and such. It was a rather disappointing day as many things in Vienna are closed on Mondays. We wanted to see the National Library, a massive archive of historic books, but it was closed to visitors that day. We also paid a visit to Beethoven’s house, but that was closed as well. We were also a bit dejected by the fact that we couldn’t see any musical performances (More so Jeremiah than myself, I didn’t have any clothing suitable for the Vienna Philharmonic). It may come as no surprise that concert tickets often sell out months in advance or cost a significant amount of money. Pretty much everything we visited was either closed or cost too much money to see. We did get to visit a fine butterfly house in another old Victorian greenhouse, but that was only major success of the day.

We awoke the next morning to catch our train back to Munich. After spending a day walking around Munich again, essentially killing time until our train back to Paris, we were tired and ready to be back in Lille. We spent a great deal of time in Munich’s Englischer Garten, before going back to the Hofbrauhaus for another great Bavarian dinner. We then boarded another train to Paris overnight and got back to Lille Wednesday morning, exhausted but happy for the things we had seen and done.

Much in Munich

 Interior of Asamkirche

 Marienplatz and the Glockenspiel

 Munich's Olympic Park

 Metal and Glass Fabric Structure

 Surfers in Munich

 Beer at the Hofbrauhaus

 BMW Welt at Night

 Dachau Concentration Camp - "Work Sets You Free"

 Dachau Concentration Camp

 Holding Cell

Holding Cells for special or uncooperative prisoners

 Furnaces for burning the dead

 The Bavarian Countryside

 View of the Valley at Neuschwanstein Castle

Neuschwanstein Castle

Munich and Vienna: Part 1 - Munich

Just two days after my return from Barcelona, I set off once again; this time to Germany and Austria. This trip was a weeklong trip over St. Patrick’s Day to Munich and Vienna. My traveling companion was my friend Jeremiah, who had traveled to Barcelona with me. The train to Munich left from Paris and took a little over eight hours to get there, which was surprising to me (I thought it would take longer). We got to Munich at around 9 p.m. and went straight to our hostel and went to bed to prepare for the next day.

We woke up early so we get do as much as we could during the two days we had before departing to Vienna. First we visited a place called Asamkirche or Asam’s Church. It was built in the mid 1700’s by the Asam brothers as their private church. Due to resistance of the citizens, the brothers were forced to make the church accessible to the public. It is an example of the excessively ornate Baroque style of architecture. Since it was built as a private church, it was built attached to their city home. After visiting the church we made our way to Munich’s Marienplatz, where we got to see the Glockenspiel play. We explored the area a bit and got some lunch. The food in Munich was delicious. After lunch we climbed to the top of a church tower to get a magnificent view of the city center.

After exploring the center of town, we ventured outward toward the Munich Olympic Park and the BMW Welt showroom. The Olympic Park was made up of swooping glass and metal structures that were suspended like fabric. It would have been fun to visit inside the stadiums, but they were performing some maintenance and we couldn’t get inside. We toured BMW Welt and saw some cool concept cars. We decided not to visit the museum because the price was a little steep for us and we wanted to save the money for other things. We then went back to the city center and visited the Englischer Gartens. A massive public park with several beer gardens inside. There is a small river that flows through the park and at a spot where it flows out from beneath a bridge, it creates a large wave. Locals have taken to surfing on this wave and are now somewhat famous. We then made a trip to the famous Hofbrauhaus for dinner. The Hofbrauhaus is a beer garden and restaurant. I had some great German food and beer. We ended the evening with a trip to see BMW Welt at night, because it looks its best when lit up at night.

The next day, we woke up early to visit the Dachau concentration camp. We took a commuter train out to Dachau and arrive at the memorial by bus. One thing that struck me about the complex was the fact that it is now in the middle of a German suburb. Once inside, it was a somber experience to say the least. If I had been by myself I might have been brought to tears with the knowledge that I was in a place where so much suffering and despair took place, but I wept for the dead in my heart. When we visited Dachau, I underestimated the size of it. Even more so, it was hard to imagine how many people were detained there. We explored the concentration camp with our audio guides and hardly uttered a word to one another. It was hard for us to fathom what we were or should have been feeling. Much of the camp was still intact except for the barracks’, which had been torn down years ago. A pair of reconstructed buildings was all that remained. At the back of the site, there were multiple religious shrines constructed in remembrance of those who were imprisoned for their faith. At the end of the complex were the furnaces for burning the bodies of the dead. The entire trip was surreal, but I’m glad I made it there. It was an experience I’m sure I won’t forget.

After visiting Dachau, we went back to the Munich train station to prepare for our next excursion, Neuschwanstein Castle. Our next destination was as opposite to Dachau as it gets. We started at a German concentration camp and were now going to visit a picturesque castle in the Alps. The train ride was two hours, so we had some time to process our trip to Dachau and get ready for Neuschwanstein. When we arrived we only had a couple of hours to explore before we had to catch the last available train back to Munich. We discovered that there actually two castles, both commissioned by King Ludwig of Bavaria (who bankrupted the country more than once to build them). Neuschwanstein Castle is perched atop a small mountain overlooking a beautiful valley and is reminiscent of a Disney Castle. Behind the castle is a magnificent view of the Alps. With little time to spare, we spent our two hours running around the mountains taking pictures of the castles. We had heard that it takes 40 minutes to walk up to Neuschwanstein, we did it in 15. After a bunch of climbing and running, we had to make our way back to the train. We headed back to Munich to prepare for our trip to Vienna.