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Wherein I have a Really Great French Adventure

Last night I was laying out the plans for the next few days and decided to check out the Mechelen museum website and what to my wondering eyes doth appear? A really nice article about the restoration of some of the shrines for the 500 year anniversary of the publishing of Thomas Moore’s Utopia in 2016. I leave it to you to read the website and all about the connection between Utopia, Mechelen and the Gardens. I feel very educated! But there are X-rays of some of the flowers there.

So I wrote to the head curator on the project and explained that I was in the area and wanted to interview her and I gave her enough of my background to make me interesting enough to want to meet me.

We got up at 7am today. Please see my prior rant about alarm clocks on vacation. We had breakfast and left mom behind. She requested not to go along today because she wanted to stay home. Word is she got a great deal accomplished today.

We drove through the rain most of the way there. We got gas in Belgium and proceeded to France. We were headed to the museum in Arras which is a fairly big town outside Paris. It took just over 3.5 hours to get there. We had to drive around the block just once to make it into the overnight parking lot next to the museum. We walked in and were directed down the hall and to the right. We asked about the bathroom and were instead pointed in the other direction. We walk down the hall (which was full of 13th and 14th century grave stones) and used the restroom and then walked back down the hall and just past the hall entrance where we came in was the very lovely shrine. I took 124 pictures and my husband took about 50 and most of them were of the shrine.

Then we proceeded down the hall and ended up in the 100 years of Versailles exhibit which was very well done but we went through it very fast. Left through the gift shop where we asked about validating parking (no) and left the museum. At no point were we asked to pay. We got back out to the parking lot and a guy was fixing the pay machine and when I told him we only spoke English he told us to get in our car and he’d let us out. SO parking was free as well.

We did have to pay 4.10 on the toll road and were very thankful that we had the money and the experience of dealing with toll roads. We were not expecting it since we didn’t have a toll on the way there. Also no rain on the way home.

When we got back there was an email from the curator. She is not in the country at the moment but she arranged for me to meet a local textile expert who has an interest in the flowers as well (and making them) and she is going to let me in the workroom where they currently have more flowers out of the shrines than they ever had before but I’m not to touch them unless I have to!  So could this possibly be the dream come true? My appointment will be on Friday.

So I’ve got an appointment tomorrow to see one of the other shrines, the one in Balen. Have a good night and a Happy Thanksgiving.


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Visiting The Ancestral Homeland

I’m not a fan of alarm clocks, most especially while on vacation. But I did my duty and dragged myself in and out of the shower and got in the car when I was supposed to. We arrived in Koblintz and picked up my mother.

Mom had been extremely busy while not in my care. She and Christine did lots of chatting and stamping and at some point mom told Christine the whole Hershbroich story (where they went to the right town in the wrong district) and so Christine called someone who was not very believing of mom’s story. Then Christine called the mayor of the town.

Who we now know is related to us. We drove an hour and a half to the town of Herschbroich which is nestled in the same hill/mountains that we are currently staying in. The population is about 280 people. The town is one of three towns in the middle of some large and very famous racetrack. Mom and the mayor got all geeky about family history and ship logs and emigration reports. Anyway – I have some stories for history buffs that I found interesting.

Herschbroich Germany used to be located on both sides of the little river that runs through the valley except the houses of the far side of the river all burned down 6 or 7 times so that is all field now. In 1600 they built the church on this side of the river. They know there had been a church there as far back as the 1200s because there was a complaint that the town didn’t pay their church tax for two years in a row. Everybody could inherit land – even the girls. But everybody got equal shares of the fields the buildings the woods. So at this point everybody owns little plots of land all here and there. But in order to leave, for America or something, you had to apply and pay a fee and you could never come back. So what the young men would do is leave with the trade carts, in effect they would sneak out of town and then leave for America through ports in France or London and if everything went well they would write home and have the lands sold and the money sent to them. If things did not go well then they could come back.

The theory as to why our relative didn’t want to talk to us is because rumor has it that when my ancestors wrote back to have everything sold and the money sent to them – not everything was sold and the part of the family that stayed behind kept some of the land and now they are afraid we came to get our part of the land back from them. Mind you that all this happened back in 1800.

The town used to have copper mines – they mine shafts were all named after the daughters of the owner.

After the protestant reformation swept through Poland after WWI there were all kinds of religious things laying in the streets. Some of the troops in Bern were on their way home when they found a large altar front laying in the street and they brought it all the way home where it is in the church to this day. It is a little too ornate for the village and it looks to be from the mid 1600.

Mostly I think it was a great day.

Last night I was hammering out details for the trip when I found that one of the museums was restoring some of the shrines – a project that started last month and is projected to take two years. There will be some international exhibit at the end of it all. I wrote to the lead restorer but have not had any word back. I would very dearly like to interview her while I’m still in a position to do so.

Tomorrow I go to France for the first time in my life! Pretty exciting stuff.


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Climbing The Mountian

Today is Sunday.
Normally on Sunday I get up at 8am and watch Sunday Morning on CBS (in my pajamas) and then have a rather slow and relaxed day. I tell you this because today was not a Sunday that my legs agreed to have.
We got up at 8am. OK there. We showered and got ready to go and were out the door by 9:30. We drove an hour and a half to meet Christine and her family for church and lunch.
It was so good to see them again. I don’t think they expected to see us again and it only took us four years to return! But here we are. Church was church – except in German so I have no idea what the standard topic of the lecture was though if the point is to meditate and commune with God then I did that. I also pretended to sing in German while diligently holding the song book to the correct page.
After church we walked back to the house and had lunch. Christine’s husband is an excellent cook and we had a pork roast with two kinds of potatoes and broccoli and cauliflower and a yummy salad. With gravy and a butter sauce for the veggies. I ate too much.
Then we piled into the cars and found an ATM machine before heading to the site-seeing tour for the day. We went to Stolzenfels Palace which is a UNESCO world heritage site and I really like world heritage sites. The guide book describes it as “The most beautiful building of the Prussian Rhine Romance Era.” It was very lovely.
But it was at the top of a really high hill. OK – it’s on the top of a ridge that overlooks the Rheine river. But they made me Climb the mountain. And it was cold out. And I was probably a tiny bit whiny. But we all made it to the top – mom and Christine chatted the whole way up. Nathan practically had to drag me up – I was not feeling energetic.
At the top we got the family rate and some English language guide books to use on the tour since they only have guided tours. I will leave it to you to find out more about the castle if you’re inclined to do so but I recognized some of the paintings and was all gaga for the furniture. Once you get inside the castle you are made to wear little felt slippers over your shoes. It was like most of us were skating trough the tour.
Nathan and I left mom in Christine’s care until Tuesday. We drove back to the condo and attempted to stop at the grocery store but it’s Sunday so it was closed. We got gas and a big bottle of cola light and are now watching BBC news.

So far we have seen three castles. I don’t remember having seen any on our last trip so were up three castles 🙂
I’m going to try to load some of they pictures to Pintrest later tonight if I can. Not sure what we will do tomorrow.

 


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We ALL Got Locked in the Church!

After a disappointing arrival in Rheine, we woke up in our WiFi-free zone. It was a nicely priced hotel but the toilet was down the hall and the shower and sink were right in the room. Mom had her own room though and I got the best night sleep so far. The hotel is over a bar so in the morning we had breakfast downstairs in the bar area. It was all good.

We drove the short distance to the Kloister and walked up to the building where there was a very nicely dressed party of 30 forming up. We went in but you can’t get into the museum until it opens which is at 2pm on Saturdays. So we left.

We drove to Kalkar. Last visit we were accosted by the tour guide in Kalkar and one of the six little Predella flower boxes was out for cleaning. Very few of my pictures were useful to me. We arrived at the church in the late morning and found our way to the parking lot and then walked the two blocks to the church and went in the door. There were several other people in the church and one guy up on a ladder with some sort of vacumn machine. We started taking pictures – lots of pictures. At some point the guy on the ladder let us know that he was leaving and would be back in ten minutes and since we were the only people left in the church he was going to lock us in and we could continue to take pictures. And so we were all locked in the church until he returned which was closer to twenty minutes later.

But all of the little boxes were there and we could just snap away! We were so lucky. Lots of good pictures this time.

From there we proceeded to Xanten. Xanten was an old Roman town and parts of the old wall still stand. As faithful readers from the last visit will know – the church in Xanten was undergoing extensive renovations the last time I was in town. It looks lovely now as they did a great job and everything is back where it belongs. And so we hunted out the Kloisterarbeiten that I just know they have and I pointed out the only one we found on our last visit. Well they have an even better one! It dates to 1510 and has some very nice peacocks all out of silk. It was enough to make me go Squee!

What a fabulous day. We got in the car and headed for the condo but the condo address was misread by the GPS and we ended up in Luxemburg so after getting directions and driving another hour and a half we made it to the condo. It’s a one bedroom with a foldout sofa but surprisingly spacious with a full kitchen. Pretty peaceful but quite a drive.

After a large supper of very yummy food – we’re back at the condo and falling asleep, singing “I’m in heaven…”


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And We’re Off

It was cold and nasty when we left Chicago on Monday. So cold that one of the parts on the airplane froze and we had to wait on the plane for two and a half hours while it was thawed out. But we had good winds and were only an hour or so late to Dublin. We had several hours layover booked into our flight plan so we still made the next plane and arrived into Hamburg without issue.

I’m surprised at how easy it is to get out of the airport; no customs or anything. They scan the passport and let you go. Probably because in the US it is such a task to get both on and off a plane that Europe doesn’t concern itself with planes from America. So we found a taxi to take us to the hotel after we asked the tourist office how much a cab should cost us and found an ATM for Euros. The taxi drove us off the books and we already knew what it was supposed to cost so all was good.

At the hotel we were picked up by Andy and taken to his and Chris’ house for supper. A home cooked traditional German meal that was so very good! She sure can cook!

I met Chris on the internet when I sent her an email about her blog on reliquaries and how much I liked it. She lived near where we were going and I just thought that was neat. She offered to help and proceeded to get me the German articles I needed for my research and I in turn scanned some of my books for her. We traded papers last night and just had a lovely time.

She knows of some of the people who do reliquary things as well and gave me names of places to look to purchase obscure supplies. She showed me a little bag she made that resembled patterns I had seen from looking at Maggie’s work. She knew Griz’s website well. And I was again surprised at how our work was so similar.

Today we head for Schwerin.


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Preparing To Go

For awhile now I have wanted to return to Europe to complete my research on the Besloten Hofje. Five years ago I made the initial pilgrimage to the Low Countries to see as many of the shrines as possible and take as many pictures as I could. The hope was that I could take detailed pictures so that I might be able to recreate the flowers on my own. I took 1200 photos but sadly, only about a quarter of them turned out.

I was able to recreate some of the flowers but really detailed pictures eluded me. And I was busy with work and life; I got married and other art projects took priority. But now that I have more free-time I got back into the flower making.

But this time I took a different approach. Perhaps I could document all the early flowers in photos, create instructions that others could follow, and wrap it all up in book form with a complete history. It’s a goal I can get excited about! And then I can create a shrine of my own and use the book for supporting documentation and enter it in the arts competition for the reenactment group I belong to.

So I made a list of the shrines left to visit, started translating some source material while requesting some books from the library, and getting all geeky about my favorite subject. This trip will be a lot more pre-planned than the first one.

One the first trip we, my mother and I, went to Mecheln where there a number of the shrines. We visited Herentels where we met Peter who then took us to see the shrine in Geel. We saw the ones in Antwerp, Xanten, Kalkar, and Rheine.

The ones we missed were either out-of-the-way and there were transportation issues or, as with the case of Koln, closed, or too far away for our limited travel time.

Our trip this time around was planned in an attempt to hit all of the remaining sites. With that in mind we are flying into Hamburg and then hitting Schwerin (which does not have a shrine per se but does have some Christ Child statues that were dressed by nuns in the Middle Ages and I want to get a look at the clothes), Ebstorf, and Walrode and then heading to Koln. From there we will visit the remaining sites in Belgium and the one site in France.

I kept a travel log for the first trip and that can be found at http://roxelana.com/blog/

So I have the passport and the tickets and, more importantly, I have a plan. The adventure has begun.