Templed Out?

In Europe, it is easy to get churched out.  I have few distinct memories of cathedrals; there's just a cold, gray haze of feeling vaguely impressed.  Heading to Japan, we were warned of a similar experience, particularly in Kyoto, of becoming templed out.

I have to say, it didn't happen to me.

I am sure it is possible. Temples (Buddhist) and shrines (Shinto) are everywhere - and I do mean everywhere: tucked between old buildings in historic districts, hidden in the midst of rows of shops, at the end of every street. Markets have their own shrines; city corners and country roads have little Jizo buddhas. Torii gates are omnipresent.

It's interesting, when you consider that Japan is not a particularly religious nation. But despite the sheer quantity, my interest never waned. 

For one thing, shrines and temples in Japan are interactive experiences - even for outsiders. Take my favorite temple experience, Todai-ji, which sits in a giant park alongside other shrines and temples in the center of Nara: like an amusement park for the soul.  Tame deer approach looking for treats and pause, like zen masters, to be petted. The deer, messengers of the gods, defy cynicism: they are simply too, well, endearing.

Todai-ji itself is ginormous, built to house a ginormous bronze statue of Buddha. 

A Perfect Day: Krakow, August 2011

It's been nine months, but I really have to post something about Krakow. In reality, our time in Krakow was split up over three or four days, but in my head, we had one perfect day in Krakow. That perfect day went something like this:

From the train station, our short walk to the old town takes us across the planty for the first time. The planty is a park (yes, the plant-y is a park) that encircles the old town where the city's medieval walls once stood. Shade trees line tidy paths; locals watch passersby from the green benches. There is always something to see in the planty. 

Today it is several hundred young scouts from around Poland, looking homogeneous in their militaristic green and beige uniforms and knee-high socks. It's the 50th anniversary of the country's scouting program, and the President is in town for the occasion. Scout leaders try to corral the kids into scraggly lines while the marching band warms up and the flag bearers smugly congregate in front. I can't help but feel like the towheaded youth are about to storm the castle.

From the planty, it's a quick jaunt through the old town to Market Square, the heart of Krakow. We have timed this perfectly. Only during certain summer months, on certain days, between certain hours can you climb the city watch tower next to St. Mary's Basilica. With even greater temporal precision, we emerge at the top of the tower right before 11 a.m. On the hour, the trumpeter on duty (finishing his 24-hour shift) emerges from his little office and circles the wood-beamed room to play the city's famous hejnał four times - once in each direction.

So there we are on a beautiful summer morning, looking out over Krakow's old town and the bustling Market Square, and right next to us is one of Krakow's (and Poland's) greatest symbols, playing the same short melody that has been played here every hour, every day, for centuries. Awesome.

Why the Rhine Valley Rocked

Over the course of August and September, I ended up in Germany for three different trips - to Berlin, to Munich, and to the Rhine Valley (I know, life is hard, but bear with me). Of the three, I most want to go back to Berlin - but I have to admit, contrary to my expectations, that of the three, the Rhine Valley made the best trip.

Specifically, I'm talking about the stretch of the Rhine between Cologne and Mainz, with the addition of Baden Baden at the southern end.  Perhaps it was just the change of pace from our typical city destinations, perhaps it was just the sheer variety of experiences to be had, but this is the trip I'd recommend for other first-time visitors to Germany.  Our own perfect Rhine Valley itinerary went something like this:

Step 1: Lunch at a beer hall in Cologne.  Excellent German food, excellent local Kolsch.  We also revisited Cologne's massive cathedral.

Step 2: Castles.  The hills of the Rhine Valley are covered with them, like the rocky ruins of the massive Rheinfels castle perched above St. Goar. Our favorite, though, was on the nearby Mosel River: Burg Eltz, a fairytale castle nestled in a green valley in excellent (still inhabitable) condition - although unfortunately covered in scaffolding, and therefore temporarily unphotogenic.  

Schloss Rheinfels

Step 3: Vertical diversity. Coming from the flatness of the Netherlands, the rolling ridges of the Rhine Valley are breathtaking (like a green version of the Columbia River Gorge).  Doesn't hurt that every ridge is topped with a castle, and every hollow is home to a miniature village of half-timbered houses.  Which brings us to...

Step 4: Half-timbered houses.  I didn't think places like this existed outside of Epcot Center. We stayed in Bacharach, a tiny town of narrow cobblestone streets, half-timbered houses tilting slightly with age, window boxes full of geraniums, and vineyards stretching up the hillsides.  Perhaps because the weather was not fantastic, the town was surprisingly empty - except for the national petanque tournament down along the riverfront. 

Antwerp's Heritage: Searching for the Right Words

On our recent jaunt to Antwerp, we dutifully hit all of its World Heritage sites.  But words fail me: there should be a way to describe the theme that connects these, but the best I can come up with is "self-determination."  I don't think that's quite right (besides being rather soporific), so I welcome any suggestions.

First there's the béguinage.  I love this concept.  Back in the late Middle Ages, single women who lived quietly religious lives but did not want to take vows built these enclosed communities within major Flemish cities.  They are like little towns, separated from the male-dominated world by high walls and approachable through only a single door that is locked at night.  Once inside, there's a small church and modest lodgings around a central courtyard.

I find it very meaningful that women were able to create a third way for themselves 800 years ago.  Faced with the choice of being subjected to a husband or to the Church, I too might have opted out, leading instead a simple life focused on service and prayer, one in which I could earn my own living with the help of female friends.  According to UNESCO, the communities were even democratically run, with an elected leader and often an elected council.  A much better solution to the problem of independent-minded women than burning them as witches, imho.

What To Do on Your Seventh Trip to Paris

On my fourth trip to Paris (back in college), I kind of hit a rut. I had seen all the main sites, I had visited all the famous museums. I had gone back to my favorite spots multiple times (though Sacre Couer never grows old). I had even taken the metro all the way out to La Défense and had an icecream cone under the towering monstrosity of an arch. I was - I hate to admit it - bored of Paris.

But then something wonderful happened: I dug another layer down and started rediscovering the city I thought I had so thoroughly "done." (I am indebted to my Irish aunts and the Rue Oberkampf for helping me over the hump back in January 2007.) Thus I can happily report that my seventh trip to Paris a few weeks ago was my best ever.

Of course the glorious spring weather didn't hurt. But since I'm a sucker for novelty, much of my pleasure was derived from seeing new sides of the same city. To wit:

On the Roman Basilica

I have to admit: I was under-impressed by the Coliseum. After a couple hours, most of the ruins of the Forum and Palantine Hill were indistinguishable to me. An imaginative person, I nevertheless am unable to imagine what a Roman city would have looked like in its heyday.

But the Basilica of Constantine - that stopped me in my tracks. Perhaps it's because I had never heard of it, and thus did not know what to expect. And it would be pretty hard to describe it in any way that would make anyone want to go see it (unlike, say, the Coliseum).

World Heritage in Context

(This post was originally intended to be published the week of February 14.)

So why did Jeff and I go to Cologne? To see the Cathedral, of course.

The Dom of Koln is not a difficult site to see: Cologne's main train station is located immediately next to the Cathedral, so even a thirty-minute lay over provides enough time for a Chevy Chase-style "uh huh, uh huh" surveillance of the site. But with a full weekend in Cologne, Jeff and I studied the Cathedral from every angle: we toured it, climbed it, photographed it, prayed in it, inspected its art, and admired it at night. What interested me most, however, is the Cathedral's historical and political context.*

Here's how UNESCO pitches the Cathedral:

"Begun in 1248, the construction of this Gothic masterpiece took place in several stages and was not completed until 1880. Over seven centuries, successive builders were inspired by the same faith and a spirit of absolute fidelity to the original plans. Apart from its exceptional intrinsic value and the artistic masterpieces it contains, Cologne Cathedral testifies to the enduring strength of European Christianity."

Here is my version: Construction of the Cathedral began in 1248, but pilgrims' donations dried up by the 1500s and construction halted for three centuries. Then, in 1815, Cologne came under the rule of Prussia, and the unfinished Cathedral was seen as an opportunity to demonstrate the strength and majesty of a newly unifying German state. (Recall that Germany as we know it did not exist until 1871.) The new German State funded much of the construction, which was completed in 1880: thus the Cologne Cathedral of today is as much about German nationalism as it is about medieval religious fervor.

View looking west from the Dom towers, over the rest of the Dom,
the train bridge, and where the "eyesores" would have been.

In what seems like a rather arbitrary crisis to me, UNESCO put the Cathedral on its "World Heritage in Danger" list between 2004 and 2006 because of plans to construct high-rise buildings on the other side of the Rhine. The dispute was resolved after a new buffer zone including the west bank was designated (I love that the German word is "Pufferzone"), which restricts what can be constructed in a large swath of central Cologne.

There is an obvious tension between conservation and the natural evolution of a community - I personally disfavor the inclusion of cities or towns as such on the World Heritage list because the result is often a Disney-fication as buildings are "restored", long-time residents are displaced, and cultural evolution is halted. UNESCO has a 2005 memorandum that tries to address this issue, but it is nearly impossible to understand. I think the memo agrees with me that "historic" places must still be allowed to change over time. I like, for example, this passage:

"[U]rban planning, contemporary architecture and preservation of the historic urban landscape should avoid all forms of pseudo-historical design, as they constitute a denial of both the historical and the contemporary alike. [Eat it, Epcot Center.] One historical view should not supplant others, as history must remain readable [no idea what that means], while continuity of culture through quality interventions [meaning new construction projects must be pretty?] is the ultimate goal."

UNESCO didn't follow this advice in 2009, however, when it actually delisted another site in Germany, the Dresden Elbe Valley, because of a four-lane bridge that Dresden built across the Elbe river smack in the middle of the protected "cultural landscape". It is one of only two World Heritage sites ever delisted. I find this amusing because UNESCO largely based its original inscription of the site on the area's functional structures dating from the Industrial Revolution, including a steel bridge, a funicular, and a shipyard. And I quote, "The Dresden Elbe Valley contains exceptional testimonies of [...] industrial heritage representing European urban development into the modern industrial era." Today's "modern industrial era" required a new bridge - but under the UNESCO regime (as implemented), there was no room for new industrial history that might displace old industrial history. (I guess it was a really ugly bridge.)

On the train bridge leading straight to the Dom.

These are difficult issues, and I don't know enough about the Cologne controversy to have a strong opinion on it. But it does interest me that the site was inscribed despite the location of a massive (and busy) train station and train bridge right next door, the construction of which was controversial back in the 1850s but which today greatly benefit the nine million annual visitors to the Cathedral and are so often included in pictures of the Cathedral that they have become part of the iconic image. If we stop all construction in the broad vicinity of a historic site, do we miss out on changes that could improve our visual or practical enjoyment of what we thought was so worth preserving and sharing in the first place?

When do developments evolve from "recent" (meaning "bad") to "historic" (meaning "better")? Would it really have ruined the Cologne Cathedral if some buildings were constructed across the river from it? More broadly, how do we decide which moments of an ever-evolving cultural landscape to freeze in time?

* (When I was a history student in college, a teaching fellow pointed out that we are all prone to viewing the world through the lens of our favorite speciality: I see the world as a historian does - an engineer or an artist or a physicist would conceivably have taken away very different lessons from the Cologne Cathedral.)

36 Hours in Maastricht

Saturday, 9:30 a.m. 10:30 a.m.: Introducing Maastricht

Arrive an hour late to Maastricht, the southernmost city in the Netherlands, thanks to track works that required a detour through Utrecht. Located in an isthmus of Dutch land that stretches narrowly between Germany and Belgium (like Maryland west of Cumberland), Maastricht is almost more Bavarian than Dutch, more cobblestone streets than cute canals. And most un-Dutch-like of all, it has hills. The central city, however, is flat, and your walk from the station over the St. Servaas bridge and into the heart of the old city is brief, if wet.

11:30 a.m.: St. Pietersberg Caves

The tourist activity in Maastricht is to visit the caves of St. Pietersberg, where stone marl has been mined since Roman times and more than 100 miles of tunnels stretch all the way to Belgium. The most "fun" way to reach the caves would be by boat, but in January little is discernible out of the rain-streaked and steamed-up windows. And after a 20-minute boat ride and a hike up St. Pietersberg hill, you find you have to wait for another 30 minutes in the cold drizzle for the tour to begin. You curse the marketing person who decided this gap in timing would force people to buy overpriced drinks and snacks at the adjacent cafe.

Close to 1, the friendly tour guide shows up with kerosene lanterns he hands out to the men in the group most likely to have been scouts as children. You follow him through muddy fields until he descends into a rocky crevice where there is a padlocked iron grill over a cave entrance. You huddle with the others in the dark tunnel as he padlocks the gate behind you, and as you follow him down into a labyrinth of dark and dank tunnels, your mind starts racing through horror movie plots: the satanic tour guide leads naive tourists to human sacrificial rites like lambs to the slaughter; a sudden rock slide maims the leader and leads to a cross between Alive and Lord of the Flies, culminating in blood-streaked walls and savage sacrifices; the community of rabid bat creatures that has evolved in the bowels of the caves slowly picks the tour group off one by one, turning their victims into blood sucking zombies. You are not amused when the tour guide pauses to show you a sleeping bat above your head.

But the reality of a Dutch-only tour full of eager academic types quickly stifles your cinematographic inspirations. You shift uncomfortably from foot to foot as the rest of the tour group discusses the intricacies of sawing the soft marl into blocks in olden times. As the all-Dutch discussion stretches past 15 minutes, you try to imagine what a first-rate travel writer would be noting for a future article. You decide a first-rate travel writer would not have gone on a Dutch-only tour. Your shifting increases as you try to keep the feeling in your toes.

Eventually the tour guide moves on, pausing periodically to provide more arcane details to his highly appreciative Dutch audience. You pass rows of long dark tunnels and cavernous side rooms; your attention is drawn to intricate charcoal drawings on the walls, from the fantastical to a full series of the stations of the cross leading up to a little chapel, complete with altar (perfect, you think, for dark satanic rites). You understand vaguely that locals sheltered in the caves during WWII and try to imagine entire communities bedded down in the darkness. You curse your travelling in the off-season for its lack of English-language tours. Finally you re-emerge above ground to find that it is still raining.

My favorite place in Paris

My favorite place in Paris is Sacre Couer. I do not claim originality, nor will I make excuses. It just is, and has been going back at least ten years. There's something about the carnival aspect at the bottom, the winding touristy streets of Montmarte, the ample supply of crepes, the bright carousel (which our four-year-old friend actually got to ride - lucky kid!). That's stage 1 of the Sacre Couer experience.

Stage 2 is the meandering walk up through the gardens, a process that feels vaguely like a mini-pilgrimage. Amelie nicely captured the whimsy and charm of Steps 1 and 2. Step 3 (really a half step, or a resting point) is posing for a picture at the top, with Paris spread out below. If only I had access to all my pictures, I could create a montage of photos taken against an always overcast sky with Paris an indiscernible grey behind me. But it always feels special at the time.

Step 4 is walking through the basilica itself. That's a very personal experience, but I will risk saying this much: it's one of the very few places in the world where I can always feel the peace of god. It is, to me, a special place. If you know what I mean, and know of other such places, please be kind enough to share them with me.