around the world – part 41.5 (warsaw)

“Few cities can claim worse luck than Warsaw.  Over time the city has been burned by the Swedes, smashed by Russians and then flattened by Germans.  Not surprisingly all that’s left Warsaw looking like it’s gone ten rounds in a boxing ring.”

Hardly inspiring then.

Palace of Culture - Warsaw, October 2009

 Despite the ubiquitous grey brick buildings and the cold windy streets, there is something appealing about Warsaw though, and I think it is in the spirit of its residents.   They would certainly need it given all they have been through in the last century.

I had no idea, other than a vague understanding, of just how smashed this city was by 1945.   For instance the Jewish Ghetto was so thoroughly destroyed, levelled, that very few traces of its existence may be found today.  The only remaining portion of the wall is found in the courtyard of an apartment building at ul Sienna 55.  No longer than about twenty-five feet, it is one of the few items remaining of the Ghetto.  The area around it was completely transformed after the war, a grid pattern of streets, boulevards, parks, office towers, and of course the mighty Palace of Culture were superimposed over the pre-war streets and alleys. 

 More photos here.

around the world – part 41.1 (warsaw)

A 'gift' from Stalin

When I think of Poland, I think of tragedy.  A country which has been intermittently independent, but more often under the thumb of one empire or another, Swedes, Germans and Russians to name just a few.   Tragic because they sit smack in the middle of the east-west european invasion route and thus were ravaged in the Great War, again in the aftermath of the October Revolution (a little known war between USSR and Poland from 1919 – 1921), and soon after the dismemberment by both Nazi Germany AND The Soviet Union in 1939, the two Warsaw Uprisings (1943 and 1944) which left the city in ruins, and of course the soul-destroying years of the communist regimes.  Poland lost the largest percentage of its citizens of any combatant nation during WWII.

And yet it survives.  I somehow get the feeling that if this country could ever catch a break, they might wield considerable influence within europe – but then again the nature of tragedies is such that what can be imagined never comes to pass.

around the world – part 40.3 (scenery)

Zaanse Schan Sept 2009

 

Marken, Netherlands Sept 2009

around the world – part 40.1 (water world)

afsluitdijk netherlands

Today was a day off and I opted for the tour of Northern Netherlands – thinking it would be primarily of Friesland. However, we went rather farther afield than I expected.   Our bus took us west towards the Barrier Dyke or ‘afsluitdijk‘ which prevents the North Sea from entering the Netherlands and has created a freshwater lake the ‘IJsselmeer’ to the south of it.   Quite a fantastic piece of engineering when you consider that the plan as implemented was conceived in 1891, with the Dutch Parliament approving it in 1918 and then building it between 1927 and 1932.  The whole dyke 32km in length and is 90m wide at the base and slopes up to be at least 10m above the spring high tide.  It carries a four lane autobahn on the lower inland side.  After a brief stop at the site where the east and west sides of the dyke met, thus completing the enclosure and creating the IJsselmeer, our bus carried us on southwest towards the village of Zaanse Schan in the district of  Zaandam, which is actually quite close to Amsterdam.

Zaanse Schan is a village preserved to represent life in the 1500 – 1600s, although with the coach loads of tourists, not surprisingly quite a few of the houses have been turned into commercial enterprises to cater to a captive audience. Think upper canada village but with the added feature of overpriced dutch trinkets for sale throughout the village. Interestingly, about one third of the houses are privately owned and lived in by families, albeit with hordes of tourists passing by in front.

Zaanse Schan

At Zaanse Schan I discovered the answer to a question which had been puzzling me somewhat – “what is up with wooden clogs”? I mean who would willingly put their feet into uncomfortable wooden vices? There is a whole museum devoted to the story of the clog, and in short it goes something like this.

Long before there was widespread use of hydraulic machinery (the famous dutch windmills being the first of these), the locals would dig drainage ditches by hand, heaving the spoil up into the centre, creating the ‘polder‘, upon which they would build their houses, towns, farms etc.  The soil is very peaty and they learned early on that pressing the peat spoil to remove excess water would (1) improve their drainage and quality of the soil for agriculture, and (2) would produce a sort of peat coal which could be burned to heat homes.  The first clogs were in fact wooden footwells carved into flat pieces of wood, with which the locals could press water out of the soil.  Over time, the necessity to press water became less important and the flat pieces of wood became obsolete, leaving the wooden shoe, which then became a useful cultural icon, and adapted for other uses.  Notably a special clog with up to three or four inches of wood above the crown and toes of the foot was created which could be used as a fulcrum for levers being applied to move rocks in dyke building projects. The first ’safety toe’ boot so to speak.

After two hours, a small snack and beer,  we loaded the bus and headed off to Volendam and thence to the island of Marken situated on the western edge of the IJsselmeer.  I found Volendam to be a bit more interesting than Marken, which although it is also an area of old villages, there isn’t much to do on a Sunday except to browse countless harbourside souvenir shops.  We returned to Volendam, grateful for the well stocked bar on board, and then our two hour return to Zoutkamp.

Interestingly, even around Zoutkamp, the land must be about 10feet below sea level, as the main dykes are all a minimum of at least 20feet (6m) high.  There are almost no fences between farm fields, as they demarcate fields with drainage ditches of sufficient depth and width to discourage sheep, cattle and horses from moving to the greener pastures.  Each drainage ditch, in turn runs out to meet with a signficantly larger collector ditch, which in some places is twenty feet or more across. The dutch windmills which are the cliche of this country are actually intended to move water from the lowest ditches up in succession to higher ditches, and then finally near the sea, they pump water up and out into the north sea.

bucket list – 02

Visit the Grand Canyon.

on the bucket list

high speed rail for canada – pipe dream or reality?

Occasionally, and when it is politically expedient (read – tons of cash available to be ‘injected’ into the economy), the governments of Canada and the United States wax poetic on the benefits of high speed passenger rail.   When times are bad, railways are rediscovered, primarily I think as a means of attracting  potential labouring class votes more than any actual commitment to delivering a functional rail network.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m actually a proponent of high speed rail, particularly of the variety in service in France and Germany, but generally only if there is a business case to be made for it.  Unfortunately it is awfully difficult to make money shipping passengers along single mode transportation networks, just ask the shareholders of Air Canada and other airlines.  Notably privately owned passenger transportation (with the exception of motor coaches) networks mostly succeed at losing money for their investors.  

around the world – part 39.1 (middle of everywhere)

July 18 2009:

Downtown KC

Recession?  What recession?   If there is trouble in the heartland, it sure is difficult to tell.   I am not denying that things have fallen off a bit, but perhaps all of the gnashing of teeth and rending of cloth seen and heard on big media these days is because the downturn is being felt mostly on the coasts and in the manufacturing states.   Here in KC, with acres of parking lots, sweltering heat, platoons of SUVs and pickup trucks conducting tailgate parties there doesn’t seem to be much evidence of a bust.

Once again Junior finds himself on the road, only this time for three weeks(!), enjoying the sights and sounds of Kansas City.  More to follow….. 

How to get there:

By air from YYZ on AC 8029, a cramped regional jet, about two hours into MCI.  Collect bags; out to the curb to board the shuttle to the central car rental centre, and then off to the hotel. 

Here’s some UFI on MCI:  the good citizens of Kansas City would dearly love the airport code to be changed to KCI – and indeed on the highway signs, it is referred to as such, but the official airport code remains MCI.  When it was built, it was known as the Mid Continent International – hence MCI.  Additionally the letters K and W are reserved as the initial letters for radio and television stations and despite lobbying by city officials, KC has been refused permission to change the airport designation.

around the world – part 38.5 (the montenegrin riviera)

Coast of Montenegro near Budva

around the world – part 38.3 (white knuckle bus tour – or channelling your inner dictator)

June 09 2009:

Forcing the Plebes to the side of the road

There is nothing quite like being escorted at breakneck speed along narrow winding mountain roads in a motor coach with police cars forcing the plebes off to the side of the road.   With lights flashing, paddle waving and horns blaring our escort emphatically signalled to the unlucky montenegrins that  a bus load of somewhat important persons was hammering down on them and that any time - NOW! – would be a good time to get off the road.     That might sound just a titch unsympathetic and just a bit aristocratic, but really who wouldn’t enjoy this?  The locals I suppose.

Of course, nature being in balance and all that, action counteraction etc etc, it does get a little dicey when the local cement truck decides to challenge the right of way being implemented by the local gendarmes.  Bit of toss up who would have won that, but I would have given it to the cement truck on points. 

But then again no risk, no reward right?

Admit it.  You know that in the darkest corner of your hearts you harbour a longing for an unimpeded route, swept along at high speed with countless locals figuratively bowing before your presence.  It awakens the inner dictator in all of us.

around canada – part 4 (montobello quebec)

June 02 2009:

Chateau Montebello

And so I find myself at Chateau Montebello Quebec -should you ever find yourself contemplating a weekend sequestered away from the distractions of Ottawa or Montreal - do consider this very pleasant retreat. 

The promotional material offered by the Hotel website does not do justice to the resort.  The entire experience, in my view, has been well calculated to inspire maximum relaxation.

How to get there: 

By Car – 401 east towards Montreal.  At exit 721 take Hwy 416 towards Ottawa.  Enter Ottawa and join the 417 east towards Montreal.  Exit at PineGlenn and head north towards Carling Avenue.   Join the Ottawa River Parkway from Carling and take the Island Park Drive bridge towards Aylmer Quebec – follow signs for highway 50 east towards Montreal.  Leave 50 at Thurso and take Quebec Highway 317 south and then join 148 east towards Montreal. Through Pleasance and Papineauville, to Montebello.  Look for the signs for Chateau Montebello as soon as you enter the town.

here there be dragons (or war memorials in small town germany)

I had just finished reading Red Storm over the Balkans, a very detailed history of the failed Russian offensive of April / May 1944 into Romania, when Edward the Corgi co-incidentally reminded me of a small yet significant feature of the Greding town war memorial.  The memorial, like many in towns all over western Europe and North America, records the names of town folk fallen in service of their country.  The Greding memorial dates from the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-1871 with the last entries being from the Second World War. 

However, on closer inspection you notice an interesting feature.  Those who fell in battle in both the Franco Prussian war, and the Great War for Civilisation* (that would be WWI for all you ahistorical postmodernists out there) are annotated with specific locations (an exception is made for those who served in the Kriegsmarine, where the location is annotated with an ocean name), but a large percentage of those who fell in the second war are noted as having fallen only in ‘osten‘ or the east.

War Memorial Greding

Now this is curious for a number of reasons.  Germany, being an industrial nation, and a bureaucratic state similar to those others in western Europe of the day, and culturally predisposed to following rules (alles in ordnung) surely records must have been kept.  That even during the days of their darkest regime, there must have been bureaucrats toiling away in some nameless office block of the personnel section of the Wehrmacht, filing away posting messages, keeping unit and battalion records and together these might produce at least an idea of where each individual soldier had served and fallen.

Apparently, not as easy as one might think.  Keep in mind that from January 1943 (the surrender of Von Paulus’ sixth Army at Stalingrad) the German Army was more or less on the defence (albeit a rather mobile defence with some significant reversals for the Russians at times) for the remainder of the war, fighting in ‘terra incognita’ at least until late 1944, an area for which accurate maps and other detail was largely unavailable to both sides.   To complicate matters further, the Soviets dug up/bulldozed/destroyed any Wehrmacht (not to mention Italian, Hungarian, Bulgarian, Slovak, Romanian) cemeteries upon retaking their ground, so that not only were the families of the dead not allowed to visit the graves of the lost, in Russia, there are  no graves to visit.  Add to this the visceral feelings of hatred amongst the two belligerents, the sheer scale of the battles and casualties, the rapid movement of the lines, it all adds up to an inability to state for certain exactly where many sons of Greding are buried.  

In contrast, visit one of the beautifully kept (by public subscription, I believe) German military cemetaries in France where the families of the fallen often conduct pilgrimages to the gravesites, and you can understand how the idea of “the East” must have taken hold, particularily when the shear size and timescale of the Eastern Front is considered, with the climate extremes etc.   Without in any way excusing the excess of the horrific regimes on both sides of this largely now forgotten war, the young German soldiers who served for years in “the Land of Dragons” had no choice in the matter, and did the best they could under conditions we cannot imagine.  They deserve better than just vague reference to the east.

But there it is: ‘osten‘.  Small comfort for the families of Greding.

 _________

*  E the C will insist.   Grateful to the shorter legged canine for all the helpful editorial comments.

around the world – 37.2 (die inner-deutsche grenze)

Sunday May 03:

border post @ moedlareuth

About two years ago I had stumbled across the old inner-german border whilst wandering near Coburg.  That brief experience lead me to begin researching the very physical manifestation of Churchill’s ‘iron curtain‘.

Google being  my friend – it didn’t take too long to find websites which are dedicated to preserving the history of this particular border.  In the course of my googling I came across the curious case of the ‘little berlin’ or the town of Moedlareuth.  This town, which even today remains tiny, sits in a picturesque valley, with a wee stream dividing it in half.  The stream also marks the boundary between the German provinces of Thuringa and Bavaria – notable because this also marked the extent of the Soviet Zone of Occupation after WWII and subsequently became the German Democratic Republic (Deutsche Demokratische Republik-DDR 1949-1990).      

From 1952 until 1966 the DDR strengthened its border with the federal republic, becoming eventually one of the most heavily militarised zones anywhere – perhaps with the exception of that between North and South Korea.  In moedlareuth it was particularly noticeable as the border ran right through the middle of the town passing quite close to buildings.   By 1966, the temporary fencing was replaced with a 14 ft high double wall backed up with electrified fences, watchtowers, minefields and machine gun posts manned by the volkspolizei (‘vopos‘) creating a death zone which became almost impossible to cross.

And so, presented with the opportunity to go and see remnants of this border, early sunday morning, off I jetted towards moedlareuth.  A beautiful sunny day, the wide open autobahn - no need to repeat my previous musings about driving fast cars in Germany. 

_______________________________

 Note:  in this first picture, taken from the former East German side – from right to left – the vehicle track along which  border / security forces would patrol, the plowed soil intended to reveal footprints, the small ditch with the vertical rise on the left, thus preventing any vehicles from ramming the electrified fence, and further to the left – but since removed – was the 14ft high concrete wall (although a segment remains just out of the picture).  Between the fence and wall the 10m wide strip was planted with land and anti personel mines.    The only border in the world designed to keep its residents in.  In fact the East Germans essentially thought of those who escaped as ‘deserters’.   The pamphlet “He Who Leaves the German Democratic Republic Joins the Warmongers”, Notizbuch des Agitators (“Agitator’s Notebook”), published by the Socialist Unity Party’s Agitation Department, Berlin District, November 1955, had this to say:

Both from the moral standpoint as well as in terms of the interests of the whole German nation, leaving the GDR is an act of political and moral backwardness and depravity.

Those who let themselves be recruited objectively serve West German Reaction and militarism, whether they know it or not. Is it not despicable when for the sake of a few alluring job offers or other false promises about a “guaranteed future” one leaves a country in which the seed for a new and more beautiful life is sprouting, and is already showing the first fruits, for the place that favors a new war and destruction?

Is it not an act of political depravity when citizens, whether young people, workers, or members of the intelligentsia, leave and betray what our people have created through common labor in our republic to offer themselves to the American or British secret services or work for the West German factory owners, Junkers, or militarists? Does not leaving the land of progress for the morass of an historically outdated social order demonstrate political backwardness and blindness? …[W]orkers throughout Germany will demand punishment for those who today leave the German Democratic Republic, the strong bastion of the fight for peace, to serve the deadly enemy of the German people, the imperialists and militarists.

 

electrified fence and watchtower - moedlareuth

 

the death zone - moedlareuth

 

 

border at moedlareuth 1946

machine gun bunker inside the death zone @ moedlareuth

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How to get there: 

By Car from Greding:  turn onto the Autobahn 9 (A9) north towards Nuremberg, following signs for Berlin / Hof.  Leave A9 at exit 33, joining A72 towards Hof.  Take exit 3, north towards Toepen.  In Toepen follow signs for the Deutch-Deutches Museumto moedlareuth.

around the world – part 37.1 (greding again!)

around the world – part 36.2 (kennedy space center)

piloting the 'whale'

March 29 2009:

Hard on the heels of Human Achievement Hour, and with Edward the Corgi at the wheel, Junior and colleagues piled into the ‘whale’ and headed east into a light rain towards the Kennedy Space Centre.   Armed with one dollar bills and a small ransom in coin we bolted from toll plaza to plaza, inefficiently adding our highway ‘rent’ to the Florida state treasury in terrifically short intervals and, arriving eventually at our destination, home to the spaceport and not coincidentally a quite entertaining tour experience.

I can state categorically that NASA has built a first class destination, simultaneously aimed at both youth and adults alike.   For those of you with small children – given the considerable amount of time spent queuing for tour buses, I would recommend waiting to visit until kids are in the 10 – 13 age range, as the centre is not optimised for little kids.  However, most kids should find the Shuttle Launch Experience to meet the  ’son et lumiere’ quotient necessary to qualify for the cool factor.  Already planning for the two fierce creatures.

....light this candle....

I think, though (unless you are present for an actual launch), the Apollo/Saturn V Centre must be considered the main attraction.  Complete with a Saturn Rocket, slick multimedia presentations, Apollo 11 control room and much more, this center captures in one place the complete history of mankind’s greatest achievement.  You can’t leave here without being impressed and just a little bit in awe at the audacity of those who to hurtled into space on top of a rocket guided by computers with less capability than exists in your cellphone.

 

Next:  Warbird Museum

around the world – part 36.1 (kennedy space centre)

March 29 2009:

brute force and will in 360 feet....