Van Gogh in Basel

Just outside the Kunst Museum......
The Trolley's of Basel....

Tammy and Karin - great to be together again!

Our day began with a two hour train ride ride to Basel. It was early and raining, so we napped much of the ride. Upon arriving in Basel, we took the trolley (which is more fun than a bus, because they travel right through the middle of the streets and are painted to be bright and cheery!) to the Kunst Museum.

There we meet our friend Karin who took us out for coffee/tea/hot chocolate/water. We had a lovely visit and then went into the Museum to enjoy the Van Gogh exhibit. No photographs were allowed to be taken in the museum, so please enjoy the ones on the Kunst Museum website. While at the Kunst Museum, we found other lovely artwork to enjoy.

The rain continued, so we did not walk about Basel. We did however enjoy our train ride home, where the sun came out - with rainbow and we had lovely views of the Rhine River and the Bodensee on the way home. In fact, we enjoyed ourselves so much, we forgot to take photos! That's living in the momement!

Train Ride through the Austrian Alps

We chose to travel through the Austrian Alps from Salzburg to the Bodensee. It was a lovely journey and we were thrilled to have such picture postcard views. The water was so clear and a green-blue that did not show up so well in the photo. It looked amazingly fresh. In a few crevasses of the mountains, we think we saw a bit of snow.

Salzburg

We visited Saint Peter's Abbey and took time for prayer and meditation. I had visited this church almost 30 years ago. At first, I am struck by it's fullness, too fancy and busy for my personal tastes. Yet...in quite and silence the energy in the church is amazing. And the prayer very moving.

The older "Roman" part of the city..Salzburg was once the northern Roman Empire City North of the Alps. Even Mozart is shown in Roman style!

I love Salzburg. There's a crisp cleanness to the city and it's full of history and music events. We enjoyed watching the evening's opera from the famous Salzburg Music Festival http://www.salzburgerfestspiele.at/ outside at the open air kino.

Mozart's Cossi fan Tutti and a 2nd to be named opera were dramatically acted in modern settings, providing a new twist to the old and ever popular operas. We enthusicastically watched the 1st hour of these operas and then sadly walked to our hotel in order to be in bed by 12 midnight. (which is 00:00 on the European clocks!)

During the day we enjoyed the city sites.....and enjoyed an amazing marionette show of The Magic Flute.

Glockenspiel in Munchen

The magic of mechanical music boxes is a love of our family. We went to the center of Munich to see the Glockenspiel - which played for almost 15 minutes the day we arrived. Read the story about Munchen's Glockenspiel.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rathaus-Glockenspiel

die Weiße Rose

We visited Munchen (Munich) to honor the White Rose members at their memorial and exhibition.

The White Rose (die Weiße Rose) was a non-violent/intellectual resistance group in Nazi Germany, consisting of students from the University of Munich and their philosophy professor. The group became known for an anonymous leaflet campaign, lasting from June 1942 until February 1943, that called for active opposition to German dictator Adolf Hitler's regime.

Six years ago, Emily Rose was in a World Premier music about the White Rose at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio. Since the performance she has studied the compassionate work of the White Rose members and has a special place in her heart for them.