Beethoven's Birth house museum.

In Half Term, CBC and I travelled to Germany for our holiday.  CBC LOVES a nomadic holiday- a few days here and there before moving on. It's fun but does end up with lots of travel and can be more expensive. (especially when you only book the accommodation at 5am of the morning you are travelling)

Our first day, he had his Garden Design course so we didn't travel till afternoon and we were driving so after we travelled on Le Shuttle through the Eurotunnel which ended up being an hour and a half delayed, we ended up in a small town near Brussels around 10pm local time.  We stayed in a B&B which was pleasant but simple and then departed the next morning.  We drove for several hours through Belgium and then Germany and decided to stop off in Bonn as we wanted to visit Beethoven's birth house museum.

We parked in a multi-storey carpark off the main street in Bonn and walked to the museum.

Here it is.

I was SO happy to be in Germany as I hate being that tourist who doesn't speak the language or does so badly. I did A level German and adore speaking German even though I have forgotten a lot in the 26 years since I stopped speaking it regularly. It was so nice to be able to communicate in the language. CBC, who doesn't speak German, was very relieved.

You download an app to your phone that will play you audio about each exhibit which is really handy.

The museum is divided into different exhibitions and rooms.

• Beethoven perceived by his contemporaries
• Bonn in times of transition
• Work and Everyday life
• Network. Friends
• Network. Patrons
• Network. Loved ones
• The Artist and his Work
• Blow of fate

We started off in the room with images of Beethoven himself.

I loved the Beethoven bust by Franz Klein, 1812.

It was an authentic representation of the composer. He used a plaster cast of Beethoven's face.  The composer allowed the plaster cast to be taken twice after a panic the first time when he thought he mgiht suffocate.  The only part that was formed later was the eyes as these were obviously closed for the cast.

Two of his friends from the Streicher family commissioned this work of him.  They owned piano factory and they had busts of favourite composers such as Schiller and Haydn and Andreas Streicher who was also a respected composer.

This small miniature was by Christian Hornemen from 1802, Danish painter, during his stay in Vienna. He used the finest paintbrush onto ivory. This shows Beethoven, 31 year old, the first high point of his career where he was truly feeling  and perceived as successful.  He had fashionable look- he was the desired guest of every Viennese salon.   He apparently wasn't usually this well coiffed.  He was often described as being scruffy and didn't like having to dress up.!  He was fond of this small portrait. He gave this to Stefan Von Broining,  a childhood friend, as a peace offering after a fierce argument.

The most famous portrait of Beethoven.  By Joseph Stieler.  He was a highly regarded portraiture of the time.  Beethoven sat 4 times for this portrait. It was unusual for Beethoven to sit still for any length of time so this is quite special. It's the best depiction of him. This is only portrait that actually shows him composing. He holds the  Misse Solemnis score in his hand.  He had a  serious discussion with Stieler to discuss which  work and which page should be depicted.  He chose the Credo.

The forest background expresses Beethoven's love of nature. Stieler created an idealised image of Beethoven. 

For me, this portrait is the most famous image of Beethoven I know so to stand in front of it was pretty special!

The Credo depicted. Have a listen as you read on.

I was very excited to see Beethoven's viola! I didn't know he played the viola! He played this instrument from the age of 19. He was a violist with the royal court orchestra.  He was also the organist for this ensemble.  He got to know and play most of the well known  repertoire of the day through this job. He began music aged 5 with his father Johann on violin.  His father was very strict and told him off for poor playing, at least according to a family friend so it's hard to know how mcuh was true.  We know that Beethoven's first concert was aged 7 in Cologne by his dad. He began organ lessons and then violin with good teachers, sought by his father.  He also attended Elementary school but not secondary school as apparently he wasn't very good at languages or maths!

This is the parts of the organ he played at the time.

This model of the city of Bonn at this time was really interesting to look at and from a child's view, looks incredible.

One thing I loved was seeing Beethoven's manuscripts before they were copied by a copywriter for publishing.  I found it all very scruffy and hard to read so I am glad that wasn't my job!

One thing that many know about Beethoven was that he lost his hearing completely by the end of his life. This is extremely difficult for anyone this happens to. For a musician, this is and must have been utter torture. 

Here was a collection of his various ear trumpets.   The museum taught us that he tried many quirky treatments for hearing loss.  He also had conversation books where his friends would write replies to things he said.  It seems like he was very grumpy and rude!

Another score.

Here's the exterior garden.

I haven't shown you everything, just a few little highlights.

There was a lovely listening room for his Juvenilia with earphones and a lovely chill out room where there are sometimes live performances.  They played a recording of his Moonlight Sonata with a screen that highlighted the notes on the original handwritten score.

We loved the museum but were now very hungry.

We found a patisserie round the corner.

I ate this wonderful chocolate and hazelnut mousse!

Here's a massive dummy in the shop of Beethoven!

After this, CBC ended up buying one of two little souvenirs. I ended up buying a lovely little leather violin keyring in a gift shop opposite which I plan to wear on my belt as a cute little charm!  This was my only holiday souvenir.

We had a bit of a panic with the machine in the carpark as it wouldn't accept our payment but had taken the card and the money.  Curiously, it had a 'call for help' button on it. I called it and in my German, I tried to explain it had taken our money and now wouldn't give anything back!  Miraculously, they managed to make it work remotely and all fine!

It was now time to drive to Frankfurt!  We found bargain hotel in Frankfurt called Hotel Cult. We paid £46 for the night in a double room including amazing buffet breakfast. We found free parking on the street. I'm not too fond of the overly stodgy and meaty traditional German fare and I didn't want this for a whole week so I looked up something local and that night, we walked down the street to a lovely family run Vietnamese restaurant for dinner where vegetables were plentiful!

I should state something gutting I realised on the day we there.  Originally, we had been planning to stay in Darmstadt as that was near the location we needed to be the next day. I discovered that THAT very day, in DARMSTADT, was the famous German Doctor Who convention, Timelash, which I have wanted to attend for a few years and Paul McGann, the Doctor Who actor I have always wanted to meet was there.  I was literally going to be in the town on the day of this German convention! Sigh...another time.

x

Madeira Day 5

 Our 5th day in Madeira began similarly to others with a late breakfast and making buffet rolls. 

We decided to head to the route of PR1 which starts at Miradouro do Pico do Areeiro.  This is one of the best known walks as it connects the two highest peaks of Pico Ruivo and Pico as Torres and Pico do Areeiro and is part of a central mountainous area.  Sadly, due to landslides and other safety issues, the whole route is currently shut and there are fines imposed for anyone caught trying to traverse the route past the cordons.  We decided to do the 1.5 km of ti which is open before going onto another walk.   

We parked alongside the road in a safe spot as the carparks looked very busy when we arrived.  We walked up the hill and came to this observatory.  There are some great views here.

It was definitely the most touristic walk we did.  There were many people on the paths, some of them slow, some of them faster

Despite all the people, we enjoyed what views we saw.

The walk was quite steep in parts and harder because of the people coming in both directions especially when it was narrow.

We reached the barrier where you could walk no longer and looked longingly at what lay beyond.

We headed back towards the car but had a look in the gift shops which were really quite fun. I was tempted by some lovely cotton hoodies with tasteful Madeira logos and also some beautiful 100% wool jumpers but resisted. 

CBC started driving us to our next location.  I asked him where it was and he said, it was an unofficial route along a Levada in a remote village.  When asked how he heard about it, he said that he was looking at Google maps and saw it marked and someone had commented that it was one of the last unspoilt, untouristic routes but asked people to give it a 1 star rating so it would remain that way!

Intriguing!

We made our way really quite far out and up some very quite roads until we reached a tiny village.

Already, I knew this was going to be special if a little....unsafe...

Here was a view of the place from the car

We climbed up a very unofficial looking path through some allotments and past a pig sty.

And there, we found the levada looking very natural...no official paved paths or railings. 

We could have gone left or right so we went right.

Immediately, this felt more interesting than the other levada (and in retrospect of all our other walks in Madeira)

The flora and vegetation was already more interesting with these beautiful flowers.

I was fascinated by what I saw.

There was lots of this lacy, delicate foliage which I reached out frequently to brush my fingertips against.

The path felt so much more edgy and exciting than the previous levada.  CBC was heading towards a gentle waterfall here that you got wet having to walk through.

As it was April, I'd been hoping I might see some interesting fungi, particularly a Scarlet Elf Cup again and to my delight...here I saw one!

Let's zoom in a bit.  It was a miracle I spotted it!

We saw many of these succulents in various stages of maturity.

The views, when we could see, were utterly wonderful! I felt like I was in Peru!

At this point, we had to walk through the rock face, through a tunnel to continue!

 This is with my flash! It was really dark in real life!

On the other side were more glorious views!

More of the succulents.

And yet more interesting flora.

And more fungus. Delicate and lacy.

At this point, we encountered a problem: A landslide!

CBC decided to check out how secure it was to see if we could continue and make a circular walk.  I was muttering all sorts of dire thoughts of accidents and not following the hiker's code!  He climbed up and over and told me it was fine! I was extremely apprehensive!

I made it up and over with lots of exclamations and an extremely muddy bum.

We continued and then encountered our second problem: a river with no way across except some far apart rocks and a branch blocking the way.  My dire mutterings became anguished "It's not safe! Let's turn round!" and it wasn't till CBC tried to remove the branch in the way and slipped and fell, that he agreed! It was sad as we really wanted to complete the circular walk but agreed that perhaps it wasn't wise!

As we walked back, I looked at these glorious views again.

Back at the car, we decided to walk down into the village as CBC had read that there was a swimming spot by/in the river.  This caught my interest of course!

We were walking through the vineyards to reach the river and passed some villagers. It didn't look very affluent and I imagine people live a simple but difficult (but probably very happy) life here.

Sadly, we couldn't see a safe way down to the river so we reluctantly returned to the car.

We decided that on our way home, we would like to go to one of the recommended Skewer restaurants to try the famous Madeiran skewers that we missed from our home town. The ones we had the other night were not a Skewer house restaurant but a general restaurant.

We traversed the most ridiculously steep and outrageous route courtesy of Google Maps which the Fiat Panda struggled with to reach O Lagar!

It was a vast restaurant which was virtually empty when we arrived but was filled to bursting within about 30mins of our arrival.

The menu was really quite small and had no veggie or fish options to CBC's sadness. He had to opt for meat (he's pescetarian but is occasionally flexitarian). 

We started with the wonderful Bolo do Caco with all its garlicky goodness.

Thank goodness we shared the beef skewer as it was enormous!

We had a salad, skin on fries and rice...which turned out to be pretty dull as only plain rice.

The dessert menu was absolutely enormous full of all sorts of really exciting ready made desserts (which I might share in another post) but CBC and I opted for the homemade ones. 

I had a chocolate mousse.

It had been a brilliant day but very tiring with a lot of driving for CBC so we decided the next day, we would stay closer to home...

xx