German Short Study Tour: An Annotated Itinerary
For the second half of our Core Course week last week, my philosophy class "Religious Mythos and Philosophical Logos" traveled to Germany for our Short Study Tour. After testing our theories of art at the Glyptotek museum, we took them on the road to Lübeck and Hamburg. There we visited museums, cathedrals, and memorials, and asked what was working and why and what it is that we remember when we remember.
Below is the itinerary of our trip, annotated with photos and reflections.
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 10: Lübeck
7:45- Meet tour leaders and group at DGI Byen Students please remember to bring lunch packs and snacks for the bus ride!
Remember your passports.
I watched my first danish sunrise as my housemates and I walked to the train station at 7:30am.
8:00- Depart on bus for Lübeck
Once the bus started driving, all my classmates and I promptly fell back asleep.
10:00- Take ferry to Puttgarten, Germany
This was honestly the aspect of the trip I was most excited about, after having heard about it from friends: The bus got on the ferry, or rather in the ferry. Yep, it drove right into the hull of the boat and parked there, next to RVs and trucks. We got out and walked up to the deck, to wave goodbye to Copenhagen and the few people standing along the beach.
10:45- Continue driving to Lübeck
When we got back in the bus, it rocked slightly from side to side as the boat docked. "I'm in a bus, on a boat," Rachel remarked.
I marveled at the snow covered fields as we drove on into Germany. Laurel noted that it looked just like a Midwest country side. It's funny how everyplace looks like someplace else.
13:00 -Approximate arrival in Lübeck
Afternoon visits in medieval city by foot.
Because the center of Lübeck is enclosed by the Trave river and because its medieval streets are so narrow and old, our bus had to park outside the city's gates. From there we walked into the heart of the city and got a first look at St. Mary's church, before splitting up for lunch.
View of the flying buttresses and spires of St.Mary's, seen through the star lights hanging above the town square.
13:00-14:00- Lunch on own
14:00- St. Mary's Church
Once in St.Mary's Church, we gathered around its broken bells. Lübeck was subject to a British led air-raid in 1942, and this church was severely damaged during it. These bells lay exactly as they fell during that event. Untouched, they served as a memorial of the lives lost during WWII, but more importantly they act as a reminder about Germany's actions that led up to the air-raid.
This church had been built and rebuilt endlessly since its original construction, each time it had evolved with the style of the era ans tis architectural innovations. But post WWII, the church had not returned it to its former glory. Some walls were left unpainted, the new layer of plaster apparent; some statues on the wall were fragmented, visibly broken. Given its history of reconstruction, this felt like an additionally poignant choice made to remind future visitors like us of its destruction.
15:00- Museum Behnhaus Drägerhaus
17.30- Check in at hotel
19:30- Dinner at Nord, Restaurant in the European Hansemuseum
We had dinner at an amazing restaurant, Nord, within the old walls of the city, repurposed as the European Hansemuseum. A old viking ship sail stood in the middle of the dining room, rising up from the floor below us. Nord serves Nordic food in homage to Lubeck's Hanseatic history. Ironic to be eating for the first time only after leaving the Nordic peninsula, but it was all absolutely delicious and beautiful, so I'm not complaining.
Here is our fancy desert: pear ice cream on a bed of pears, decorated with a dried pear slice.
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 9
7:00-Breakfast at hostel
I had not stopped talking the day before about how excited I was for a German breakfast, and I was not disappointed by the hotel's breakfast spread.
8:00- Depart for Hamburg by bus
9:30- Arrive in Hamburg + check in at hostel
10:00-16:00- Guided walk: Art in Hamburg’s Public Spaces
10:30- Nazi bunker
After WWII, Hamburg decided to repurpose its military fortifications into public spaces. One of the citiy's Nazi bunkers has been turned into a music school, with a night club on its top floor- which our professors recommended we go to that night.
We debated if this re-appropriation of the space turned the bunker into a work of art, but many of us felt that the bunker turned night-club's outward appearance did not do enough to acknowledge its past function and break from history to announce its new use.
The Nazi bunker still looks exactly like a bunker, hard to tell it is now a musical space from the outside.
11:00- St.Pauli Stadium
Right behind the bunker is the St.Pauli soccer stadium. While the stadium itself isn't all that notable, the team's fan base sure is. Since the early 90s, the club's supporters have been explicitly politically progressive. This is apparent in their merchandise and their rituals: the gift shop sells shirts with anti-racist slogans, sweatshirts with fists punching swastikas, their bumper sticker read"fight against the right", they fly the Gay Pride flag next to the team's flag, and hold a moment of silence for victims of National Socialism before every game, and their very logo is a skull and cross bones. Definitely not your usual soccer fans.
This is the wall in the back of the gift shop. Note all the anti-fascist and anti-racist bumper stickers. And a handful of Che Guevara stickers in there too for good measure.
11:30-Stolperstein (Stumbling Stones)
If you look down as you walk around Hamburg, you are bound to find a Stolperstein soon enough. A Stolperstein, or Stumbling Stone, is a small plaque commemorating the victims of Nazi concentration camps. They are displayed in front of the houses of those who's name they bear, along with their date of birth and the location of their murder.
These small memorials are a perfect representation of the way that memories of WWII have become an essential element of Germany's culture- it is integral to the city's structure.
A row of Stolpersteins along the side walk.
12:30- Lunch break
1:30-St.Nikolai Memorial and crypt museum
Remaining fragments of the St.Nikolai church, badly bombed by the Allies in Operation Gomorrah in 1943. Like St.Mary's bells, it remains as it fell as a memorial.
3:00-WWI + WWII Memorials
Deserteurdenkmal or Deserter Memorial
18:00- Dinner at Restaurant Marblau
20.00 Evening Concert by Nathan Quartett, Reading from letters by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Laeiszhalle Concert Hall
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 10
10:00 Hamburger Kunsthalle
My favorite aspect of our trip as a whole was the museum in Hamburg. It had such an extensive collection, spanning all art periods!
The skylights in the lobby of the contemporary section of the museum.
As I walked out of the basement and into this space, I was stunned by the light. I stood there in awe for a while, staring strait up at the sky above. No wonder they built ceilings with such high ceilings. This space reminds me of the St.Mary Church in Lübeck, or rather makes me feel the same. There is something spiritual about the grandeur of this space, and standing so small at its center. Heidegger would likely note that museums today act as our new temples.
A cube symbolically has no middle point, by Jose Dávila
This was a favorite piece of mine in the Contemporary section.
Maria and Rachel "dwelling" with the art.
13.00 Lunch at Brasserie Atlas
The most memorable part of this meal was finding out Brian is repulsed by the ideas of cooked apples. I don't understand why or how, but it means I got to eat his apple strudel, so fine by me.
Class photo after our last meal.
15.00 Depart for Copenhagen by bus
17:30 Depart on ferry
18:00 Continue on bus to Copenhagen
20:00 Approximate arrival in Copenhagen
END OF STUDY TOUR!
good to be home after those three full days.