The Detouring Doctor

Amsterdam has a massive cultural footprint. Personally I am a big fan of classical music, opera and theatre and less so the visual arts. This city has not one but two of the best art galleries on the planet.

We start the day in a short line into the Rijksmuseum which first opened here in 1885. They exhibit 8000 objects of their collection of 1 million objects. The “big ticket” items are the Dutch masters paintings from the 17th century. Artists such as Rembrandt, Van Hals and Vermeer and even a stray Van Gogh or two which of course belong to the later impressionist school. Personally I love the Dutch masters’ use of light. Turning up early and in the shoulder season we seem to have the museum to ourselves.

A short walk away is the newer Van Gogh museum dedicated to the brilliant, mentally ill Dutch impressionist of the 19th century. Everybody knows aspects of his life story. His early paintings in Holland are here and they are dark and unimpressive. Living in France and impressed by the Impressionist movement he blossomed into the genius painter. Tragically he was dogged by mental illness and everyone knows that he cut off his own right ear. Ultimately he suicided at age 37 walking out into a field and shooting himself in the chest with a revolver. He was found by his brother and constant support, Theo

It is dark and the streets are heaving with a throng of, largely male, humanity. Smoke is in the air but somehow this does not smell like cigarettes. It is of course marijuana which is perfectly legal here and we are strolling through Amsterdam’s Wallen district, more commonly known as the “red light” district. Our more prurient friends were curious if we would go there. To those people the answer is, yes we did!

One of the glass doors opens to a punter. Suzanne, hears the price, 200 euro, almost $375 Australian! The punter withdraws and the door closes. This is a unique place. Scantily clad provocative women sit or stand behind glass doors with red lighting. Some make eye contact and engage and even wave. Others stare at their mobile phones bored with the experience. The women are all shapes and sizes but all are available, for a price. The experience is titillating and my life partner is gobsmacked!

Then we walk through a patch of secondhand weed smoke that is particularly intense and she who must be obeyed suddenly becomes woozy and I have to help her back to our hotel.

Our last day in Denmark sees us driving out to Odense to visit the birthplace and childhood home of perhaps Denmark’s historically most famous person. Anyone of my vintage will have grown up knowing HC Anderson’s works. His books have fallen off the radar with little kids today but he is very much part of even their childhoods in films such as “Frozen” and “Little mermaid” which have been lifted directly from his writings.

Born into poverty in 1805 he had a rough upbringing. His father died young and his mother an illiterate, alcoholic washerwoman remarried 2 years later. She pushed him to become a tailor. Nonetheless he persevered with school where he endured physical and verbal abuse especially from the headmaster with whom he was forced to board. Anderson describes those years as “the darkest and most bitter of his life”.

He ultimately moved to Copenhagen and started writing children’s fairytales. He ultimately wrote 156 fairy tales and stories, many modelled on people around him, some with a dark edge to them. It is thought that the “Ugly duckling” story was inspired by his life experiences.

King Harald Bluetooth (not a joke) founded Roskilde in 980 AD on the island of Zealand. He initially built a royal residence and a cathedral. By the 11th century Roskilde solidified its role as the primary political and religious centre remaining the official capital of Denmark until 1443.

The attraction here is the massive Gothic style Cathedral, the head of the Lutheran Church of Denmark. Constructed in the 12th and 13th century it is unusual as it is built entirely in brick. It is also special in that 40 previous kings and queens are buried here and their mausoleums in side chapels are fascinating.

Our accommodation was just outside of town in the middle of a farm. The converted stables were charming and modern.

The title is a twist on a line from Shakespeare’s most famous play, Hamlet. We have a brilliant, cloudless sunny day as I drive the 40 minutes to Helsingor Castle, renamed Elsinore in the famous play. While Hamlet was fictitious the castle is anything but is larger and more majestic than I imagined.

The royal family has lived in Amalienborg palace since 1794. It is a working royal palace but one also open to the public. We arrive early for the daily midday changing of the guard but the crowd is already three deep making photography particularly difficult.

The palace museum is impressive not just for the royal chambers but an amazing array of Faberge pieces donated by the final Tsar’s of Russia.

Christiansborg palace is now home to Denmark’s parliament and High Court.

The last of the Scandinavian countries that I have visited shares one thing in common with the rest, it is fiendishly expensive. It also shares a preponderance of EVs, an orderly civilised society and a climate where, after the 3 months of summer is over, temperatures drop dramatically. Unlike the rest walking and driving around there is a veritable army of feral cyclists dominating footpaths and roads. The aggression is palpable and many times we were threatened and abused by cyclists travelling faster than cars. There are apparently more bicycles here than humans!

Nonetheless this is a beautiful city, easy to get around and with no shortage of sights. There of course is the Australian connection with pictures of Queen Mary (Mary Donaldson from Tasmania) beaming down on us as we visit the palaces.

The crown jewels are in Rosenborg Castle completed in 1672.

The famous Tivoli gardens turned out to be more amusement park than gardens and a bit of a disappointment.

Finally we arrive at the Hans Christian Andersen statue

Most of Germany was left in ruins after WW2. A previous post of mine was set in Nuremberg which was utterly devastated and today the reconstruction is nothing short of amazing. Similarly for Berlin.

Our last morning here we visit Charlottenburg palace on the outskirts of Berlin. Completed in 1699 it is named after Sophie Charlotte of Hanover who married King Friedrich 1 of Prussia. After her death the king named the surrounding area Charlottenburg in her honor.

Berlin today is a great cosmopolitan city arising from the ruinous ashes of WW2. Unlike other European capitols it does not have a old quarter but it has broad green avenues of stately old buildings giving it a classy edge. It is a city replete with museums, galleries and music venues more so than anywhere else I have seen. It also gives the nod to its 20th century past with enduring monuments.

Surprisingly, Berlin has more canals than Venice and Amsterdam combined as the Spree River and tributaries cut through the city.

Berlin is home to a variety of squares

The rousing words uttered by JFK in a speech delivered in West Berlin in 1962 the year after the Soviets built the Berlin Wall.

Berlin was the capitol of Prussia and eventually capitol of a unified Germany in the 19th century. In the 20th century Berlin occupies a pivotal point in world events. Firstly the end of WW1 sees the overthrow of the German monarchy and the declaration of the short lived Weimar Republic.

In 1933 an Austrian demagogue named Adolf Hitler assumed the Chancellorship in Berlin and set about establishing the dictatorship known as the 3rd Reich. It was from Berlin that he ordered the invasion of Poland in 1939 that started WW2. It was from Berlin that he put orders into place that resulted in the Holocaust. In 1945 in an underground bunker in Berlin he suicided as the allied forces rolled in.

The division of the spoils of war among the victors saw Berlin become an enclave within communist East Germany. A city divided between east and West. Half behind the iron curtain half administered jointly by the US, France and UK. Ultimately to stop the haemorrhaging of citizens from east to west, East Germany built the Berlin Wall in 1961. This became the physical face of the “iron curtain” and the decades of the “cold war”.

Subsequently in 1989 the first sign of the collapse of the Soviet Union was the fall of the Berlin Wall. Another US president at the time Ronald Reagan uttered the famous words “Mr Gorbachev, tear down that wall!”