A Lifetime Achievement

Margaret Ford took a trip to Germany last December. Read on for a colorful description of her travels:

Because my college major was German language and literature, I had wanted to go to Germany for years. Last December I finally went! I traveled alone with one carry-on bag and a first-class German Railpass and visited six cities to see their art museums.

After a long, fourteen-hour flight, I landed in Frankfurt where I caught the train to Wuerzburg, about an hour and a half away. I checked into a hotel for which I had made reservations over the Internet. The Hotel Central Garni was very pleasant and reasonable. I immediately headed for the Residenz. Its most famous artwork is the huge fresco in the staircase done by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo. Its baroque interiors were stupendous. Probably my favorite room was the white room with swirls and intricate designs of stucco covering the walls.

I then wandered through the Christmas market in the town square. Small roofed stands offered a wide variety of food, Christmas decorations, and gifts to the throng of people. Whole families came with children and babies almost completely covered in winter wraps. It was about 28 F that evening. I found these "Weihnachtsmarkten" in every city I visited. They added an air of excitement to an already festive ambiance.

The next morning I jumped on the train for Leipzig. I had to transfer once at Fulda -- a very easy procedure with my one bag. I really enjoyed the German trains. They were punctual, comfortable and spotless. The fact that I was traveling in the wintertime probably explained why none of the cars were crowded. Summer travel may be different.

The hotel I had booked in Leipzig over the Internet turned out to be in a smaller town several miles away. But in its place, my taxi driver found me a reasonable hotel in walking distance of the Museum der Bildende Kuenste, where I was headed. The museum was great - lots of Cranach paintings. I spent the afternoon there. The only flaw was that the paintings by Caspar David Friedrich, which I wanted to see, had all gone to Japan! Afterwards I wandered through the Leipzig Christmas market, then went to a restaurant for a very tasty German meal of pork roast and potato dumpling. Their potato dumplings are about the size of a tennis ball and delicious!
The next morning I headed for Dresden, where I stayed for three nights. The Gemaeldegalerie Alte Meister was my priority destination. It is a very old art collection greatly expanded by August the Strong of Saxony in the eighteenth century. He was possibly the first royal personage to allow the common people to visit his paintings. The museum had a whole room of paintings by Bellotto, though at least eight were on exhibition in Spain. There were wonderful paintings by the Italian, Dutch and Flemish greats. I went back two other times to enjoy the whole collection.

The Gemaeldegalerie Neue Meister and the Gruenes Gewoelbe were visited the next day. The first is nineteenth-century paintings; the second is the royal treasury of Saxony. On Sunday I rode the train to the small town of Pirna. Our museum owns a painting of the marketplace of Pirna by Bernardo Bellotto. The buildings look exactly like the picture!
Berlin was the next stop. I had planned to stay four days, but extended two more days. There was so much art to see, and I still didn't find all of it. The recently built Gemaeldegalerie holds the combined painting collections of both East and West Berlin, which had been divided after World War II.

On a Sunday I took the InterCityExpress to Munich, a trip of 6 1/2 hours with one change in Fulda. It was very relaxing and gave me a chance to see the several different landscapes in Germany from flat plains to the Alps.

Munich was much warmer than Berlin, because the fon, (or Föhn) the warm wind from Italy, had blown over the Alps. The Alte Pinakothek was fabulous with its many Durer and Rubens paintings. The museum had just opened after being renovated, so everything was spotless. There is a pleasant café on the ground floor and a very nice bookshop. Other museums I visited were the Glyptothek, a sculpture gallery, the Antikensammlung with its many Greek vases and wonderful gold objects, and the Deutsches Museum, the largest science and technology museum in Germany, perhaps in Europe.

I only found one place that I could access my electronic mail, and that was in the Internet room in the Deutsches Museum. There I was looking at the Alps in the distance and writing my friends back at the library!
Munich has a very large pedestrian-only area in the center of the old city. I reached it from my hotel by going down into an underground shopping mall, which was under the busiest thoroughfares. The city had a great Weihnachtsmarkt that spread through several different squares. I finally started my Christmas shopping there, but I had to buy another duffel bag to get everything home!

I stayed six nights in Munich, another night in Wuerzburg, then my last night in Frankfurt before flying back home. I felt like I had been to graduate school in art history. The challenges of coping with the cold, the transportation modes, and speaking German throughout the trip engendered in me a stronger self-esteem. And the pleasure of not having to be responsible for anybody else was delicious!