Happy Father's Day and Augustiner Museum

Happy Father's Day to those of you that are! Here's a flower for you.

Our monthly trek to Zoo Burkhart for Lexi things. We take a tram then a bus and for once it wasn’t cold and rainy, always has seemed to be in the past, bonus! So you’d think it was her birthday and I suppose it is because we don’t know when it is, we can make it any day we like. Bought a scratching pad, needed, her basic food, a new litter box for travel and treats - yeah treats! They contain malt which is good to get rid of hairballs, treats for her, practical for us. Saves me the notification once in a while - hey mom, hairball for ya, not very nice to clean up.

The girl herself!

Weather has really been the pits, although it’s fairly warm but lots of storms rolling through at intervals not to be predicted. If it rained steadily we would be more inclined to grin and bare it but these short bursts of heavy rain would have us soaked in seconds, I would describe them as squalls. Whine, bitch, and I still can’t do anything about it, just getting it off my chest I suppose. 

We went with Christoph to the Augustiner Museum downtown Freiburg. What a wonderful place to visit! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augustiner_Museum The building itself is newly renovated and they have kept the beautiful old planked ceilings, updated what was needed. It’s been under construction the entire time we’ve been in Freiburg, only opened recently. It is four floors of European history, much of it had been in the Munster and to keep the pieces intact they moved the statues and artwork into this climate controlled museum. Much of it also comes from nearby Strasbourg, France and Upper Rhine, and other parts of Germany. I applaud the curator, it is a beautiful, sometimes gruesome, collection of incredibly well executed art by masters of their time.

A surprise awaited us, students from the music school do a final concert on the organ in preparation for them to perform before an audience. Wow! what talent that lady had, essentially four keyboards to play, one with her feet and she moved so much she had to be in good shape to play it. Her partner was the page turner of the scores she played from and also hit a few keys to change tone. Hands and feet flew across the keyboards. They were professional but unassuming and it was a performance like I’ve never seen before and really, really enjoyed. A couple of fellows sat next to me and closed their eyes, best way to really hear the music and made me wonder were they the teachers, were the players judged, did this go for a mark in the course? 

The organ itself had been moved from the Munster and completely restored, floor to ceiling covering about three floors. So where does an organist make a living? Can they?

View from the top floor, yes, that is a pig on a trailer, promotion for vegan eating, seems an odd choice to me.

What I found great was seeing the evolution of paintings and statues, especially the paintings. They were flat and without embellishment in the beginning, didn’t show perspective. You could follow the improvement through the ages, for example, landscapes were added and detail of people’s clothing were added to give a more interesting depiction. 

One row of many rows of statues.

We saw very many saints, lots of Jesus, devils, mostly biblical and that is where Christoph came in and why we hired him to show us. He is a religious person and told us of the history of many of the characters we saw. He’d also talked with the curator to upgrade his knowledge so he had stories to relate about the art. Going on our own would not have been such a rich experience and getting the organ concert was a real bonus! There are three floors of stained glass, some painted as the originals, some real, originals, beautiful and both Bruce and I do like stained glass. 

Not stained glass but beautiful.

Another separate temporary display was of etuis or small boxes that held valuables, which fascinated me because, you probably don’t know this about me, but I like little boxes of any type, these were beautiful!

Lunch at a fav Italian restaurant close by topped off a really lovely and educational day. 

The herd of cattle we get to look at out our windows.

All for now, Cheers, Bx2 and Lexi Cat