OK, I've worked out how to write under the picture now, instead of having the first 5 words down the RHS.
As you can see from the picture, today we are girding our lions for the first day's cycling. The hotel in Passau has free internet, so after wrestling for our breakfast with around 20 grim-faced Christians on a retreat, we have retreated to our room to enjoy an hour's emailing at the kaiser's expense.
The lions were actually the Leipzig mascots at Marj's conference, so the team posed with (the) pride on the last day.
Wish us luck as we head off in our new cycling gear to collect our bikes from a nearby suburb. The bags will all be left here at the hotel and we will hope to see them at our first destination, some 50kms down the river, this evening.
Lions AND Christians in the same para..this is too good to be true!

No room at the Inn

Saturday 30 May 2009

This morning we started on an ICE train at Leipzig station. We boarded at 10.05am and the train was due to depart at 10.16am for Munich via Nurnburg (and it did with German efficiency).

Speaking of efficiency, I paid one euro at the station to go to the toilet. I was number three in the queue and there was a bank of 12 toilets so I was confident of fast business. But no, the frau in charge was only allowing use of three of the toilets and people were taking forever. She also added the extra service dimension of cleaning each toilet slowly after each use. I got my turn eventually but by the time I left there was a queue of thirty anxious potential female train travelers not entirely amused by the high cleaning service levels at the expense of potentially not being able to catch their trains.

We were en route to Passau to begin our cycling trek down the Danube tomorrow, so we changed trains at Nurnburg for Passau. We travelled first class with plenty of leg room and good space. We travelled at around 150km and the journey was as smooth as smooth. It was not without its moments- procuring some lunch at about 2.30pm in the dining car necessitated a 30 minute queue to acquire two baguettes. It was pretty amusing as a young female Basila Fawlty was in charge. She let the world know pretty regularly that she was not entirely happy with her working conditions- that she was required to make and serve coffee in the adjacent dining car as well as deal with the baguette queue. It meant that neither activity was performed with great grace. Each order was punctuated with a fair amount of stomping and muttering and at one stage there was a refusal to provide change to an older woman (who won the battle of wills and wits). Anyway, our baguettes emerged around 3pm and were delicious if a little lacking in customer service!

It was a bit sad to leave Leipzig which was a great surprise package for both of us- a beautiful old city which is finding its feet and its vibrancy again at the 20 year anniversary of the Berlin Wall coming down.

We had great accommodation in the central old town in the up-market Radisson. One morning while heading back to our room after breakfast I noticed a rather gorgeous model-type stylish woman walking towards her room with, on a lead, a rather gorgeous model- type stylish small dog. Sure enough the Radisson rules are dog friendly- the guidelines outline that people and their pets should be able to holiday together. The guidelines, however, did discourage people from bringing their pooches into the restaurant. The pro-four legged philosophy also extended to the city’s excellent light rail system with well behaved hounds on leads sitting obediently as their human owners clicked tickets into the machines.

The peaceful revolution commenced in Leipzig in May 1989 with prayers in St Nicholas Church in the old town- some months later there were 70,000 people quietly demonstrating with candles on the streets which was part of the mass German movement which led to the reunification of east and west.

We were very impressed with the ability of people in Leipzig to talk about the World War 2 bombing experience (10 per cent of the city was destroyed), and the post war East Germany arrangements (particularly the rigours of the communist regime) with equanimity and humour. For example, we learnt that a particular building in Leipzig had been built with “Russian cement” which was allegedly composed of 40 per cent cement and 60 per cent microphones, tapes and cameras!

This weekend Leipzig is hosting a Gothic Festival- not buildings or manuscripts but people. The Goths came to town from all over the world -the city was expecting 30,000 or so Goths. We just saw the start of it with the town squares full of the most amazing extreme black costumes, frocks, hairstyles and make-up. There were big Goths, small Goths, families of Goths and indeed every Goth accent imaginable. There were even some ‘splinter’ Goths in white. We’re not sure what that is about but I guess all big movements have their factions.

My conference finished at lunchtime on Friday so we took the opportunity to take a tour to Dresden in the afternoon with other conference attendees. We had a great female guide- she appears in the photo above in a hat and holding up her umbrella. She was joined by another female colleague in Dresden and between them they moved us through the key sights at a good pace with great commentary.

It was a drizzly afternoon but again what a surprise package of a city. The old town was 90 per cent destroyed by bombing in World War Two but has been rebuilt beautifully. This city of contrasts it a great mix of old and new images with a state of the art VW manufacturing plant juxtaposed with older architecture.

Most of the buildings around the central square (see photo) which look as though they have been there forever have actually been rebuilt since the war, and largely since reunification. President Obama is due to visit this week so a couple of roads were actually on target for completion next Thursday when Dresden central will be in lockdown for the presidential visit.

So arrival into Passau saw no accommodation booked for us at where our cycling itinerary indicated we were to rest our heads. Several phone calls around the city found where we were actually booked in and we subsequently received our cycling instructions, in German, with our kit. Between showers we walked down to the Danube (and it was really down so therefore really up on the return journey) and through the rather beautiful University of Passau set on the riverside.

Our friend Rob Spence (travelling with his two adult daughters Melanie and Jenna) made contact and we will meet on Sunday morning for Day One of the ride. We opted for an in-house meal (one schnitzel, one goulash) and an early night in anticipation of tomorrow’s serious leg work.

This is the pesky varmint I have had to master in order to get around Leipzig. It's funny how hard simple things become when you are travelling abroad (and when you don't have your children with you to explain the world to you). I have finally worked out how to change the ticket machine to "English", what form of ticket I require to go within area 110 and how to have the correct change in my pocket for the transaction. Also, how to do all this in a moving tram with a queue behind me whilst looking as though I know what I'm doing. Someone is bound to ask me how to do it today. I took three trams yesterday and am currently cowering in my room at 11am working up the courage to go out and do it all again. You are very fortunate to be hearing all these innermost thoughts and fears, you know. I wouldn't tell just anyone.

Marj with some of the high-powered delegation from Australia at the International Transport Conference here in Leipzig. The other woman at the conference can be seen in the centre, over some shoulders. She was serving the drinks.
Ha, ha. There are actually very few women at this, and M is the only one on our team. No jokes about women and driving please.
She will have her revenge when she takes over as scribe further into our holiday, I'm sure. Anyway, the joke doesn't really work, as I'm the one with the "peripheral reversing problem".

"Terra Nullius: Kunst aus Australien"(or something a bit like that with a longer word at the start which I can't do justice to on this English keyboard), leapt out at us as we arrived at the Spinnerei. What? An Aussie show here in Leipzig?
They kindly let us in after we said we were Australians, and I realised as we entered Halle 14, the enormous space which had formerly been one of the spinning rooms, that I had known all about this show back in Australia!
Sure enough, it features a number of artists with whom I've worked in the past (Gittoes, Richard Bell, Gordon Hookey) and a suite of beautiful etchings I printed for Judy Watson in 2007!! Not only that, but Merran Sierakowski, Darwin artist and former BHE printer, is also in the show!
I have been invited there this evening to a floortalk being given by the co-Curator, so had better brush up on my German. "Habent-sie ein bier, bitte?" That's better. Now I'm ready. I just have to buy another tram ticket.

Bier? Ja!
Brave words. I slept all afternoon.
Welcome to Germany. We arrived here several days ago and had the luxury of a day to walk around the centre of the old town of Leipzig and get our bearings from the Radisson Hotel in Augustusplatz, where we are staying in incredible comfort during Marj's conference.
We visited Der Spinnerei, an old cotton factory (once the largest in Europe) and now the site of the most incredible number of artists studios and galleries. This involved a tram ride and an attempt to understand an automatic ticketing machine on board that spoke only German. We still hadn't worked it out (and didn't have the exact change required for it anyway) by the time our stop came, so the driver, who spoke no English, shrugged his shoulders and said we could get off.
Naturally, we were deposited several miles from our destination and after a half hour walk discovered that most of the Spinnerei was closed, it being Monday (like in Australia!). However, the biggest art supply shop Bas had ever seen (almost) was open, so he shopped and Marj read. The only exhibition we did get to see is described above.

Bas holding up The Globe. OK, think about it.
Marj didn't want to have anything to do with taking this picture, but you have to admit...you just have to stand where countless other silly men have made the same pun over the years and have your picture taken.
I'd do the same in Pisa (even without a pun...I just have that sort of inclination)

Here we are at the Tate Modern (whose art seemed to stop at about 1945, much to Basil's annoyance) with the lovely Alex and her equally fabulous husband Peter. We hadn't seen them since our last time in UK together in 1986 and none of us has changed a bit (we say).
After lunch we saw Picasso, Constructivism, Beckmann, Bacon (OK, he was a bit more recent) and some very nice photoetchings, using a technique that Christopher Croft had talked to Basil about at the exhibition opening the day before!
Marj really wanted to walk across the moving Millenium bridge, so we left after a while and did that, all the way to St Paul's. We would have gone in but God is charging 10 pounds a head these days for casual visits. (Free if you have an appointment)

What Marj did while Bas was running around talking up his art exhibition.
(To be accurate here, this is of course not actually Marj...it was taken by her while she was reading in the park at Russell Square)

Here's a pic of the opening at Rebecca Hossack Gallery.
"Etched in the Sun", our exhibition of around 100 prints done by Basil and his printers in collaboration with Indigenous artists from all over Australia shows here on the second and third floors until June 20.
Rebecca's gallery is at 2a Conway St, Fitzroy Square in London.

Well, here we are in London. It was bright, sunny and warm for the ENTIRE time we were there. People were friendly and helpful, and we met up with lots of relatives and friends; some expected and some total surprises (they knew they were in London, but we didn't). So it was different in most ways from our previous visit together to the UK in 1986!
We did meet up with relatives then too, and they were VERY hospitable, I hasten to add.
Bas (to go into the third person for a moment) spent much of this part of the trip at the Rebecca Hossack Gallery showing special people/collectors around, visiting the British Museum to see his friend (and Curator of Modern Prints) Stephen Coppel and going across London (bravely) on the tube to see his former printer Matthew Ablitt, who's now working at Pauper's Press in Shoreditch ("when I get rich...sing the bells of Shoreditch")
The exhibition went well, and the numbers were boosted by Mum's first cousin Shirley and her husband, Alex and Peter (also cousins), Matthew and his fiancee, the Slaters (Julie is a relative by marriage to the Morrisseys) and Lissant Bolton, a friend of many years ago in Burgmann College at ANU. She's now Curator of Oceanic Collection at the BM.
On the following night, Rebecca had another opening, this time downstairs in her three level gallery, for Jamie Boyd. It was his 60th birthday party and was well-attended. It was opened by the Australian High Commissioner, John Dauth, who, as it happens, was also at Burgmann with us in 1974, and who remarked on the fact during his opening words. Australian artist Christopher Croft was also in attendance with his wife Claudia. I (to go back to the first person) hadn't seen Chris and Claudia since we went to the Venice Biennale together in 1995, so it was a great co-incidence, since they are passing through Darwin in December and were about to contact us.
To complete the co-incidences, Rebecca herself went to Geelong Grammar just after Bas and continued on to ANU...in Burgmann College! Sounds like I'm working the old boy network. If only I was that clever!