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  • Munich – Munich Documentation Center for the History of National Socialism (Puppet Chanele and Maria Luiko)

    Munich – Munich Documentation Center for the History of National Socialism (Puppet Chanele and Maria Luiko)

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    This exhibit at the Munich Documentation Center for the History of National Socialism is a little tricky to photograph because of the light, but it’s an important part of their current exhibition. The puppet is Chanele, created by the Munich Puppet Theatre of Jewish Artists which was in existence between 1934 and 1937 when it performed five plays and three musical dramas.

    The central person featured by the museum is Maria Luiko (1904-1941) who was a founding member of the theatre group and she made the puppets and most of the stage sets, so she was likely the first person to pull the strings of Chanele. Maria was unable to join the Reich Chamber of Fine Arts when it was created in 1933 as she was Jewish, which also meant that she couldn’t display or sell any of her works. Maria had ideally wanted to move to Palestine, but she was arrested and deported on 20 November 1941, along with her sister Dr. Elisabeth Kohn and her mother Olga Kohn (nee Schulhöfer), from Munich to Kaunas in 1941 and she was then murdered on 25 November 1941. These murders became known as the Ninth Fort massacres, the first systematic mass killings of German Jews during the Second World War.

    The museum notes:

    “Chanele still remembers what it was like to move on the stage, to tell her story, to play a role. She remembers the excitement and the applause, the hands that made her and the held her on the stage. The hands of the people who believed in the magic of theatre and the power of stories to transform, to comfort, to hold people together.”

    The puppet’s survival feels a little remarkable, but its existence means that the story of Maria Luiko is at least not lost to history.

  • Fakenham – Superstore

    Fakenham – Superstore

    [This is from August 2018, but I’ve reposted it to fix the broken image link for the photo that amused me at the time….]

    This isn’t particularly amusing, but this is certainly my sort of superstore   🙂

  • Smuggler’s Trod Challenge Walk 2018 – Yorkshire Coast LDWA

    Smuggler’s Trod Challenge Walk 2018 – Yorkshire Coast LDWA

    [I originally posted this in August 2018, but have reposted it to fix the broken image links]

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    I thought it’d be a great idea to spend a weekend in Whitby and also complete the Smuggler’s Trod 25-mile challenge event which is held nearby as part of the adventure. Five other people from Norfolk & Suffolk LDWA came along and we were rather lucky with the perfect weather for the event, no rain and not too much sun.

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    The walk wasn’t particularly challenging in terms of hills, but there was a hill climb straight from the start at Robin Hood’s Bay. The total ascent for the entire walk was 657 metres though, which was hilly enough for me.

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    The early section of the walk went along the official Coast to Coast path as we went inland.

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    The colours along the route were beautiful and the whole walk was along a varied landscape with numerous wooded areas, moors and along riverbanks.

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    Bev trapped in ferns.

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    The food selection was wonderful throughout and the doughnut type things were particularly delightful and very moreish. One checkpoint was kindly making up sandwiches to order, so I quite happily waited there whilst eating jelly babies.

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    We went through a farm with some interesting pieces of ironwork dotted about, including this fine looking soldier.

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    Approaching Robin Hood’s Bay again towards the end of the route.

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    The last part of the route was along the former railway line from Whitby to Scarborough. It’s a great shame that this line has been lost, but it is now a popular cycling and walking route.

    The end of the challenge event today leaves the railway line just before Robin Hood’s Bay so that entrants have to walk up the hill to the former railway station, which is the end point of the event. For those who are running out of time, the organisers allow them to just walk along the railway line to the end, which I was tempted by anyway, but that would have felt like cheating….

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    This is what I had to deal with….

    We walked around the challenge event in two groups of three and I won’t go into details into what went wrong for the group of three that I wasn’t in. But I will say that Maria, Jane and Ray clearly weren’t able to navigate as well as me, as I didn’t end up walking four miles extra by mistake…..

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    Everyone is rewarded with a pie at the end of the walk, and I was so brave that they let me have two. Actually, they let me have two without the bravery bit, but if they had known have brave I was, they’d have given me two anyway, so that’s the same thing…

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    They were selling flasks from the 2017 event for £1, which seemed a bargain to me as another reminder of the event.

    I thought that the whole event was well run and the volunteers from the Yorkshire Coast LDWA group were all friendly and had a great sense of fun. I hadn’t intended before the event to repeat this one, but having completed it, I’m pretty sure that I’ll do it again in the future.

  • Whitby

    Whitby

    [I originally posted this in August 2018, but have reposted it to fix the broken image links]

    My visit to Whitby was rather short, but sufficiently interesting for me to want to come back. I thought that the pubs were particularly impressive, but there are numerous museums that I’d have liked to have visited as well. And some more pubs…..

    Black Horse Inn

    The Little Angel

    The Board Inn

    Station Inn

    Lewis Carroll Park

    Captain Cook Statue

    Khyber Pass Toilets

    West Pier Lighthouse

    Storm Gate

  • Whitby – Storm Gate

    Whitby – Storm Gate

    [I originally posted this in August 2018, but have reposted it to fix the broken image links]

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    There’s a storm gate on Whitby pier to prevent people from going out fishing (or indeed anything else….) in dangerous conditions, and it’s a particularly impressive gate. It was designed by James Godbold who runs a blacksmiths in Egton, located just outside of Whitby. It’s made of galvanised steel and there’s an old ship portrayed on one side, and a more recent one on the other.

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    The plaque, dated 2005, which is located next to the storm gate, as “a tribute to the fisherman, merchantmen, whalers, explorers and all seafarers of Whitby past and present”.

  • Whitby – West Pier Lighthouse

    Whitby – West Pier Lighthouse

    [I originally posted this in August 2018, but have reposted it to fix the broken image links]

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    West Pier Lighthouse stands over 20 metres high and is located on one side of the harbour’s entrance. I didn’t realise until afterwards that following some restoration work that visitors are allowed to climb up the tower which seems an interesting little expedition.

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    The lighthouse was erected in 1831 and the engineer in charge was Francis Pickernell. Princess Victoria visited the lighthouse in 1834 and there’s another on the other side of the harbour, which is brilliantly named the East Pier Lighthouse… The lighthouse remained in use until 1912 and it was then replaced by more sophisticated methods of alerting shipping to the dangers of crashing into the harbour wall.

  • Dreiländereck – Austria, Liechtenstein and Switzerland

    Dreiländereck – Austria, Liechtenstein and Switzerland

    I’m very engaged with borders and their meeting points, so I was pleased to have the opportunity to visit the Dreiländereck which is the meeting point of Austria, Liechtenstein and Switzerland.

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    And there we go, the actual spot is in the middle of the river and I decided against wading in.

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    We were standing on the Swiss side of the river, over there is Austria to the left and Liechtenstein to the right. There’s nothing evident to mark the actual spot where the three countries meet, so we were reliant on looking at a map to ensure that we were at the right place.

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    Walking back to the rather interesting place that Richard left the car. It’s the Rhine and this is near the start of this river before it goes off thundering through Germany and then entering the North Sea via the Netherlands. It’s all very peaceful and there were plenty of cyclists and walkers on both sides of the river.

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    And we saw what I think is a grey heron.

  • Austria – Pitztal Valley

    Austria – Pitztal Valley

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    Richard and I went for a walk in the Pitztal Valley last week and I was so inspired that I’m taking my friend Liam there next year for mountain biking, walking and climbing (by climbing, I mean walking up slight slopes).

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    Richard was terrified by this, but I was calm and collected when walking by. The rest of this post is just the photos of the walk, it really was a beautiful area.

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  • St. Leonhard – Pilgrimage Church of St. Maria am Bichele

    St. Leonhard – Pilgrimage Church of St. Maria am Bichele

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    As part of our Austrian adventure in the valley of the Alps, we walked to a few churches and this included the rather lovely Pilgrimage Church of St. Maria am Bichele. The name ‘Bichele’ (or little hill) suits it rather well, a modest whitewashed chapel in a clearing which feels more like a woodland sanctuary than a grand shrine and it’s protected today as a historic monument.

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    The walk up the hill which has wayside shrines whose reliefs narrate the fourteen Stations of the Cross.

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    Here comes Richard jogging up the hill.

    The story of this goes that in 1610 a beggar named Michel is said to have seen an angel who told him to seek the Mother of God near St. Leonhard and after much searching he found a small statue of Mary on a tree stump. A chapel promptly went up at the spot and drew steady devotion. The present church dates to 1828, built by the curate Josef Neururer, partly because the parish feared the main church might be unsafe on shifting ground and wanted a worthy substitute for worship and pilgrimage.

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    The grotto, which has inspired Richard.

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    The interior of the church.

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    The chancel.

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    The statue of the Virgin Mary on the altar.

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    Looking back along the nave with the organ on the upper tier.

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    An interesting votive painting which I think is expressing delight at some miracle taking place, perhaps relating to this location.

  • Whitby – Khyber Pass Toilets

    Whitby – Khyber Pass Toilets

    [I originally posted this in August 2018, but have reposted it to fix the broken image links]

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    I rather like the name of these former public facilities, they were known as the Old Khyber Pass toilets and had a location near to the harbour. Unfortunately, the council has decided to close them and replace them with facilities where visitors to the town have to pay to get in. Which will have the result of inconveniencing visitors, excuse the pun, and seeing more people sneak into Wetherspoons and similar businesses to use their toilets.

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    The council are selling the premises with the potential for A1, A3 or A5 consent to be granted. This means that there is still scope for good news, as this would allow Greggs to take over the site and open an outlet in a town where they currently don’t have a shop.