The train ride took 40 mins. We were in the company of a Germany gran who was heading for Hamburg which takes 4 hours. 3 different opinions were offered at the Gelsenkirchen station as to how we might traverse the 1.5km to our Maritim Hotel. Finally we jumped a tram gratis (they didn’t ask) and got off nearby. We were cooked after the 15 min walk in near 30degree C temperature about 1.30pm. We had a 10th floor room that looked over the Stadt gardens - green trees as far as we could see. Essen to the right, Bochum pretty much straight ahead. Everything else pretty much lost in the sea of green trees. But what was that in the air over Essen? And it came closer and closer the evening we arrived! T. Did a recci into the town centre and uncannily arrived at St Augustin church where his great grand parents Carl & Maria Alve married on 14 February 1874 (St Valentine's day) in a marriage service for about 15 couples led by Fr Schulte! Quite an emotional moment which he recognised by lighting 2 votive candles in memory and recognition of them who soon after, bravely journeyed to NZ. The church precinct recognises the pivotal roll that coal mining played in the development of the region from the mid 1800’s onwards. We dined out our first night in G. in the hotel restaurant before retiring for the night with the fan on to provide a little relief from the heat. Pfarrer Heinrich Konig is a celebrated person in Gelsenkirchen because he resisted the National Socialist party during WW2. As you see he end up in Dachau concentration camp where, I think, he was hanged on his birthday in 1942. My lasting impression from visiting Gelsenkirchen is that this is a peaceful place. This was reinforced when I went walking on the 2nd day before joining Margaret to have a closer look at the city. At the far end of the Stadt Garden is an arcing, large monument to the victims of the 8 German Concentration Camps. This edifice caught me unawares and viewing it was deeply moving. A little further on in the gardens is this water garden that I visited a second time with Margaret. While there I had a conversation with an Ukrainian man who assured me the Ukraine is not part of Russia. He knew NZ from a relative by marriage who came from NZ. He was in town for the wedding of his wife’s daughter that day in Bochum nearby. This Saturday was also notable that the local football stadium the hometown team Schalke 04 was playing Bayern Munich in the BundesLeague 1st division I think. Many people with their mid blue shirts were in town, even at the hotel. I didn’t hear the final score but I think it was a one sided affair in favour of Bayern. The State Gardens in Gelsenkirchen below our hotel Sunday had us attend the early afternoon English service in St Augustin led by a Nigerian priest. There I met a Pole with Jewish connections who lived down the road at Buer. We talked in the Church and later at the hotel bar about many things, but especially about the impending death of his close friend who lives in London. As part of his treatment for melanoma his tongue has been cut out. Life in the raw happens where ever one goes. I await to hear from Felix how it pans out for him as he progresses through the grief that is his. So our precious time in Gelsenkirchen concluded on Monday 26 August as our Russian driver collected us late morning to travel the 50-60 km to Huckeswagen where Carl Alve was born and grew up in the mid 1800's.
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It’s 6:30am as I sit in a 10th storey hotel room looking south over a heavily tree covered park with a wee lake in the foreground which is home to ducks and geese including a family of nine goslings with their parents who look different from any we have seen in NZ. In the middle distance are large pylons carrying electricity across the Ruhr valley and to the right is the city of Essen with a modicum of sky scrapers. There are hints of other towns and villages but the dominant impression is that disguising this very heavily populated area are hordes of mature trees.
But I get ahead of myself because I am in Gelsenkirchen about which I will write in my next post. Today I want to reflect on our experience of Düsseldorf 40 minutes away by train we discovered yesterday, to the south west by the Rhine River. You may have gleaned from my Facebook posts that getting from Helsinki in Finland to Düsseldorf via Copenhagen was a little frought! Craig and the children accompanied us to Helsinki airport, we bade our farewells and we were ready in good time to travel to Copenhagen. We had heard the Russian President Putin was coming to Helsinki as we were leaving. Whether it was the need for high security at the airport or some other issue we will likely never know, however our flight via Airbus was about 30 minutes late in taking off. It was a crowded flight and we knew that there would be an issue in Copenhagen because scheduled arrival and departure times were only 50 minutes apart. If the Düsseldorf flight was leaving on time it would be a close run thing. We had word before our flight landed in Copenhagen that our departure gate for Düsseldorf was B15. Little did we realise that meant a wolf of at least 15 minutes. Problem was Margaret was wearing dress shoes not running shoes which in the end she removed for the sake of comfort and speed. Well we made it to our second flight with seconds to spare to be travelling on a smaller plane that was as empty as the Helsinki plane had been packed. Good thing was we got a great meal including 3 top of the range chocolates that seemed too precious to eat! It was a lovely flight that allowed us to get a great impression of the Ruhr region before we landed on time at 1pm. But where were our bags? Obviously not on the designated conveyor belt. We had a taxi waiting the driver of which was patient when we called to explain our dilemma and need to do business with the SAS staff before we left. Having done all we could we met Imad our driver who ushered us to a large black Mercedes, leather covered seats, 8 person people mover just for the two of us! A bit over the top really for us but nevertheless enjoyable as Imad explained some of the landmarks of Düsseldorf. We were preoccupied with thinking who has been in this taxi before us: a Bundesleague soccer star, Angela Merkel, perhaps even Putin when he visited Germany, Dodi Fayed when he visited Harrods in Düsseldorf or others eminent and important. We also wondered if something like this vehicle would suit the Perris family of Tawa!? We stayed at Ruby Leni hotel which is central in Düsseldorf and awaited the return of our bags. Margaret lay low for the rest of the day - she was enjoying a talking book she had downloaded. Terry did a recci of the city taking a long walk along Wilhelmstrasse before spending time in a shopping mall before beginning to retrace his steps (he hoped). He felt like he was a local when an elderly German frau asked if he knew where Wilhelmstrasse was. Acting very knowing he pointed in the direction he had just come and set her straight. That Wednesday evening the Ruby Leni had organised entertainment with nibbles so Terry tuned in to listen first to a local German sing some very soulful music before the Irishmen from Vienna came on to sing some iconic Irish music. In the process He had robust conversation with a reasonably good English speaking German man from Limburg in the south. He was there as a singer/musician himself, impressed with the quality of the entertainment. Thursday had us head towards the Altstead (old town) after a good cafe breakfast and a walk along Dusseldorf’s noted expensive shopping area. It was there Marg bought some walking shoes at H&M for 20 Euros! About noon we boarded a boat on the Rhine for a tour of Düsseldorf from the river - see pics. We wended our way back through the Alstead market district including along the street that has been described as the longest bar in the world. Our arrival back at Ruby Leni about 2:30pm brought the good news that our bags had arrived and were in the hotel store room. Much relief and joy which was well expressed in the hug Marg gave the hotel receptionist lady. By this stage Terry’s cold had become full blown with a streaming nose and chest congestion. Sleep was a little hard to sustain so all and all he felt quite miserable. As he writes Saturday morning this has now broken and begins to feel quite behind him. Before bed we had very reasonably priced train tickets to Gelsenkirchen (about 15 Euros for the two of us), Terry had reconnoitred the train station about 20 mins. away and we had taken the decision to walk to the train station with our big bags in tow in good time for our 11:08 departure on Flixtrain. In fact we did this with oodles of time to spare and we had a leisurely breakfast along the way within a stone’s throw away from the station. By noon Friday we were in Gelsenkirchen ready for our next adventure. Our final day in Helsinki was spent with Craig visiting the Seurasaari Open-Air Museum. The brochure notes it is 110 years since this place began to provide visitors a peek at life in days of yore in smoke cabins, Croft’s and manors. All the buildings have been brought in from various parts of Finland and it is described as, ‘rural Finland in miniature.’ So our time concluded with a special tea with the family, giving of gifts and viewing Craig’s 21st birthday video - we were there not long before we left Christchurch for Wellington. We train to the airport first thing tomorrow - Wed 21 August.
Saturday saw us travel to Suomenlinna Island which is a 12 min. ferry trip from Helsinki towards the SE. We walked with the children from the train to the ferry passing the national Lutheran cathedral on the hill and over to the Orthodox Church which we entered with crowds of others - see pic.
Suomenlinna has been a defensive Island which was built initially by the Swedes when they controlled Finland in 1748. There was a lot going on in that decade - remember Culloden, Scotland and the battle of ‘45 which we will learn more about next month. The point is that this Island has been a primary defensive position for this region for a long time and continues to be lived by the military- we saw a big helicopter fly over as we were having an afternoon ice cream! While there was shared a picnic lunch at a playground, walked through a decommissioned WW2 submarine with a torpedo in the tube (defused I hope) and observed how cramped the conditions onboard were for the crew of 16. We Craig and I joined a guided tour with a well informed guide who ran through the Island’s history with the Swedes, then the Russians from about 1809 through the Crimean War when the French and British bombarded the Island from the Gulf of Finland in 1856 through to independence in 1918. The ferry trip over was full but it was cramped around 4 pm as we travelled back via ferry, tram and train to Huopalahti for tea. Sunday had us staying closer to home visiting the children’s favourite playground and visiting the local Lutheran Finnish speaking church - again see pic. In the evening we went for another walk into a local forest where we found and ate some small blueberries and enjoyed an evening wander through the neighbourhood. It was early Thursday night in Helsinki as we slept off 24 hours on the move. It is summer and the night was warm but good ventilation in Craig and Malin’s 3rd story apartment meant it was quite comfortable. Malin is a senior high school teacher at a very near by school (like 300m.) which is Swedish medium. While she is Finnish her mother tongue is Swedish - about 10% of people in Helsinki fall into this group. Once Malin left for school the rest of us did some serious LEGO building before boarding the train for Helsinki CBD where we spent about 4 hours at a national museum which has a bullet hole in the entrance doors - there from the time of the Revolution in 1918. We joined a group guided by a delightful man who introduced us to Finnish history via the exhibits from the Middle Ages through to the end of the 19th Century. We learned of the influence of Swedish and Russian occupations of the country sometimes benevolent and sometimes not. Sick of the Russians, Finland was somewhat supportive of Germany in the two World Wars of the 20th Century because the Russians were more the enemy. The pictures above capture some of the exhibits.
After a very pleasant lunch which included free beer! we ventured upstairs with the children to the educational play area. This was well conceived including the pictorial mural that ran the perimeter of the room recording the history of Finland. We spent most time building building with the rusty coloured bricks. Isn’t it so often the way that the most simple things capture the attention of children young and old. So come 3:30pm it was home on the train to Huoapalati (sp?) and a delicious food pulled pork meal that Malin had prepared. Followed by bed time prep with the children and discussion about what will happen in the next few days... before bed.
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AuthorMargaret & Terry Alve live in Tawa, NZ. Between them they are linked to several families from the UK and Germany who emigrated to Tasmania and Aotearoa-New Zealand between 1850 and 1925. Archives
December 2022
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