Bosch, Pig's Ears and Tripe

By Helen Matthews

There are two ways of tackling a short city break. One is to rush around, aiming to see as many of the 'sights' as possible in the time available. The other is to try to see just one or two attractions in depth and spend some time soaking up the atmosphere. I have in my time tried the former (my record was Vienna in 3 hours on the way home from Hungary), but on the whole prefer the latter.

Fortunately, the must-see parts of Madrid are located in a compact area. The main art museums (the Prado, Thyssen and Reina Sofia) are all near one another, and approximately 15 minutes walk from the Plaza Mayor and the Puerta del Sol. The Royal Palace is approximately the same distance from the Puerta del Sol in the opposite direction. As we were based in a central hotel we were able to explore the city mostly on foot. For more distant journeys the Madrid metro is new, clean, fast and cheap. A ticket valid for ten journeys (including travel to or from the airport) costs €5.

Our short last-minute break in Madrid gave us approximately 48 hours in the city. Arriving early on Friday afternoon from a typically English summer, our first port of call was the Retiro Park, situated not far from the Prado. Originally the grounds of the Buen Retiro Palace, the park was opened to the public in 1868. In addition to the usual trees, lakes and refreshment kiosks, the park contains a couple of interesting buildings that are now outposts of the Reina Sofia museum of modern art: the Palacio de Velázquez and the Palacio de Cristal. The latter has the advantage of being built primarily of glass, so that it is possible to make an informed decision as to whether it is worth paying to enter the exhibition.

The state museums, which include the Prado and the Reina Sofia are free on Saturday afternoons and Sundays, so we decided to visit the Thyssen museum, which is not free (tickets cost around €6), on Saturday morning. This museum is based on the private collection of Baron Thyssen-Bornemisza, and includes works from the Renaissance to modern work, including Picasso and Roy Lichtenstein. The collection clearly demonstrates the Baron's personal taste - he seems to have been particularly fond of lions. The Thyssen also has an excellent café in the basement, which serves very good chocolate cake.

It would probably have been sensible, as we had so little time in Madrid, to visit the neighbouring museums one after another, since they are so close. However, we felt the need for a break from art, and took the metro to the Casa del Campo park on the other side of Madrid. This large (4,500 acre) park contains a funfair and a zoo. The latter has free-flying parrot displays, but judging from the flock of parakeets we saw in a tree shortly after leaving the metro station, they have not quite mastered the art of training them to come back.

Since the museums are open until 7.00 p.m, we had time to return to the centre of Madrid to visit the Prado.

Prado

Despite the free admission, the museum was not too crowded and it was possible to see even the most famous exhibits properly. The Prado displays the Spanish royal collection, and is particularly strong in works by Velázquez and Goya. The highlights of the collection include Las Meninas by Velázquez and The Garden of Earthly Delights by Hieronymus Bosch. If I had not read this in my guidebook before starting my visit, I would have been able to work it out from the number of different articles bearing these images that were on sale in the obligatory gift shop, even down to reproductions in chocolate.

On Sunday morning we strolled in the other direction from our hotel, through the Puerta del Sol, which is supposed to be the exact centre of Madrid, and the Plaza Mayor, the main square, ending up at the Royal Palace. The entry fee for the latter, at €6, compares extremely well with Buckingham Palace and includes entrance to the armoury and pharmacy as well as the state rooms of the palace. The state rooms are lavishly decorated, but I was particularly fascinated by the contrast between the ornate throne room and the little billiard room that was also part of the tour. There is also a room where the royal family used to assemble on Sunday afternoons to watch films. Adjacent to the Royal Palace is the Catedral de la Almudena, completed only in 1993.

One of the advantages of Spain for short breaks is that rather than going to just one restaurant for your evening meal, you can sample a variety of different eating places and dishes by going on a tapas crawl. This is not necessarily cheaper than eating in a restaurant, but is more interesting. In a city where the locals would not dream of eating dinner before 9 or 10 p.m. it also allows you to satisfy hunger pangs at an earlier hour. We found that the Plaza Santa Ana is a good place to start. We tried some fairly standard tapas, such as croquettes and potatoes with peppers and chorizo, and also one or two local specialities. Be warned: many of the local specialities in Madrid involve offal. We tried pigs' ears, which tasted (unremarkably) of bacon, but were rather fatty for our taste, and tripe, which was cooked with chorizo, and so tasted primarily of spicy sausage. Grilled prawns served in a sizzling garlicky oil were excellent. On the Saturday night our crawl ended in the Plaza Mayor, where we were treated to a concert by what appeared to be the Spanish answer to Riverdance. Despite (or because of) the bagpipes, this generated a something of a crowd. Until then I had been wondering where everyone was for Madrid seemed incredibly quiet for a European capital.

On reflection afterwards, I realised that in the space of 48 hours we had managed to visit 2 parks, 2 famous city spaces, two museums, a palace and a zoo and yet we had seen them at our own pace and the weekend had not seemed particularly rushed.


First published in VISA issue 47 (autumn 2002)

Pyramids in the Gardens

By Helen Matthews

If you were wondering whatever happened to Pinky and Perky, I can confirm that the porcine duo are alive and well and pursuing a lucrative career in the Cairo lift muzak industry. Their rendition of We Wish you a Merry Christmas accompanied us to our room on arrival at the Mena House Hotel.

We arrived on 25 December, and any idea we had of escaping from Christmas by visiting a predominantly Moslem country had already been dispelled by the staff at the exchange offices at Cairo airport, who enthusiastically wished all their customers a Merry Christmas. The mini Santa’s Grotto outside the main entrance to the hotel selling chocolate chip cookies and other goodies, and the large Christmas tree in reception continued the festive theme.

This was our first visit to Egypt, and with only 4 nights (and three whole days), we had a fairly hectic schedule. Two morning excursions, to the Egyptian Museum and the Pyramids respectively, were included in the price of our holiday and we took advantage of the optional afternoon excursions that followed these. We did not however choose to go on the optional full-day excursion to Alexandria on the third day, as one of the attractions of the holiday had been the opportunity to relax in the historic Mena House hotel, which had been built to accommodate dignitaries attending the official opening of the Suez Canal.

Although we had arrived at the hotel late at night (I was surprised by the amount of traffic we encountered at 1.00 a.m.), we had a fairly early start for our visit to the Egyptian Museum. Regrettably, every other tourist group in Cairo appeared to have had the same idea, as there were large queues at the entrance. These were not helped by the fact that we were required to put our bags through an x-ray machine both at the entrance to the Museum grounds and at the entrance to the Museum itself. These were to be the first of many such machines we encountered on our brief stay. The machines were for bags only; cameras were pushed over the top. Our local guide, Caroline, took us around the highlights of the museum at a cracking pace, in some cases having to shout to be heard above the other local guides.

It was something of a relief when, after visiting the Tutankhamun exhibits, which were as crowded as one would expect, we were given free time in which to explore. The display of items from the tomb of Yuya and Thuyu (Tutankhamun’s grandparents), the most spectacular finds in Egyptian archaeology before the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb, were well worth seeing, and could be appreciated in peace. We noted as we left the Museum at lunchtime that the queues at the entrance had virtually disappeared. It is a shame that the arrival of tourist groups could not be staggered more effectively.

The afternoon was devoted to ‘Islamic’ Cairo, the medieval part of the city. According to the Lonely Planet guide, the Ministry of Culture has now designated this area ‘Fatimid Cairo’ after the dynasty that conquered Egypt in 969 and made Cairo its capital – they fear the word ‘Islamic’ might frighten away the tourists. After lunching in a restaurant in the Khan al-Khalili - a vast market and shopping area originating in the fourteenth century where it is possible to buy anything from the usual tourist tat to wholesale lengths of cloth - we were taken to the Citadel.

Saladin commenced the building of the Citadel in 1176, but it was later enlarged by the Mamluks, who took control of Egypt in the thirteenth century, and by their successors, the Ottomans. The most striking building on the site is however the Mosque of Mohammed Ali, the Albanian soldier who declared Egyptian independence from the Ottoman Empire early in the nineteenth century and founded the royal line that endured until 1952. This mosque is supposed to be based on Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, and therefore takes the form of an early Christian basilica. Removing my shoes in order to enter the courtyard, I wished I had worn thick socks, as the tiles were freezing cold. This was an interesting contrast with the mosque in Lahore, where I had almost fried my feet in similar circumstances.

Although our hotel was literally in the shadow of the pyramids, it was an early start again the next day, supposedly so that we would be in time for those of our party who wished to go inside the Great Pyramid to buy tickets, as only 150 tickets are sold each morning. Unfortunately, we were not quite early enough. There was a bitter wind blowing. Fortunately, we had checked the weather forecast before we came, and packed woolly jumpers, but some of our party were shivering in t-shirts and shorts. Behind the Great Pyramid was the Solar Boat museum.

Solar Boat Museum

Five cedarwood barques were originally buried in pits along the eastern and southern sides of the Pyramid. They may have been used to bring the mummy of the deceased Pharaoh across the Nile. One of them was excavated in 1954 and it has been restored and encased in a glass museum for protection. In order to preserve the boat, it is necessary to don protective footwear to enter the museum, which would be fine, if they provided each visitor with two overshoes of the same size. As it was, I had to contend with three inches of surplus canvas flapping on my right foot and threatening to trip me up on the stairs. The boat is amazing. It is hard to believe that it is over four and a half thousand years old. After inspecting the exterior of the two other pyramids at Giza, and visiting the Sphinx, which was smaller than I expected, we travelled to the ancient capital of Memphis.

There is nothing much now to be seen of the ancient city of Memphis, but the museum contains a colossal statue of Ramesses II, together with other statues of the pharaoh and various other items, including a granite sarcophagus with a lid that does not fit (exhibited separately), which are displayed outside.

The museum was the scene of one of the more amusing incidents of the trip. A couple of women in the party were telling our guide Caroline about the Ramesses historical novels, and how well researched they were. “They tell you all about his early life, and his relationship with Moses and everything,” one of them said. “But Ramesses II wasn’t the Pharaoh of the Exodus,” Caroline replied, referring to an inscription dating from the reign of another Pharaoh, and the fact that Ramesses II’s mummy in the Egyptian Museum showed no evidence of his having been drowned in the Red Sea. In fact, the academic world has not yet come to a consensus on the identify of the Exodus Pharaoh, and is unlikely to do so any time soon, but the two women looked crestfallen. “You’ve just ruined my holiday!”

Just down the road from Memphis was Saqqara, the site of the Step Pyramid of Pharaoh Zoser, the earliest stone monument in the world. Maybe it was because the weather had warmed up, or because the site was less crowded, but I found this site far more impressive than that of the Pyramids of Giza. To my disappointment, our only view of the Bent Pyramid of Snofru, an early attempt at a true pyramid, whose builders had to change the angle halfway up, was is the far distance. Still, at least I did see it.

We could have taken the opportunity on our free day to return to the Egyptian Museum or to explore Cairo further. Although the hotel was 18 km from the centre of Cairo there was a bus stop outside the hotel gates, and no shortage of taxi drivers either. We opted however for a relaxing day spent reading in the hotel gardens, from which there is an unnervingly close view of the Pyramids. The highlight of the day was lunching in the garden restaurant, where we could watch the excellent local bread being baked in an outdoor oven, although we could have managed without the piped accompaniment from Pinky and Perky (yet again). It was something of a relief to spend a day away from the crush of the tourist crowds.

This visit to Egypt came as a total contrast to our last trip, to Albania, where we had most museums and archaeological sites completely to ourselves. Although I am pleased to have seen the Pyramids and the Egyptian Museum, and understand the importance of tourist income to the economy, from an entirely selfish point of view I have to say that I preferred the Albanian experience. Part of the attraction of the Mena House had been to experience something of what it must have been like to travel in the past, before the days of package holidays. The public rooms looked much as they must have done eighty years ago, and the old photos of the hotel and pyramids (including one with a Zeppelin overhead) helped, but somehow the tour of Albania seemed more evocative of how it used to be

First published in VISA issue 55 (March 2004)

City of Ghosts

by Neil Matthews

There are three and a half million inhabitants, and still this is a city of ghosts. The walk around the Tiergarten, in the heart of the city, in a December dusk is a strange experience. There are sounds, but they are distant; there must be people, but they are elsewhere.

There are mitigating, reasonable explanations, of course - in part. I had arrived in Berlin on Boxing Day and most shops and offices were closed for the holidays. The city was snowbound, deadening sounds. Also, its traumatic history has ensured that Berlin’s most famous sights are in the west (such as the Charlottenburg Palace and the Olympiastadion) or in the east (such as the Pergamon Museum, Checkpoint Charlie and the television tower) - not in the nominal centre. But this leaves plenty of room for the ghosts.

Berlin will host the final of the football World Cup in July 2006, at the Olympiastadion (nearest underground station: Olympia-Stadion, line U2). If all goes to plan, 76,000 fans will be cheering on the world’s best two national football teams. Perhaps it is a better place to be when full, like most football stadia.

Olympiastadion, Berlin

Empty, it is too easy to recall the stadium’s origins as something created for the 1936 Olympics, planned as a showcase for the Nazi state but upstaged eloquently by Jesse Owens. There are brief explanatory display panels dotted around the site, pointing out the parade area and the swimming pool as well as the main stadium. But there is no permanent exhibition relating to the 1936 Games.

Walking round in the icy cold, the realisation set in that the stadium is its own exhibition. Sir Christopher Wren’s tomb in St Paul’s Cathedral in London famously has an inscription: “If you seek his monument, look around you.” In this case, the stadium is an expression of the will not of its architect Werner March, but of his client, Hitler. The Marathon Gates support the Olympic rings between two stone towers which bear an uncomfortable resemblance to sentry posts. Stark stone architecture is adorned with torches straight from the romantic feudal outlook which underlay Nazism. This is a chilling survivor of the Third Reich.

Berliners are doomed to remember. The most conspicuous recent example of this is the Holocaust memorial on Eberstrasse, within sight of the Brandenburg Gate. This uses 1500 concrete slabs of varying heights to remember the millions of victims. It took two competitions in the 1990s to identify the design of the memorial. The winning entry in the first competition, one huge tablet which would have named all 4.2 million named Holocaust victims, was rejected by Helmut Kohl, then Chancellor. The controversy has continued over issues such as whether Romany victims should be remembered with others such as Jews, or separately, and (more cynically) on whether the memorial is a waste of a lot of prime land in the centre of the city. The debate goes on, but the memorial is undoubtedly simple, striking and prominently placed.

In a generation, everyone still alive who remembers the Second World War will be in their 90s at least. There are, of course, more recent reminders of a dark past. The Haus am Checkpoint Charlie on Friedrichstrasse was created to commemorate the creation, history and ultimate demolition of the Berlin Wall. The museum was opened in 1962, just one year after the Wall went up, but soon had to move to larger premises. Its contents include displays relating to the Berlin Airlift of 1948-9, the final act in ensuring that Germany, and Berlin, would be split in two. There are mind boggling statistics, such as the 886 dogs which at one time patrolled the border between the two Berlins. Original objects from escape attempts, successful and unsuccessful, survive, such as the VW 1200 with which Kurt Wordel smuggled out 55 people (in the engine). Perhaps most amazing is the story of a 1979 escape by balloon, from 12 kilometres east of the border to 10 km west. The family who built the balloon learned the technical information needed from manuals.

Tucked away quietly in a little square just off Normannenstrasse (nearest station: Magdalenstrasse) is something less dramatic, but altogether more sinister. There are no helpful directions signs and it is easy to miss. But this unimpressive set of office blocks hosts the Research Centre and Memorial Site for East Germany’s former Ministry for State Security (MfS), better known as the Stasi.

The MfS was created in 1950 - one year after the formation of the German Democratic Republic. Estimates indicate that the MfS employed 1,000 staff in its first year. By 1989 this had grown to over 91,000. There were also well over 150,000 unofficial informers. The MfS was conceived as the “Sword and Shield” of the ruling Socialist Unity Party. It was a secret police, intelligence agency and investigative body rolled into one. Now Building 1 is open to the public.

The first floor houses the offices of the Ministers who oversaw the MfS’s work. Notes in the guidebook - a plain A5 booklet resembling a school prospectus - assure the visitor that the rooms have been left in their original condition. Oak panelling and comfortable chairs and sofas from the 1960s and 1970s lend the offices an air of smartness without extravagance. The solid square TV in the drivers’ and bodyguards’ lounge could have been a stalwart of any taxi driver’s office or any takeaway. The telex machines and typewriters in the secretarial offices are basic, partly for security reasons. Only when the door to the Minister’s office opens does an obvious clue emerge as to the identity of the occupants of these rooms. Even at Communism’s height, it was unlikely that many people kept a deathmask of Lenin on their desk, as Eric Meilke (Minister from 1957-89) did. The cafeteria which once hosted Stasi senior officers is still a cafeteria, but now the TV behind the panelling plays a Discovery Channel documentary about the Stasi. The narrator is Roger Moore, but any intended irony is swamped by the reality. Miniaturised listening devices were regularly attached to radiators to monitor conversations several floors above. 1,600 staff listened in on telephone calls. Funds for new product development were boosted by the “sale” of 33,000 prisoners from East to West Germany.

Between the ground and first floors is a special exhibition “Surveillance - Repression - Espionage”. Before entering the rooms, the visitor passes a row of small jars. At first glance they seem to contain preserved fruits or vegetables, but in fact the contents are cloths. The Stasi would use a sterile cloth to wipe something touched recently by a “suspect”, such as a car seat. The cloth captured body odour and was then preserved in a jar, sometimes for up to 20-30 years - often growing stronger over that time. Trained dogs could then track individuals by their odour.

Watering can with a secret, Stasi Museum

There are two other main features in the special exhibition. Two rooms display examples of surveillance technology, such as a Trabant car door fitted with infrared beams for night photography and miniature cameras hidden in neckties, watering cans and birds’ nesting boxes. Other rooms show various gifts and trophies which Stasi members gave to each other and to members of ‘sister organisations’. These included beermats with the insignia of BFC Dynamo, the Stasi football team.

A further exhibition on the second floor is a more general overview of repression in the GDR, up to the dramatic night of 9 November 1989 when the Berlin Wall came down. From then on, any GDR citizen with a valid passport and visa could visit West Germany. Three million did so within a week. The Stasi did not survive long after that. On 15 January 1990, thousands of demonstrators swarmed onto MfS premises to see what had been kept on file. There is apparently some evidence that Stasi operatives connived to keep the demonstrators away from the most sensitive materials. Shortly afterwards, a coalition of local citizens’ committees and civil rights activists created the Research Centre and Memorial Site, which opened on 7 November 1990. The Stasi Museum is open 11am-6pm Mon-Fri, 2pm-6pm weekends. Admission €3.50. For more information, see www.stasimuseum.de where there is a link to an English speaking section on the work of the Research Centre.

Many are alive to remember the Nazis; but the Stasi were operating less than twenty years ago. Hannah Arendt, a New York reporter who covered the trial of Adolf Eichmann in 1961, wrote that “The deeds were monstrous, but the doer...was quite ordinary, commonplace, and neither demonic nor monstrous.” Arendt’s famous reference to “the banality of evil” could never be better demonstrated than in the Stasi Museum.
Not all the ghosts are as chilling as this. The Film Museum on Potsdammer Platz (www.filmmuseum-berlin.de) is an entertaining romp through film history: from the pioneering years, to silent-film divas and the films of the Weimar Republic; from cinema under Nazism and exile in Hollywood to the post-war years and contemporary cinema; and at the heart of the exhibition, a section on Marlene Dietrich. Once the disconcerting effects of the multiple mirrors and wall screens die down, there is much to enjoy here including some fascinating information on Fritz Lang’s ground breaking Metropolis, arguably the first modern science fiction film. At the time of my visit, the special exhibitions included a tribute to Ray Harryhausen, the special effects master behind The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, Jason and the Argonauts, One Million Years BC and other masterpieces. A new museum of German television is promised for 2006.

The Story of Berlin, just off Kurfurstendamm, takes you through the city’s history, from its 13th century origins, the rise of Prussia in the 18th and 19th centuries, revolution, Berlin salons, religion and much else. Nazism has its place here, in the cellar of a multi-storey exhibition. More unsubtle symbolism is at work with the display of two living rooms side by side, one in east and one in west Berlin after the split. For a slick, interactive modern show, the most touching exhibit is oddly a floor comprising books, to mark the book burnings of 1933.

For those who like their battles to be of the ancient variety, the Pergamon Museum on “Museum Island” at the end of Unter den Linden should not be missed. The displays of the Altar of Zeus from Pergamon (now in Turkey), and material from Babylon (now in Iraq) including the Ishtar Gate, are stunning. The Egyptian Museum is close at hand, having moved from its old home in the Charlottenburg Palace. The Charlottenburg itself houses as much 18th century Baroque architecture as one could wish for, as well as some impressive silver and porcelain collections from that period. On the west wing of the Palace is an understated but impressive museum of pre-history and early history.

Berlin has overcome unimaginable horrors in its past, to reach its current position as a key European capital (and, from a traveller’s perspective, a fascinating destination). The 2006 World Cup Final is already celebrated by the installation of a large table football game outside a cafe in Alexanderplatz, with a team of German bears taking on bears of assorted national colours. As I arrived, the multinational team scored a spectacular own goal [insert your own political metaphor here]. But the city has not forgotten its ghosts. They are still there, and always will be.

First published in VISA issue 67 (June 2006)