Upright sculpture

Today we took the train to Darmstadt. We picked it out because there are some jugendstil houses there, in a district just to the east of town. (Jugendstil is the German term for the style English-speakers call Art Nouveau).

We walked to the train station, which was nearly empty, it being Sunday morning. So next we had to go to the ticket machine, which talked us into buying two all day tickets for region including Frankfurt to Darmstadt. We got an incomprehensible ticket. It cost us 16.30 Euros each. We had about a 20-minute ride Natural history to Darmstadt and then we were in the Darmstadt Hauptbahnhof, so we walked to downtown Darmstadt and then beyond that to the Schloss.

The Schloss was more like a manor house and it was starting to rain a bit so Bob got out his umbrella and we were drier and we came upon a museum but that didn't open until 11:00 and we didn't know what time it was so we walked to the next building, the Hessian Archives, which opened at 10:00 but Elsa correctly Church treasure thought we didn't know how to consult German archives, so we at least found out that it was 10:55 so the museum would open in five minutes so we walked back there and got in and bought our museum tickets. The museum is good sized, very good sized, and has natural history and art both.

Remembering our photography experience at the Magritte exhibit, we asked if we could take photos. In this museum it apparently depended on the particular guard in each exhibit, because sometimes we could, Jugendstil desk sometimes we were not allowed, and sometimes a couple of the guards had to consult each other.

The contemporary art was weird, and so was the sculpture collection of a Swiss art collector, although Elsa liked the sculpture better than Bob. The graphics collection on the third floor was not open today. We did not spend too much time with natural history, but a little, and discussed whether or not we Jugendstil tea service really were smitten with learning science these days.

The church treasures were more fascinating, wildly decorated pokals and beckers and monstrances and drinking game pieces of silver and gold and jewels.

We found lunch in the cafe: it was very good - carrot and ginger soup with special bread and cream cheese for Elsa and scallopini (cutlets and potatoes with gravy) for Bob, which was excellent, but the poor Jugendstil shelves waittress was trying to take care of thirty plus people at a dozen tables, and couldn't really keep up.

After lunch we did the paintings. The European paintings were just so-so, with the church paintings being more interesting than the landscapes and portraits. Oddly, the curator occasionaly placed a striking modern painting in the middle of a gallery of old paintings.

The last place we went was the jugendstil exhibit -- ceramics and furniture and silverware from all over Europe and even some Tiffany pieces. We were quite impressed -- we love jugendstil, and took several photos but were also getting tired, so we skipped the exhibit of Japanese art (although we did spot a big samurai outfit) and found our way across the plaza to the trolley stop where we grabbed the trolley to the train station and then the train back to Frankfurt. In Frankfurt we had an ice cream and then we walked back to our hotel room where we scared up some towels and hoped that tomorrow the housekeeping will come earlier.