Dance in Rotterdam?

Erasmusbrug on the Maas, Rotterdam

I had timed my visit to the Netherlands particularly for this weekend because, having seen the video for Encuentro Porteno I wanted to go not so much to that but to the regular montly milonga La Brjua organised by the same people, which is on a Sunday. Suddenly and with little warning it was cancelled but my flights and accommodation were already booked.  The cancellation must have been very shortly before the milonga as I had been checking tangokalendar.nl regularly. I wrote to ask if this was a regular cancellation in August but received no reply.  No dancers were sure why it was cancelled either and everyone seemed surprised. It all came clear when I visited the following month to what turned out to be a honeymoon milonga: the milonga host had got married!   

But what to do then that Sunday?  There was afternoon outdoor dancing with music by the amiable Peter of De Plantage (review) at the milonga in the Oosterpark (video) in Amsterdam but I wanted to hear different music.

Someone at the Waterlelie milonga (review) had told me about a milonga in Rotterdam. I was not very interested - Rotterdam being associated in my mind with heavy industry and shipping and an hour away from Amsterdam. My new Dutch friend though described the setting as one of the best places to dance in the Netherlands.  Since he travels all round the world for dance I was inclined to listen. I asked what the music would be like. Traditional, he said, decisively.

Still, I swithered.  Also at the Waterlelie someone else had told me Rotterdam was known for being a place of tango nuevo.  The image on the milonga website, which I did not see until later is a clue.  I didn't fancy that but the less I know someone, the more I like to check out those claims for myself.  I remember my friend, with twenty-odd years of experience in Buenos Aires shaking her head despairingly when I listened gratefully and still needed to find out for myself. Yet ought I jaunt off to Rotterdam when I had only just arrived and with this marvellous city of Amsterdam to explore?  But weekends away for pleasure are not about 'ought' but about doing just as you feel.  I was here mostly for dance.  Other things like Dutch culture - though they might and indeed probably did end up being the main event - fitted around that.

It wasn't until the Sunday morning itself that the recommendation and curiosity about the other city decided it.   Besides, I wanted to see the Dutch countryside from the train.  It is utterly flat by the way, very green, full either of cows in fields or greenhouses and all the fields are surrounded by water channels.  And no kidding, there really are lots of windmills.  I was glad to see it but once is enough.  In his book 'Why the Dutch are Different' - which I cannot recommend enough - Ben Coates tells that the reason the Dutch went from being one of the shortest people to one of the tallest in a few hundred years is apparently all that milk and cheese.  There is also an interesting section on Dutch character being related to the challenge of dealing with all that water.  Next time you're making for your connection in Schiphol recall that was once underwater and notorious for wrecks.  These snippets trivialise the book.  It is far more interesting than this, written in engaging prose which belies the youth of the writer whose eye is as much on the past as on contemporary culture and whose informed mind ranges over politics, religion, Dutch history, culture, regions, character and football. He married a girl from Rotterdam and lives in the city.

Just outside Rotterdam station

I stepped out of the large, airy, station and felt I had arrived in the future, so new and angular were the buildings. But the public transport employees that I met - in Rotterdam train station ticket hall, around the tram stop and on the tram could not have been more human and friendly. With civic-minded helpfulness the attractive tram lady - confusingly - gently mothered me to the right platform: I showed her my ticket. “Didn’t anyone tell you already you can get a card for all day travel for 7 Euros” she said, aghast at her compatriots apparent lack of attention to a visitor.  In fact I had just informed myself exhaustively about all kinds of tickets for future reference, but just hadn't decided my later plans for the day.

To find Wilhelminapier, head for the Hotel New York, well known in the area as the headquarters of the former Holland America Line from which many immigrants departed for America.

Wilhelminapier

I did not feel ignored or looked through in this city. People acknowledged one another. Guys looked at me which spiked my morale. I was sure that come a rainy Monday morning it would be like most other places on such a day and it's true attitude can make all the difference to how people interact with you but I felt merely open-minded.  Perhaps this though is what Rotterdammers respond to.  Right then this connection between people felt more than just a holiday feeling but if that's all it was, it was more than enough.

Chester and Oswestry

Eastgate street, Chester

In the second week of half term my husband decided to take a few days holiday. He had been working mostly away in Manchester for months and wanted to spend a few days with the children.  I decided to go the opposite way to see my new nieces again in Manchester and fit in some dancing and sightseeing. 

I asked on Facebook what milongas were on in the north and also used TangoTimetable. I could not face the time-wasting activity of trawling through regional Facebook groups to find a milonga. Most events I have known about for a while did seem to be advertised on TangoTimteable. Someone reminded me there was a Sunday milonga in Newcastle which I had heard about before but which is not on the site.  I might have gone after the Manchester popup milonga but I had already made other plans for Sunday evening.

On Saturday 15th October I went to the milonga in Pant, a village in Shropshire some 45 minutes drive south of Chester. 

I drove from Scotland stopping for an hour in Chester to walk around. I recommend the city as attractive and historic. The lady in the tourist information centre told me the Market place carpark behind the tourist information is free after 3pm. 

The Romans called the city Deva (the town is on the River Dee and the latin for goddess is dea or diva). After they left Britain their camps and forts were often referred to by the indigenous population with the suffixes -chester, -caster, -cester. In the case of Chester it wasn't just a suffix. 

The first thing I encountered was the famous clock perched, rather absurdly I thought above the Eastgate though at the time I did not know either that the clock was famous nor that I was standing above what had been the main entrance to the city for 2000 years. The clock reminded me rather of one in the Manchester central library which had struck me as both beautiful and rather absurd, perched as it is on what I read well described as “ornate supports like a particularly elaborate piece of garden furniture”. The one in Chester is apparently the most photographed clock in Britain after Big Ben. I took these photos standing on the Eastgate.

From top left: Eastgate clock, building with “1395” stamped under gable. 16th Century pub. Different architectural and design styles from 1928 and 1885.

Chester is famous for its “rows”, unique in Britain: covered walkways or galleries, on the ground or first floor of buildings from where you can enter shops and cafes. Many buildings are black and white and seem old, especially when you see dates on buildings from the 14th century, but the great majority of it is Victorian reproduction. 

From:  Cheshire, by Nikolaus Pevsner, Edward Hubbard, 1971

Some of the variety of architectural styles: the picture top left shows some Chester “rows”, top right is the Westminster Coach and Motor Car Works, now repurposed as Chester library. Bottom left is the Georgian Eastgate with the late Victorian clock above. 

Chester has the most “the most complete circuit of a Roman and Medieval defensive town wall” in Britain, nearly two miles, and they are walkable. The walls are not just used by tourists. Locals use them to get about. So did I, to get back to my car after wandering through a little of the centre. I know locals use them because I heard snatches of quotidian conversation about picking up pizza for dinner and someone on the phone loudly talking (apparently) a child through how to use an answerphone.  I am always taken by the sound and smell of new places, Chester had its own scents. I smelt doughnuts by the east gate and foreign food by the Iceland car park. 

Chester from the walls: Top picture - View across the cathedral. I think this is the falconry centre. Left: modern Chester; Right: Atop the walls.

Chester Cathedral, a place of worship since the sixteenth century; substantially restored in the nineteenth century:

I realised I had had nothing to drink since the morning and decided to have a look at Oswestry, the nearest town to Pant and to have a drink there. I was starting to feel tired and was not looking forward to the ninety minute drive back to Manchester later that night. I realised there was a Premier Inn nearby but all the country Premier Inns in Oswestry, Shrewsbury, Wrexham were booked out, leaving the - presumably more expensive - city Inns still available. I was counting on the novelty of a new milonga to give me a second wind later on. 

I marvelled that there was no other milonga between Perth and Pant that Saturday night apart from one in Morley near Leeds.  

A: I was thinking about what you said - there isn't the same music today because there's no money in it etc.

But imagine if everyone danced as they did in the 1940s when it was normal for people in my grandmother's generation to to local dances on a Saturday night. She told me they'd walk three or four miles to get there if they had to. I do dream of that. Everyone dancing again. Every neighbourhood should have a milonga. Imagine that.

B: I can imagine that :) but I don't think we'll see another Golden Age of dance soon. And esp. not in the UK, where most of what people call tango is the English-style dancing done in so-called Argentine tango classes.

But I had already been to the Morley milonga and heard the DJ twice. I fancied something new.  I had heard due to (at least) a seeming lack of current ownership numbers had fallen off.  After this most recent edition I heard this week that things had picked up.

I passed over a couple of rivers north of Oswestry admiring the gorgeous woodland of the area. I crossed into Wales where all the signs turned Welsh (as well as English) and then into Shropshire and the signs went back into just English.  Since the landscape was the very same it seemed rather random. 

Oswestry was decked out in bunting perhaps for some civic event or maybe just to keep its spirits up. It is home to the Cambrian House Emporium: 8000 square feet of Antiques, collectables, vintage and retro. It also has a vintage railway and I saw a sign indicating the way to a hillfort through a housing estate. Oswestry has history. I saw a plaque marking the former site of a thirteenth century building. The Guildhall looked nineteenth century and interesting.  I see there are tours.

Perhaps I was jaded from my drive. Certainly, I was tired because I forgot to put on the handbrake and the car started to roll away on the hill. Luckily the driver’s door was still open. 

The Oswestry I saw had a Morrisons, an Iceland and an Aldi supermarket, betting shops, the China Palace takeaway, a Poundland, a kebab shop, a large Indian restaurant:  the “Eastern Eye”, a Thai restaurant. There was a Premier Express corner shop. I thought of the trendy tapas bar I had seen at the foot of the wall in more monied Chester. Tapas didn’t seem to have come to Oswestry yet. I passed a large bead shop “Beadazzled”, a wool shop and a Relate charity furniture outlet. Many places were shut down or for sale. I passed The Griffin pub, which had looked alright from a different side as I went by in the car. Now though two fat men were smoking outside and put me off. The George looked a bit smarter but a glance inside showed a vacant looking girl eyeing me with some hostility, one leg over the arm of her chair, drumming her foot and a guy in the next room banging a fruit machine. I felt sad, over-privileged and out of place. I made a circle of the central part of town and found the rear entrance to The Griffin. It was about six thirty. My way to the bar was blocked by more enormously fat men drinking who refused to make way or even acknowledge me. The bar staff were pleasant though and the place generally felt quiet and relaxed. I ordered my drink and drank it quickly before going on my way wondering “How do you end up in Oswestry? How do you get out?” I was drawn up sharply when later I read Wilfred Owen came from here.

Biking in the Netherlands

Hired from Starbikes, 2013

I wasn’t sure until the day I left whether I was going to hire a bike again or use public transport. In the event I went for the bike and didn’t regret it for a moment. Oh, such freedom. A bike in Dutch is a fiet. Amsterdam and as far as I can tell most of of the Netherlands has bike lanes usually separated from road traffic. Unfortunately, mopeds are allowed to use them too. 

In December 2013 I went to the Amsterdam tango festival TangoMagia, as it happened the last such festival. I enjoyed the experience of the Netherlands - the gay couple I stayed with, the surprise of the straightforward Dutch, the cycling culture, seeing an old friend and his family, the people I met; all this as much or more than most of the dancing itself, with a few exceptions.  I learnt from local Dutch travelling in for one or two events and over time from other locals, visitors and expats that the Amsterdam milonga scene is considered very “closed". Looking back, I probably had as many good dances then as I would expect to now.  I hired a bike to get around. I guessed then from road signs that a bromfiet must be a scooter - which to my mind interprets as a bike that goes brrm brrrm. I wondered if that was a girl or a boy thought process. 

When smaller, my younger son lay in the kitchen and pushed cars along the floor or alphabet letters across the fridge making boy-like engine or exploding noises. He also loved - and destroyed - my lipsticks so much that eventually Santa brought him one of his own.  I rather like the third gender idea or if not so explicitly that, at least the fluidity and greater freedom from social norms, the individuality it permits, accepts and celebrates. 

Why, anyway, are mopeds allowed on bike lanes? It seems to defeat the purpose of a civilized idea.  At that time an expat in Amsterdam had told me: 

The tolerance of bromfiets in the "bike" lanes shook me to my core when I moved to Amsterdam. How could an otherwise rational and efficient society think it a good idea to allow vehicles four times the weight and three times the speed travel in the same space as defenseless cyclists, who are at the core of the current Dutch national identity? How could they put mothers and babies on bicycles at risk like this?  My negativity increased when I was almost killed in a high speed collision with a bromfiets in Beatrixpark. I ended up flipping 270 degrees over my handlebars and landing on my back, sans helmet, with my front tire destroyed.

That’s the other thing, the Dutch don’t wear helmets. Only tourists wear helmets. I don’t know exactly why this is. I have heard a slew of tales recently about people, some of whom I know and the latest only on Friday, who were saved from brain damage or death in cycling accidents because they were wearing a helmet. I wear one now - usually - because I cycle on roads and my kids need me, but no-one I remember who grew up in the seventies did and  I have never become used to it.

Cycling with the Dutch is a liberating experience. Even so, on this most recent trip before pulling onto the cycle lane I remember thinking: You just have to go for it. If you have sufficient personal conviction to be able to walk into an unknown milonga alone you can probably join a Dutch cycle lane.  In both it's probably a good idea to keep your wits about you and your emotions in check. I watched a cyclist turn right  with conviction on a red light and wondered if it was another Dutch person with their own interpretation of the rules.  Then I remembered cars can do this in California too. Yes, you can, a blonde woman I asked replied. Thank you! I said, pushing off. Just watch for the pedestrians! she called, laughing, as I headed for the pedestrian crossing just around the corner. 

I have biked off and on all my life but Dutch everyday cyclists grow up with A to B type cycling as opposed to British style recreational weekend biking which, outside a few well-known biking towns can seem dominated by men and boys and MTBs or the much-caricatured middle-aged men in lycra, goggles and funny shoes. Many Dutch cycle routinely and so are fit and cycle fast.  I grew up with this kind of cycling in Germany, though the population in rural Lower Saxony around 1980 was admittedly less skewed toward the young and hip. Women rode bikes with dress guards.  In Amsterdam ordinary people bike as fast as serious central London commuter cyclists.  Fifteen or so years ago, for about five years, I used to be one of those clocking up many miles a day in and around London. Being female, riding a heavy sit-up-and-beg Dutch or German style bike, avoiding most main roads and wearing my ordinary clothes, not high-vis jacket and gelled shorts I was not a typical London cyclist. I have cycled off and on since then, but nothing like as much and in Amsterdam felt out of practice. 

The reason biking in Amsterdam can feel a little risky is because some rules feel more like guidelines and it all happens at speed. You are not supposed to go down a one way street, but people do. You are not supposed to bike down pedestrianised streets, but some do and sometimes the police fine them. Pedestrians are not supposed to walk on, or worse, step out suddenly onto bike lanes, but some do, especially when drunk or in tourist season. It seemed to me there are lots of close shaves at intersections - people make snap judgements involving pedestrians and, especially, other fast-moving bike users.  Things generally seem to work out OK though remembering my correspondent it can be serious when they don't.

In 2013 I had hired a bike from StarBikes behind the station, near the IJ (water). The owner, who might have been a Dutch-speaking Australian, was friendly and easygoing. Best of all they had plenty of bikes for people my height. You might be able to get (but should probably ask for in advance) bikes with a large plastic crate on the back. Many Dutch bikes have these. It would be inordinately useful for a bag, dance shoes and clothes you take to change into at the venue, especially if you are out and about beforehand. 

This time I hired a bike from Discount Bike Rental which also had good reviews and was a bit nearer my accommodation.  More particularly it was in the centre which I had seen next to nothing of on my last trip. In the cold and darkness of winter 2013, dance-focused, I had been like a moth drawn to light. The decision of whether to wander round cold streets or go dancing had not been hard.

This time I emailed the shop beforehand to see if they had a bike, a good plan in holiday time said the owner. You choose between back pedal or handlebar brakes. I am used to and prefer back pedal. Besides, it leaves your hands free to hold your phone to navigate google maps (I am not recommending this!) and also to use your bell. No one is worried or embarrassed about using a bell in the Netherlands.  In egalitarian Scotland where even a whiff of perceived uppitness can give serious offence, using a bell can feel presumptuous but I doubt the Dutch care about such sensibilities.  I am not  sure  the Dutch get embarrassed about anything.  They are just very pragmatic. How liberating that must be.

I went to get the bike on Friday evening as soon as I had checked in to my accommodation. Cost was 8 euros/day plus one euro optional insurance. StarBikes I see on their website today charge one euro more for 24 hour rental. Upon enquiry they said insurance is not included but 2,50 extra per day.

Some places e.g. Macbikes by the station, rent bikes branded as tourist bikes. If you get a non-tourist branded bike make sure it has a distinctive label or tie something on to it so you can recognise it when you come to hunt for your bike among scores of others later. I was haunted by the thought I might accidentally lock my bike to someone elses. Always do lock your bike, not just with the built-in back wheel lock.  The bike might seem big and too heavy to wheel away on the front wheel when locked on the back wheel but my mother's German bike (with dress guard!) was stolen in York because I had only used the back wheel lock and in Amsterdam professional gangs operate.  So use the heavy duty chain that most bikes have wrapped around the saddle post when not in use. Although crime in general is apparently low, bike theft is rife in the Netherlands.

If you want to take your bike on the train, bike supplement is 6 Euros/day (not per journey) but if you get a folding bike (and fold it aboard) it goes free. In July and August there aren’t any restrictions about when bikes can go on trains. More info about bikes and trains here.

I am sure they do in the suburbs but I saw no children riding bikes in central Amsterdam. I saw a dog standing up in a crate on one bike, on another one toddler on the front and one on the back of their father’s bike (they had helmets). Slightly outside the centre I saw children sitting in bakfiets, box or cargo bikes but that was all. I am not surprised; between the tourists, the bromfiets, the numbers of people cycling and the speeds the centre is perhaps just a bit too crazy for children.  Besides, the street I cycled down to get to the centre, Haarlemmerdijk, becoming Haarlemmerstraat reeked, not unpleasantly, of weed.  Still, I felt like a child myself when, marvellously, the road where cyclists had halted upon warning alarms, rose vertically right in front of me to let a boat through.

On this trip I only had the bike for 36 hours but it had taken me across Amsterdam twice, to Leiden, to Amersfoort and back to Amsterdam. I had chatted to lots of people and felt relaxed and free. I felt absurdly attached, not to the bike itself but to the feeling of getting around so easily by bike. I had to give it up on Sunday lunchtime because the hire shop would be closed by the time I got back from Rotterdam but it felt like a wrench. I found out today Starbikes will allow you to drop off the bike and key after hours when you leave them your credit card details.  I have a notion I did this with them before, but unless you write it down, you forget!

I saw plenty of Dutch cyclists without lights at night. In Rotterdam I commented on this to a Dutch guy I had met at a milonga the day before.  Like me he was going back to his town by train and we went to the station together.  Oh yes, he said You can get fined. I was, last month, 50 or 60 euros. He said one day the police decide it’s bike light checking day and they clean up.  Despite this incident, his lights were tiny.  Though we were cycling late at night they still weren’t on.  How come you have such wee lights? I asked.  The police gave them to me, he said. Do they give them to everyone? I asked. Yes, that is a very Dutch thing, he said. They fine you but also set you right.  I was getting nervous. We were sharing his bike, with no lights, going down a one way system the wrong way.  I was in the saddle.  Though several years older than me, smaller and very lithe he was standing up behind like the circus artist I could believe he might be in a slightly different life. The following week I saw a photo of him doing a secure-looking handstand. I was very glad my husband couldn’t see me. Sometimes, you act just like a teenager, he had said more than once usually wryly but somewhere between annoyance, despair and frustration.  I could quite see he has a point. Besides, the police would have a field day with us. Who actually gets the fine in these circumstances? I said.  Oh, you, said the local, lightly.  I decided, all told, it was time to grow up and walk.

Amsterdam: Getting there

I decided to go to Amsterdam to dance, for no other reason than it wasn’t far, the guys are tall and they have a cycling culture. Then I discovered fly.be had, earlier this year, started a direct flight from Dundee to Amsterdam. You can already travel to Stansted from Dundee. Dundee airport is only 25 minutes drive from where I live. My mum, to whom people just want to tell useful information, learnt that future plans are for the airline to extend connections to Paris and to one of the Channel islands. I booked a flight for about six weeks ahead, mid August. In my mind, mid August is when children in Scotland go back to school (why?). In school-holiday focus I somehow managed to ignore the fact that for the rest of Europe it is prime holiday season.

The children and I had packed a lot in to the holidays with two trips to Manchester and a lot of day trips and picnics. As a result I left it until two weeks before departure to book accommodation. I have never found this task so difficult. 

For convenience and safety I did not want to be far from the night time milongas to get back to my accommodation. A lot of my friends stay in hostels which makes travelling easy and very much cheaper. If I didn’t mind the sheer publicness of hostels, never mind the noise, I might too, but I do and I generally like and need sizeable chunks of time by myself. So I looked at Airbnb as I often find private homes closer to the milongas than hotels. Ordinarily I might often get a room for £40-60. Now it was more like £70-80+ and really at the top end of that - for rooms that were not en-suite. Trickier still was trying to get somewhere suitably located for public transport back from the late-ending milongas. 

The Friday milonga looked fairly central but the Sunday milonga, La Bruja, was further out near an area I had biked through en route to one of the TangoMagia venues, two or three years previously. I’d been told not all the area was that great. Although cycling is a great option in Amsterdam, I haven’t found a place that will let you drop off the bike late on a Sunday night and I would be away before opening time on the Monday. If I was going to have to wait for public transport in that area I wanted it to be easy. 

I looked at hotels too, but they were all £100+/night and not central either. Hopping then between Google maps, Airbnb and booking.com I began to get frustrated. My first choice of Airbnb host (a new host) didn’t respond, the second said the place wasn’t available. Finally I found a place but parts of the Airbnb site seemed to be down or glitchy. Eventually my son pointed at a place about as central as I was likely to get in west Amsterdam. It had its own bathroom and looked nice. Once the airbnb fees were added on it was still an eye-watering £100/night with no breakfast. Then my hairdresser told me about her package holiday to Turkey for two thirds of that and I thought what a fool I was.

By now I felt relieved to have found somewhere but fatalistic about the trip. I thought I’d booked too late, at the wrong time and the dance experience of Berlin and of Stuttgart loomed over me. With extraordinary lack of self-knowledge I decided to think of it as a tourism trip rather than a dance trip. 

Forget perfume at the airport or picking up last minute things in Boots.  Dundee airport is dinky. There are a handful of short-stay car park spaces. It felt wonderfully anachronistic that you can still park in these for free for the first half hour. There is a wee cafe with a cold drinks cabinet, some sandwiches and a bookshelf providing a free book exchange. I liked it. On the other hand, luggage was checked draconically for size. Not that it seemed the staff had any commission-fuelled zeal to charge extra but the flight was full (both ways it turned out) and any oversized luggage would have to go in the hold. Had I checked my hand-luggage for size? I mumbled something about never having had an issue and miraculously got through. I set off the security alarm repeatedly and while I was thoroughly frisked the chatty security lady kept up a cheerful patter in much the way that some professionals rattle off distracting chat when you’re about to undergo something unpleasant. It was a friendly place but with only one security scanner, you want to be either first or last in the queue. It felt very...local.

Wollaton Hall, Nottingham

Before the milonga at Beeston I decided to visit Wollaton Hall, 15 minutes drive away. You can park in the deer park (£2 for up to 3 hours and £4 for the day).

I had done no research before visiting. Approaching the hall I thought it was a nineteenth century mock-up but it is an Elizabethan mansion, a “prodigy house” and apparently one of the most important Elizabethan mansions in England. 

On my way from the car to the hall I wandered into the stable block housing the cafe, shop and Nottingham Industrial Museum. I had skipped breakfast and it was lunchtime. The cafe was very family friendly but relaxed, serving good soup. The staff everywhere - in the cafe, in the shop particularly and in the museum were warm and informative. I wondered if that was the working culture of the hall or if it was a reflection of the local people more generally. The pleasant, helpful lady in the shop told me about the Lazy Daisy tea room (reservations only apparently) inside the hall. 

It seemed busy with many families and I did not have long. Someone at reception manually clicking in the numbers reckoned there would be about 2000 people that early Bank Holiday Monday in May which was probably busier than on a Sunday, but I had the sense not necessarily by much.

Entrance (in modern times)

Graham was one of the staff on reception. In response to his question I said I was interested in social, economic and political history. In fact Wollaton Hall is Nottingham’s natural history museum (free), with the Industrial museum (£2) in the grounds. 

Notwithstanding that the hall is not really a museum of any of the things that most interest me historically and I was there a scant two hours, the history of the building and the story of the early Willoughby family of some three to four hundred years ago quite captivated me. This despite that - the natural history collection apart - I felt more might have been made of the building itself, even largely stripped as it is. The interesting Siberechts painting, for instance showing the gardens in their golden age is wedged behind a glass cabinet with a life-size model of a former housekeeper. 

The Great Hall (and reception) was the most striking room I saw and is largely structurally unchanged since the hall was completed in 1588.  At that time a different entrance was used, I think a fireplace has moved and the heraldic shields were added in the nineteenth century but that is about all.

Great Hall

By John Whitehurst (1713-88)

Graham was experienced.  He captivated me immediately with a tale of the 6th Lord Middleton who had a pre-occupation with defending his property, which was justified - the hall was attacked by rioters in the 1830s. He told me at that time Nottingham was biggest slum in the Empire outside Calcutta. People came to work in the town, particularly lace workers. They were predominately women which reminded me of the women jute workers in Dundee (See the excellent Verdant Works).

As the numbers increased in the town there was no room to expand. The people could see the land around the town but it was not their land. Enclosure had emphasised to whom it belonged and reduced the common land. When the 1831 Reform Act failed to extend the vote to working class men angry rioters rose up across the country. Nottingham castle was burnt down and the next day Wollaton hall was attacked but the rioters were repulsed by Lord Middleton’s private militia. See People's Histreh: Nottingham Radical History Group - this entry.

There is some information in the hall about the life of the building before it became the museum but I was advised the better way to learn about this aspect is the tour which takes you to parts of the house closed to visitors such as the kitchens. It takes 40 minutes and costs £5. I had just missed one and did not have time to wait for the next so I walked around the hall briefly.

For much of its history the hall was not inhabited - only ten years according to this claim. Despite being modern in design and drainage the Sir Francis Willoughby who built it used the hall only for special occasions yet lived in old Wollaton Hall in Wollaton village, possibly for reasons of expense. A fire in 1642 rendered it uninhabitable for forty years and in the late 19th century the town was thought to have encroached upon it, the hall was let, then vacant, then sold in the early 1920s to Nottingham council whereupon it opened as a museum. Summary of the Hall’s history on Wikipedia.

I wondered why the building was home to a natural history museum specifically. Initially I thought it was created because of the link with Francis Willughby, ornithologist and ichthyologist. He was revolutionary in thought in that the taxonomical system he and his tutor John Ray developed forms the basis of current classification of plants and animals directly influencing the more famous later work of Carl Linnaeus. They challenged some ornithological inaccuracies of Aristotle and Francis wrote a scientific study of games.  More about Francis here. 

In fact, the natural history museum started life as an interest group of the Nottingham Mechanics Institute - one of the remarkable nineteenth century institutions for the "improvement" of ordinary people; a bit like In Our Time, I suppose today.  The Mechanics Institutes, as an aside became an internationally popular concept, with hundreds of branches across the Empire.  It was co-founded by George Birkbeck, its first President who also founded Birkbeck college in London which offers part-time tuition for working people and is where I studied for a philosophy degree some ten or twelve years ago, until in the third year of four my first son was born.

One of the most captivating stories of the house for me was of Willughby’s three children.

Francis Willughby the naturalist who, though often ill travelled extensively in Europe with his tutor. At the time of his death of pleurisy aged 36 in 1672 he was planning to travel to America to study further. He left behind three children. His eldest son, also Francis ran away at twelve from his stepfather. He seems to have had a similar independence of mind to his father and after taking his stepfather to court over his inheritance moved into the abandoned, fire damaged property aged 19, inviting Cassandra (later, Duchess of Chandos) aged 17 and his younger brother Thomas to join him. These dauntless three must have had great plans but Francis the instigator died only two years later. Biography.  Thomas and Cassandra remained at the hall. She seems to have been a fairly remarkable woman. Together they did restore the hall, creating apparently magnificent gardens. The eighteenth century was the glorious age of British gardens.  Note in that last link the Jan Siberechts painting of the hall gardens she revived, which hangs in the hall - one of three he painted.   The Camellia House (installed later in 1823) is reputedly the earliest cast iron glasshouse in Europe.  Cassandra also wrote a history of her family and catalogued her father’s works

Cassandra Willoughby

She married her widowed cousin at 43, moved away and looked after his children. Her husband employed Handel for some two years and if you are interested in such things you can see the organ he may have played at the Hall, now restored and used for recitals. 

Thomas, her surviving brother married, had many children, became a notable man of the county - JP, Sheriff,  other county offices, also MP and was later raised to the peerage becoming second baron Middleton.

There are various sources of good information about the hall:

Background to the family prior to building the hall (Section: “Historic development “) 

Design and architecture: The house is brick built, encased in stone from Ancaster, Lincolnshire and one of the first great homes to look spectacular rather than being primarily defensive, with an upstairs and downstairs having separate purposes, and no clear front or back, being impressive to see from all sides. It was built by Robert Smythson who had been master mason on Longleat and who became the first person to have the title architect. John Thorpe here is claimed to have been the designer, with Smythson perhaps in charge of the build (architect apparently had a wider meaning than now).  Architectural detail in again, the useful Historic England entry.

Other sources of information about the hall:  Nottinghamshire History.

There is superb children’s guide and activity sheet (for older children) - one of the best for a historic attraction that I have seen.

Sunday in Stuttgart: Teehaus, Weissenburgpark

Jens had proposed that the next morning we meet at the tram station Bopser. I had every faith in his excellent choice of places to go. It would have been fractionally quicker to take two trams but it was another gorgeous day. I decided to walk again along Haußmannstraße again and take the scenic line 15. The sky was blue and the tram glided up the hills around Stuttgart. I saw more of the smart, well maintained villas one with a tower dated 1900. The state of disrepair of buildings of the same era in Buenos Aires, buildings perhaps even more elegant than these made an extraordinary and sad comparison. I wondered what it was that made for such differences - culture, economy, attitude?

Typical villa, Photo:  J Streck, Stuttgart 2016

At Stelle I got off to walk to Bopser, not realising that my walk would be along a forest trail.  It was a surprising and fortuitous turn of events.  The trail seemed well used and I was not worried, still less upon exchanging smiles and hellos with two older couples out for a walk.  The Japanese have a term: Shinrin-yoku - forest bathing. They believe walking in the forest is restorative, that it actually improves and protects health. I live in a part of Scotland where we are surrounded by gorgeous, mysterious but welcoming wooded hills with many walks.  I have often thought how apt this Japanese idea seems when out in those forests. In this wood, the energy of growth was everywhere yet the forest was calm and restful: its scent, the greenness of the leaves, the dirt trail, the quiet and the sound of the birds. I felt lucky and happy to be there. 

I arrived to a street apparently two minutes from Bopser but was confused when Google maps wanted me to return into the forest. I had forgotten to distinguish between the centre of Bopser and Bopser tram stop. I realised that I was only five minutes from a Teehaus in Weissenburgpark. Jens had mentioned a Teehaus. I figured that was the one.  He was tolerant and understanding of my tourist error and we met there instead. 

It was a marvellous setting and felt very European. 

Teehaus

If you go, don’t forget to climb the slope, covered in aliums that day....

....to look at the view.

We had coffee and chatted like everyone else.

Eventually we ordered lunch. With extraordinary patience Jens once again answered my endless questions about the menu. Lentils, here, I said?   Jens said that when the area was poor they grew, and in fact still grow a kind of mountain lentil. I was curious to try a local dish of lentils, sausage and spätzle, a south German noodle. Lentils and noodles in the same dish? I queried. He shrugged. The lentils that arrived were not apparently the mountain variety but they were tasty. Noodles are less my thing and I had ordered them from curiosity. 

As in the Schlossgarten children ran about exploring.  I saw some gazing at tadpoles caught in their hands from the pond while their parents relaxed. It did not feel like worried, stressed Brits I sometimes see trying to control unruly children. The children I saw looked absorbed and happy.  The statues we saw below the Teehaus outside the Marmorsaal (what floors, for dance!) reminded me of a stylised form of that absorption in play:

Photos, 2, 3, 4, 6 (clockwise from top left) by J Streck, Stuttgart 2016

I remember with my babies how it seemed to me they sometimes picked up on how I was feeling. Many times I noticed that as I relaxed, stopped worrying about the baby and toddler and got distracted by tasks I found the baby calmed down too. Perhaps it is not so unlike men and getting dances - you relax, maybe they choose you, if you are not relaxed it is unlikely they will. Yet, like trying to sleep you cannot really make yourself relax.  I think whether you do or not can have a lot to do with how you feel in the prevalent conditions.

Saturday in Stuttgart

Opera, Schlossgarten

I was very lucky to be shown around Stuttgart by my friend, Jens. He moved there from Bremen via Brighton about  three years ago.  Jens proposed we meet for brunch on Saturday at a local cafe.  I decided to walk down Haußmannstraße for some fresh air and exercise.  The sun was warm.   The pavement verges had been left uncut and buzzed with insects among the clover and long grass.  The laburnum was out. I walked in dappled shade under the pink and cream blossom of the horse chestnuts.   

There were lovely views across the city.  

From one of the villas came the sound of a flute.  

 

A fountain set in a wall played.  Go and enjoy grinned its Dionysian faun.   

At Eugensplatz I paused to look at another fountain.  My worries from the night before lingered.  Do you think you’ve come to the right place? said the statue.  “What are you doing here?” mocked  one of its small companions.   “Ignore them” joked the fish.  “I know how you feel” said the stiff, constrained lion without turning his poor head. 

Cafe Babel is a great place to get brunch.  There is a delicious buffet including including juice about 12 euros.  Coffee and hot drinks are extra. There is a sun terrace and a separate pavement bench for coffee in the sun. The staff were lovely.

About Stuttgart

Jens walked back with me along Haußmannstraße pointing out the landmarks. The Bahnhof is topped, curiously, by a Mercedes sign.  

Bahnhof project with vineyards behind

He told me about the Bahnhof project which he thought corrupt and unnecessary.  I think the argument in favour was that it would mean greater throughput of train travel.  The Bahnhof would move underground with the space liberated being used for more shops.  Jens was unpersuaded.  Many of us think we already have enough shops, he said.  There is a large mall already right in the centre - it is the building in the centre with shiny curved roof:

On Monday en route to the airport not long afer 7AM I saw a protester to the Bahnhof project standing in the rain with a banner raised above his arms.  Some citizens really do seem to mind.

I asked Jens about the Mercedes sign above the Bahnhof.  He told me the city’s recent wealth had come from the car industry.  Prior to that he said Stuttgart and the south in general used to be poorer.  I asked him about the people.  He said the legacy of that earlier poverty meant that the locals still had a reputation for tight-fistedness. He said there was a fairly high proportion of incomers and that the native locals tended to be more reserved.

A couple of years ago, some time after Jens had moved to Stuttgart, I had asked him how he found it.   He wrote back:

“Stuttgart is quite the opposite of futuristic Hamburg: We have 2 famous German muscle car factories in the city, so everything that moves with less than 10 liters fuel per 100 km is considered suspicious and its very existence disputed. The town is sited in a deep basin and surrounded by lovely hills with vineyards and orchards etc. But after the war it was transformed following a principle that was called »autogerechte Stadt« (car-friendly city) in the 60ies. Maybe it worked quite well back then, because there was only one car for 14 residents or so. Now it's 9 times more and the whole thing is close to collapse. There are some streets that connect us with the urban hinterland where you have a permanent congestion from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. At the same time German rail sabotages the central station with a refurbishment (est. duration 14 years). And that central station is the main intersection and changing point for long-distance, rail, light-rail, metro, tram and buses. So motorcycles, awesome new electric vehicles, bikes and pedelecs have a big renaissance here and my Thai Honda comes quite handy... but i don't think I will strike roots here.”

But now Jens seemed happy here.  He agreed. Now it seemed he does expect to stay.

Things green

Knowing my interest in green topics he had some time back sent me this.  On our walk he pointed out the long gardens that run north east through the city from Schlossplatz.  With these and surrounded by vineyards and forested hills the city seemed green.  

Photo:  J. Streck, Stuttgart 2016

How green? I asked.   He explained that litter-wise it is one of the cleanest cities in Germany.  But  he said there was a lot of pollution for a city of its size because of the policy he had earlier explained and that the natural basin in which it is situated traps those unhealthy particles.  

- I think these things are important for you.  Why then do you like it here?  

- It is a prosperous city.  

- And yet I think money and material things are not so important for you?

- That’s true.  But prosperity brings civic culture and I enjoy that.

It did feel just the way he described it - relaxed, quiet, clean, prosperous and well maintained.

The Schlossgarten

After the Saturday afternoon dance, I met Jens at Stöckach tram stop and we walked in the Schlossgarten, stopping for drinks at one of the cafes there.  Some of the park was maintained  with meadows in a state much closer to nature - the country in the city.  

In other parts people were having barbecues at the public stands.  I commented how with their circular stands they were rather like the typical German imbiss.

- Actually, the Turkish immigrants brought this idea in the 70s, he said.  

- Really?  I thought German people were very outdoorsy and liked to do this sort of thing.

- Yes but normally we would do it at home, typically in the garden or in front of a garage (in case it starts to rain).

- And yet people seem to have embraced it, I said.

- Yes, he agreed.

We walked through the Schlossplatz. It was a grand, open space for people to use, grassed, central, surrounded by history and monuments, thronged with people relaxing.  

Stiftskirche

 

We walked to the top floor of the Kunstmuseum (there is also a restaurant) and looked at the view.

Then we had dinner at Shabu Shabu which does fresh, tasty affordable food after which I went on to the evening milonga.