That’s the Van Gogh museum in the background with a Richard Serra appearing, but not, holding up the Stedelijk.

Today was all Van Gogh. Got there just as it opened and skipped the early work on the first two floors so I could see the later work in piece before the mobs got to it. Had it all to myself for about an hours and a half. So much good work, almost too much. In fact when I finally left about 1:30 I was so wrung out that I had to go back to my room and lay down for a few hours just to recover. One of his last, if not the last, painting was a picture of tree roots that was a close to pure abstraction you could get. Just pure color and shapes. In fact without a title you would have a hard time even knowing what it was. I would include a photo but the museum forbid photography. I don’t know what the rest of the visitors did. They were. Forced to actually look at the work instead of photograph it. I only wish all the other museums did the same.

what a wonderful experience!

Park outside of the Stedelijk

Breakfast on the balcony at the Rikssmuseum.

Walked less than 15 minutes to the National Museum and had a nice breakfast on the balcony restaurant overlooking the the covered courtyard. The collection’s highlights are the Rembrandts and Vermeers. With the wrongly titled Night Watch the most popular. However most people are crowded around it taking their recquisit selfie or staring down at their multimedia guides and watching the videos and listening to the commentary.

Night watch by Rembrandt. Notice the shadow pointing to the crotch of the guy on the right.

Temporary art installed outside of the Rijks Museum. There were others by the same artist but not nearly as good.

More art around the Rijks museum.

These giant “I Amsterdam” we’re all over the city. The kids went nuts over them and there were selfies galore.

Defining my identity.

The Vermeers were the same mobbed with photographers but no gazers. I just crowded up to the front and TRIED to get in the way of the cameras. I’m sure I spoiled many a shot. Frans Halls was also well represented but all these Burgers with elaborate roughs began to wear on me and after three hours I left and strolled toward the town center.

Canal in Amsterdam.

The city like Kobenhavn is one that works. LOTS of restaurants and cafes and mobbed with people even tho the weather was not great. I walked very slowly trying to recover from hard museum floors but now on bra nite sidewalks. Better to see what’s going on. I stumbled on a outdoor market specializing in plants, flowers and, of course, tulip bulbs.

Fifty tulips for 10 euros!

I skirted the red light district and passed a great shop specializing in condoms.

Interesting store, what a selection!

The salesgirl in the window should get residuals from all the people who take this picture. I walked through Dam Square that faces the palace. The last time I was there I spent many hours hanging out passing the time talking with fellow travelers and watching people. Same thing still going on but this time without me. Found lots of other tiny spaces to sit and rest my feet but when the rain just wouldn’t let up I hopped the tram and went home. Nice Italian dinner on the corner of my street.

Spent the day on the train. They put all the cars on the ferry for the ride to Germany. Fourth five minutes to have a coffee and change money. Met a guy waiting on the platform, a chef from NYC who promptly offered me a swig of vodka from a bottle that had a big dent in it. Mind you it was 9AM! I passed. He was also headed for Amsterdam. Nice but not sorry that wee weren’t sitting together. Changed trains in Hamburg and again in Duisberg. The trains were fast and on time to the minute.

Arrived in Amsterdam and after getting a transit card took the tram to my BandB. Greeted by Michael who kindly offered to carry my bag up the stairs (more like a ladder). His place is gorgeous with 14 foot ceilings and a bathroom that’s more like a spa. I was invited out to the balcony and met his friend Stephen who had to be six foot eight. I made him sit down, it hurt my neck to talk to him standing up. Michael is originally an American but has lived here more than 30 years. Had a long talk about politics back home. He and I are both very nervous about trump.

Michael, my fantastic host in Amsterdam.

Bathroom/spa

Shower, thats my room at the end of the hall.

Michael’s friend little Stephen. 1.97 Meters!!!!!!

The neighborhood is so lovely. Dense architecture but full of nice restaurants and high end boutiques. Wish I could by a suit here. Very stylish but there is no way they would have anything in my size.

Went to bed. My room is small. Taller than it is wide but the bed is comfortable.

Corkscrew staircase up the tower. I passed on the opportunity to climb it.

For my last day in town I took the tourist boat tour of the canals. Very low bridges and great views. Even a look at the little Mermaid. Just as much a letdown as the last time in 1977. The back of the boat was filled with a Japanese tour group who felt it was histerically funny to WhooHoo! Everyone we passed. The rest of us tried to ignore them after many angry glances that did no good. And it wasn’t just me! After the ride I walked along the harbor wandering into the Royal Library thats called the black diamond. The walls cantelever out reflecting the harbor below. Wish the weather had been better. Stayed and used their free Wifi while a shower passed.

Last visit to town hall square.

Ended my stroll at townhall square and then went home to pack. A great time in Kobenhavn. The private spaces are small but the public spaces are magnificent and everything works! Everyone speaks English better than me. Better grammar and less slang. Things are very expensive but what you do buy is all first class.

Botanical gardens glass house.

Took the subway to Norgaard station and then walked through the botanical gardens to the National Museum. The gardens were beautiful and immaculately maintained. Everything labeled with the Latin and Danish name. My plant materials memory was jogged back into place. The glass house was more beautiful on the outside but still had a nice collection inside.

Statue in the botanical garden. Note her gaze! How did that red stuff get there?

The statue above would never make it into a public garden in the states. She wasn’t even trying to avert her gaze. Shameless !

National Museum.

Got to the Museum just a few minutes before it opened. When it did I was delighted to find that it was free! Tho starting June 1st they are starting to charge admission. They had an outstanding Matisse collection, including a portrait of Madame Matisse that I last saw in 1977. It seemed smaller than I remembered but still a real masterpiece.

Matisse I waited 35 years to see again. It didn’t disappoint.

That green line down her face was amazing. The collection was donated by a collector who bought them directly from the artist at the beginning of the 20th century way before he was famous. Maybe 20 canvases, all masterpieces. The rest of the museum was a survey including an excellent Montagna. They had added a beautiful new wing for contemporary Danish work. Gorgeous spaces, but except for some nice Asker Jorns, mostly second rate work. Had a nice lunch in the cafe.

Lunch at the national museum.

Just wandered around after. Past the Royal Palace. Ending up on the walking street which was packed. I had a great cup of coffee at the museum in a beautiful mug that fit my hand perfectly. The girl at the museum shop sent me to the Royal Copenhagan shop where I checked them out. I will order online when I get home.

Best cup of coffee ever, I’m sure because of the cup.

Went looking for a nice restaurant suggested by Yelp only to find it closed till next month. A gallery owner next door directed me to this restaurant where I ended up sitting for two and a half hours just watching the world go by and listing to the street musician.

Another excellent dinner. Roast chicken over pureed potatoes and veggies.

What a nice end to a nice day.

Lunch overlooking Sweden with Alexander Calder.

Spent the entire day at the Louisiana Museum north of Kobenhavn. This is arguably the most beautiful museum I’ve ever been to anywhere. And, it held up in my memories from 1977 except this time it was filled with people. Most of whom, thank god, spoke languages I didn’t understand and didn’t carry selfie sticks. I did see a gaggle of little old ladies one of which had a Bernie button on her baseball cap.

The main exhibition was a survey of very contemporary art and most of the art, as in any survey show, was not my cup of tea. There were two outstanding works. One was an installation by Yayoi Kusama.

Yayoi Kusama video clip 18 sec.

Click on this link to see a video of the piece. It’s worth the download!

It was a mirrored room lit only by tiny colored balls hanging from the ceiling. They slowly changed colors and made you feel you were floating in infinity. The room was small and only allowed 2 people at a time. Thankfully most weren’t interested or only stayed for a moment or two. I stayed quite a while and enjoyed the feeling of floating in space surrounded by an infinite universe.

The second, by Adria Paci,  was a twenty minute video that kept me riveted to the bench. Very rare to find something that wouldn’t let me go after a few minutes. The narrative which had sound but no dialog follows a piece of marble from its quarrying to completion as a Corinthian column. After the rough block was quarried by Chinese labororers it was loaded onto a large open top vessel and put to sea going who knows where. During the journey it was transformed from a rough block to its final form, mostly by small power tools and chisels. Again, all of the work was done without dialog with many close ups on faces and hands. It was a beautiful, poetic examination of labor and the transformation of material. All of this performed moving at sea to an unknown destination. The perfection of the work is shown at the end when a cover is placed over the hold. This cover had slits and holes that let light shine on the column. The light and shadows move over the surface and proclaims the perfection of the workmanship. It was only after that I realized that they must have steered the vessel left and right, again and again, to get the light to play over the piece. All of this kept me on the edge of my seat. What a nice piece of film making!

After that, the highlight of the museum was its collection of Giacomettis. They even had an entire room dedicated to some large works that held my attention even tho there was an entire wall of glass overlooking a ponds with a hillside garden behind. Landscape perfection! However, it was amazing to be in the presence of these large statues by a master. One was a 9 or 10 foot high bronze of a standing woman done in his classic style. The surfaces gouged and roughened but still portraying the form of a female.

9 foot high standing woman by Giacometti.

There was also a large head with an elongated neck. The whole piece maybe 3 feet tall.

Bronze by Giacometti.

There was also a large striding man and a glass case with a table work of six or seven figures and small bust. Up the stairs Behind the head was a hallway of glass cases filled with heads and some figures, most attached to large bases. The smallest piece was the size of a matchbox. The largest less than 18 inches high. Just past the cases was a small room overlooking the large room with a stone platform filled with seven “Women from Venice” they were all the same height and style but each was unique. Each one was clearly from his hand but each was a reexamination of the standing female form. Each one strongly felt. None of this seemed to interest most of the other museum visitors who streamed by with hardly a glance on their way to the cafe. Fine with me. It was just me and Alberto all to myself. I’ve always loved his work but this is the only place I’ve ever seen a real collection of it. This was the highlight of the day!

A whole section of the museum turns on this tree.

The image above might look like a piece but it was just the view along a corridor. What a magnificent beech tree and what a brilliant design decision to bend the corridor around it. It must be at least two hundred years old and yet the construction 50 years ago didn’t damage it. Beeches have very shallow root systems so construction near one can really hurt or kill the tree. This one seems to be flourishing. Maybe it being so close to the Giacomettis.

The other star of the show are the grounds around the museum. They are filled with bronzes from the 50s and 60s which don’t really interest me but they were very nice decorative elements punctuating the grounds. There was a Richard Serra in a ravine that looked like tilted arc cut in half and this time blocking my view to the sea. Nice piece, but I still don’t like getting slapped in the face out in the landscape. Finally there was a wooden pyramid that was a big hit with the teenagers who raced to it the minute they saw it and climbed all over it. I liked it but preferred to remain a spectator.

Installation on the grounds of the museum. The teenagers went nuts over it.

The final room I loved was an entire space filled with the expressionist painter Askor Jorn. Excellent work, great painting! Again, I’ve always loved his work in the books but there isnt much of it in ther US. This was a real treat and made me wish I still painted.

Lunch with Calder (see the top of this post) was fabulous tho the conversation was a bit one sided. Food was great! This was a very good day!

PS There was a survey of OP art, which was horrid except for a documentary made at the opening of a huge OP show at MOMA in the 60s. This grainy black and white film was hilarious. It was mostly short interviews with the attendees all trying to sound “with it.” None of them were or outright didn’t get/hated the work but all tried to put a good face on the show even a big clothing designer standing in front of a painting carefully explaining how he was going to use it in a dress design. It was all, laugh out loud, funny and without trying expressed perfectly my thoughts and opinions about OP.

Met my Danish friends, Stine and Johannes, from Crescent Street, in front of the train station. Spent a great day with them beginning with a walk to their neighborhood past the line of the old city walls and over three enormous lakes that used to be part of the city’s defenses. It turned out that they wanted to show me a new park near their apartment that coincidently was written about in last weeks New Yorker. I had written in my little book a reminder to look this park up if I had time.

A new park I just read about in the New Yorker.

Another view of the park with Stine and Johannes.

We had lunch and a coffee at favorite places they wanted to show off. Great bowl of risotto with asparagus for me. I would have never seen this neighborhood or this restaurant without them. They were excellent guides and clearly loved showing off their town.

After lunch were hopped in the car to visit what was once a little fishing village north of the airport that is now been gentrified and restored to the last detail. Beautiful small cottages, some with thatched roofs all crowned together in perfect harmony. Nantucket has nothing on this place.

With Johannes after eating ice cream with a topping of homemade whipped cream and jam.

We were forced, yes forced, to stop and have ice cream in homemade cones topped with homemade whipped cream and a dollop of jam. We ate too fast for me to get a photo but Stine provided this one just after the damage was done.

Overlooking a beautiful fishing village north of Kobenhavn. Now they just fish for tourist Kroner.

we climbed on to of some old fortifications from WW II for a great view of the village and facing the other direction Sweden. And the bridge that now connects it with Denmark. Stine claimed it was the longest in the world for two weeks until the Japanese completed a longer one just to spite these two little countries. Let’s make Denmark and Sweden great again Donald! They hate being losers too.

Looking out at the coast of Sweden. Bridge on my shoulder.

Frome here we drove back into town to a newly hip area around the new opera house. Old barracks and ship repair sheds are now design studios and cool restaurants along with some expensive new housing.

The opera house.

We were then forced to have dinner – yes forced – at this cavernous warehouse filled with funky street food venders. Very rough and soon to be replaced with a modern facility that will meet fire codes and erase all the coolness out of the experience. We all picked our own vender and had dinner and beers. Great food and i’m glad I got to experience it before the architects got their hands on it.

Conversation has been non stop. Everything from Johannes assuring me that the earth is not doomed to spiral down into the sun. (Whew, I was almost not going to get out of bed tomorrow. ) to politics, to green energy, limited equity apartments in Kobenhavn to the absolute necessity of ice cream even on cold days. The day went by very quickly but we dedided to end it back in their neighborhood at a bar that had more than 25 beers on tap.

Johannes saying grace before he had his beer. Never knew he was so pious.

A beer that is the perfect size for me.

Stine and Johannes drove me home and I was asleep 10 minutes after I got in. I’ll have to work quite hard to show them such a nice outing when I get back to Cambridge.

Arrived on the train from Berlin Sunday evening and made my way to my BandB. I was met by Tine and Uffe who were charming, look like movie stars and have a lovely place. Lots of room and a balcony that overlooks the Carlsburg campus. The showed me around the apt. and then led me to their favorite kabob shop (the only thing open). I was out just as soon as I finished my middle eastern burrito.

The balcony on the third floor was where I always ate lunch the summer of 1977. There was a porno marquee just below it.

Monday morning made my way to the walking street to remember old haunts. Spent many noon times sitting on the balcony back in the day. Walked up and down this shopping street that was surprisingly quiet until I found out it was a national holiday and so most things not focused on tourists were closed. Still it was lovely finding places I remember including a shopping arcade (Jorks Passage) I used to walk thru every day on my way to class. Sat in a cafe to enjoy the brief moments of sun (T-shirt weather like Berlin is only a memory) and a coffee. Everywhere the coffee is great! Then strolled down to Nyhavn (pronounced NU Han). On the way enjoyed some of the towers Kobenhavn is famous for.

Tower in Kobenhavn.

Another tower in Kobenhavn.

Then decided to treat myself to a lunch with a great view.

Nyhavn, had lunch in front of one of those buildings.

Lunch in Nyhavn.

Spent a couple of hours enjoying this feast of Danish Smorbrod. And watching the people walk by along the canal. Then another few hours just strolling around taking in the sites.

Public art in front of the parliament building.

The opera house.

Ended up back at the beginning of the walking street at Radhusplassan (sp?) town hall square before headfing home after lots of walking. The city is a joy magnificent public spaces. Everything is spotless and well orgainized with the best public transsportation in the world. EVERYONE has  a bike and all the roads have dedicated bikelanes cowdede with bikes and no one wears a helmut. The only thing that is a problem is there are bikes parked everywhere and its not pretty uglier than car parks. But most get around on bikes rain or shine and the rest of us take the subway which does its best to accomidate bikes.

Bike racks on the morning subway car. They also have free wifi and plugs to charge your phone. Also cloth covered padded seats!

Charlie Baker read this and take notes! Pay taxes and get amenities. Also the cars are so quiet you can whisper a conversation and there a cars that forbid talking on cell phones tho, just like home, everyone is staring at their phone.

National gallerie, filled with really boring German realist painting

Spent Thursday morning in the National Galerie. Filled with hundreds of German realist paintings mostly from the 18th and 19th centuries. NOT my cup of tea! Then took a long subway ride and 25 minute walk to the Brucke Museum a lovely small museum that promised a small permanent collection of German expressionist painting. These were all in storage so they could exhibit a retrospective of a painter who wanted to be Ludwig Kirtchner but wasn’t. Not the most productive day but did have a nice walk in the suburbs. Very nice neighborhood filled with large beautiful homes and the weather was gorgeous!

Saturday was my reward for yesterday. I discovered the Gemaldegallerie near Potsdamer Platz. Along the way was some public art .

Keith Haring near Potsdamer Platz

Saw Boticellies, Wanderwidens, Bellinis, Caravagio (above) and many more masterpieces all in merciful quiet! The whole place was nearly empty. Everyone seemed to be over at Museum island. What a reward after yesterday. A fitting last day in Berlin.

Final thoughts on Berlin. It’s a city of magnificent public spaces, crowded with people and things to do. Personal space seems to be tight but there are so many gorgeous public spaces. The exact opposite of home. We have big houses but all the public spaces and roads and public transport are a mess. No money for public art, subways, roads, etc…. Public buildings here are architectural celebrations of their activities. They really go in for monumental here.

Sunday was spent on the train from Berlin to Kobenhavn. I haven’t been there since 1977. Arrived around nine and after a few questions found the train to my BandB. Met at the front door by my host Uffe who kindly carried my bag up to the forth floor. He and his girlfriend Tine welcomed me and gave me a map of town and suggestions of where to find things. Everyone I spoke to asking directions spoke flawless English . Their grammar is better than mine. the apartment is gorgeous with high ceilings and big windows. More floor space that the places I stayed in  Berlin . Very comfortable bed.

Three periods in one photo

Continuing my museum stretch. After a leaserly breakfast spent four hours perusing the Neues museum with breaks in the cafe for recharching coffee. The Neus is all Greek and Roman. Great collection but sadly lacking in text to explain the exhibits. They do give you excellent audio guides but they only cover the highlights. Come on curators, you can do better. Had nice chat with Maria via FaceTime to have her upload some files so I can apply for a project in Cambridge. I do love technology. Spent the rest of the day wandering. Had a lovely evening having dinner with Jennifer. She is a documentary film maker doing a residency in Berlin. We ate at a Turkish fish restaurant. The food was amazing, fresh grilled fish. Wish I had photos but the conversation was so captivating that I just forgot. I also took a boat tour on the spree. Very touristy but then again I’m a tourist.

My favorite philosopher Epicurous.

May 12th was the more of the same another nice breakfast outside along the Spree and then on to the Altes Museum. A great Egyptian collection. The highlight was the head of Nefrititi. Perfectly preserved including paint. No pictures allowed since some guys produced a 3D model based on photos taken a few moths ago. So, I had to buy a postcard.

Stunning Egyptian head 4400 years old!

Not as good looking as Nefititi but what a stunning piece of sculpture. I think the damage gives it a modern look.

Spent the afternoon wandering a district filled with galleries and trendy shops. Saw an excellent Cindy Sherman show.

That is a real question.

Had a great dinner around the corner from my B and B. This time I remembered to take a photo.

Dinner around the corner from my B and B

Including “Grandmas’ meatballs”