Bern and St. Gallen: The End

[selenak]

Last chapter of the Travelling Tale: after a sleepless night due to the unfortunate location of the room, we left Geneva behind and went to Bern next. Bern being the capital of Switzerland (bet you thought it was Zurich) and a lovely city with a great word heritage Renaissance center. More then six kilometres of colonnades, fountains with painted statues, complicated ancient clocks on towers, and real living bears in the Bärengraben outside of the old city walls. The bear being the emblem, as supposedly Duke Bechthold who founded the town did so after hunting one. This gives Bern the excuse for lots of adorable bear presentations, even on a fountain called “Kindlifresser”, which means “child eater”. The child eater in question isn’t a bear, or Kronos, just an anonymous Swiss giant who indeed is depicted in the process of swallowing a toddler, with lots of others under his arm. And below his feet are a lot of cute bears in dress. Don’t ask me for context.

The very final station of our journey was St. Gallen. Which has one of the most beautiful libraries you’ll ever have the fortune to see. St. Gallen the monastery started when the Irish monk Gallus in the 8th century made himself a hermitage. A hundred years later, the monastery started the library which has collected books ever since and is still running. You’ll see the map of an ideal Benedictine monastery as drawn at the court of Charlemagne, or an absolutely fantastic Irish psalter with the scribes having scribbled remarks in Old Irish between the Latin lines, which were kindly translated for us as “It’s so cold” “A prayer for the soul of Fergus” “New pergament and bad ink”, “the pergament is rough”, “I’m going now, if nobody minds”. The oldest manuscript they have is the Aeneid by Virgil, a copy from the fourth century AD. How about that?

The main room itself is from the baroque, and gorgeous in that opulent counter reformation now-once-more-with-splendour way, all light brown and ornaments. The AP took a very illegal photo, and you’ll swoon with me. I’m a Gothic girl at heart as far as churches are concerned, but now and then I make an exception for certain baroque things.

After being in book lovers heaven, we went and gratefully lit a candle at the cathedral belonging to the abbey. Which is also the seat of the bishop, and another endearing baroque thing, with green ornaments creeping up the columns, no less. This was, in effect, the end of a most beautiful journey. We then drove home to Bamberg non stop, where I expected being busy for unpacking and washing for ages to come, but two friends of my parents dropped just five minutes before we arrived, and they haven’t been able to get rid of them since they’re still here. Now for loading the photos!

Comments

[shezan.livejournal.com]

Yayyyyy, piccies!

(And there's a whole chunk of Smiley's People that takes place in Bern, and very atmospheric it is too.)

[selenak.livejournal.com]

You think of Le Carré, I think of Dürrenmatt.*g* The first bunch of pictures are up now. Enjoy.

[j-bluestocking.livejournal.com]

I've always loved the little notes scribes left behind, but I pictured a monk sitting by himself somewhere, occasionally dashing off his thoughts as he worked. "I'm going now, if nobody minds" sounds as if the notes were meant as a form of communication -- perhaps to get around a vow of silence?

Thank you for the trip report -- looking forward to the pictures!

[selenak.livejournal.com]

It definitely sounds like communication within the scriptorium - but that doesn't mean the others couldn't have been meant for the scribe's eyes only.

[andraste]

The child eater in question isn’t a bear, or Kronos, just an anonymous Swiss giant who indeed is depicted in the process of swallowing a toddler, with lots of others under his arm. And below his feet are a lot of cute bears in dress. Don’t ask me for context.

...

There is no context that would make sense of that.

You’ll see the map of an ideal Benedictine monastery as drawn at the court of Charlemagne, or an absolutely fantastic Irish psalter with the scribes having scribbled remarks in Old Irish between the Latin lines, which were kindly translated for us as “It’s so cold” “A prayer for the soul of Fergus” “New pergament and bad ink”, “the pergament is rough”, “I’m going now, if nobody minds”.

This reminds me of a Bible my Latin teacher told me about that had 'could somebody please bring me some water' inserted at random into the middle of a verse. Obviously whoever was reading the text aloud for the scribes got thirsty *g*.

[merrymaia.livejournal.com]

What a wonderful write-up of a wonderful trip. Thank you so much!!!