Amazing Organs

While we traveled around Europe and visited so many churches, I began to photograph the organs when possible. These musical instruments are so awesome with the music they can play. I was lucky enough to hear a few of them playing. I hope you enjoy these.

Our first trip was to the Berlin Cathedral. It had an organ with nice dark wood, finely carved holding the silver pipes for it's organ in a side naive where everyone could see it as they walked into the church.

Berlin Cathedral

Berlin Cathedral

Prague had a very lovely cathedral up by Prague Castle. It's organ was in two levels with the top level having wooden and golden tops on the pipes. The lower level was set up under three marble archways where there was a nicely decorated wooden rail in front with knight shields, swords, and jousts.

Prague Castle Cathedral

Porto several old churches with organs I photographed. The first church had two organs. This was quite a small church with a lot of gold painted items. Over bearing in my opinion. However, the organ pipes were painted green (and slightly rusty), with heaps of golden ornamenting.

Next was an organ in the back of a long church high above everything with a beautiful window behind it. The pipes were silver with an arrangement that took the large one outside and smaller ones in the middle to allow for the light to come in the window. Very nicely organised (pun intended).

This highly golden covered grey piped organ had some pipes pointing straight out like little horns. A cool design in the brown wood frame and massive gold decoratoin.

In Milan we went to the Duomo di Milano the was a small organ in a wooden box with small pipes. There were some paintings on the side of this organ with views of Christian acts of faith. Quite small for the size of the church, but elegant.

notice the photos opened on the sides.

We were in Northern Ireland and Ireland next. Got a photo of one of my favourite organs. The great window lights up the nice wooden frame holding the big light blue with some dark blue and gold highlighted pipes. Gorgeous!

A great window behind the wooden frame of blue pipes.

Two organs, both small

In Copenhagen we went into a cathedral which had a nice small organ in a wooden box with some red velvet holding the silver and gold pipes.

We also got a shot of the organ in the Marble Church from a distance. It has a wooden frame with lots of gold dusting surrounding it's pipes.

Marble Church

On our first morning in Sweden, Penny and I walked around Malmo, Sweden and visited a couple churches there. St. Petri (St. Peter's Church) had a window behind the organ, which made it a bit hard to see, but this organ was lined up along the two side walls instead of what is normally seen in having the pipes all in one line. I liked the different look, even with the blurry photo.  They also had an old box organ. It was a big square on top of the stand holding all of the pipes along all four sides. Small in size, but it still had some decent sized pipes.

The first place we saw an organ in Munich was Michaelskirche. It was a well lit church with a white interior, which made the organ very visible by some windows in the back. It had gold trim around the silver pipes up on the balcony. Really nice looking organ!

The next church we had a view of the organ was in a small town on our way up to Neuschwanstein Castle. It was a bit small, but in an amazing looking church with the pink colours around the silver pipes trimmed in gold and white statues. Sounded really nice while we were outside waiting to leave and the church service had just started.

Then we went to ___ church which is a UNESO Heritage site. This huge church had and organ with three sets of pipes. The middle ones were quite big with two smaller sets on the sides. All were in some white painted wood with gold trip in a well lit bright church. Looks small as we were quite far away, but it was large!

In Luneburg, Germany we went into a small church. There was a weird red light shining on the organ which was placed high in the wall above a sitting area. The dark wood and statues with gold trim
looked nice.

Spooky looking with the red "glow"

In Nice, France we came upon a church with an organ that had three large separate parts. Two sides had some large pipes with dark wooden frames and a middle made up of many small pipes in it's dark wood. some of the pipes were even hanging over the wall above the window. Interesting look!

One of my favourite organs was the futuristic looking one in Monaco Cathedral. The pipes were inside round clear tubes of various sizes hanging off a light coloured wooden platform with pink lighting. It was also playing some random music as we walked around taking in the different sites in the Cathedral.

Futuristic looking organ

Vienna had a couple organs I liked. The dark photo was an organ that just had the pipes standing on the wooden platform and nothing visible holding them at the top. Hard to tell, I know. Another one was in St. Peter's Church. This was quite far away, so not the best photo. You can see the highly ornate gold trim around the pipes.

A bit later on this trip we came across a quaint church with a bright white interior with and organ contained in a white painted wood with golden statues and trim.

Now I am just putting in some photo's from our Spain trip in 2013. I don't remember all the churches. There are some differences in these organs as many of them have some pipes sticking straight out making a nice design. I like this concept.

This organ had some very elaborate wood work surrounding the pipes. The detail was exquisite, but hard to see in this photo of the whole organ. Really cool design.

One cathedral had two organs with similar designs and some of the smaller pipes sticking straight out instead of standing like the rest. The wood work is similar, but the pipes have a different colour to them and a bit different design. How loud would a service be if both organs were playing at one time?

This final organ was in the Sagrada Familia by Gaudi in Barcelona. This is one of the less impressive designs in comparison to the cathedral itself. I like how the pipes are in a nice colour wood. The difference is it is behind the alter, where most of the others are in the back or on the sides of the church. However, the thought process behind how sounds works in this place makes this an awesome place to listen to an organ play.

Penny and I aren't really religious, but enjoyed seeing so many churches and the different designs. So much money spent on places to worship; including the art work, organs, pulpits, paintings, stain glass windows, and of course the time it took to build these historic buildings. Amazing!

Which one is your favourite? Do you have any photos of organs you would like to share?

When in Wien.....you eat schnitzel and listen to classical music!

Our final trip is to Vienna, a place both of us had on our list of places to visit while we were in the Netherlands. We both can't believe it is our final trip and we had to wait until now to make it here. This is a work trip for Penny as she was giving a talk at TU Wein.

We left on Wednesday evening with the usual travel by train, plane, train, and a bit of heel-toe express to our hotel with a late arrival. We were finishing a wine in the lounge with 25 minutes before our plane was to leave and decided to go to the gate. As we were walking out the lady asked if we were Passenger Martens and Stefl. We were being called over the intercom as the last passengers to board our flight. What?!?! We were the last ones on! But others had just boarded and were still sitting down, so not really delaying the plane, right? Planes don't leave early, do they? This one actually did (by 10 min!!) and we arrived early.

Thursday morning was a slow start as we were getting picked up by a colleague of Penny's between 11:00 and 11:30. We were off to visit the university, labs, meet people, and for Penny to give a talk.

Visiting the labs started with Aleks showing us around and gave us information about what was happening in his school. There were some pretty cool pieces of equipment (layering, building scaffolding, microscopes and cameras taking photos while cells were growing), which when explained what they do made me appreciate more what people in science are doing to help human improvement.

Penny doesn't talk about her research much, mostly because on the small scale it doesn't seem exciting, but on a big scale could help cure type I diabetes, burn victims regrow skin, nerves grow back after being detached, cancer patients getting drug delivery closer to the cancer cells. Pretty cool stuff, but big picture. The processes are slow going and studies take time. I found the information today to be very interesting, especially since a lot of the talk was about improvements to help repair the body and I'm all about having a strong body and know improvements come slowly.

On with our day. We went to lunch at a local restaurant, not a touristy area, by the hospital. We sat outside at a table where two ladies were already sitting because the rest of the tables were full. Apparently it is common to sit at a table with strangers if there is no where else to sit so you don't have to wait for a table. Nice local food, we had a cordon blue and naked schnitzel.

After lunch we went to the hospital where Penny gave her talk, which started at 3pm. Mostly younger students, but some doctors came to listen. Maybe not my area of expertise, but I understood the information (mostly because I've heard some of it before), but still interesting to see her at work. Normally it is Penny who sees me at work when she comes to the gym, but today it was all about her and WORK.

Penny gives a talk. Yes, working!

The talk went well. Only a few questions and nothing too difficult. We got a tour of the lab and work area in the hospital afterwards. Actually, the main reason of our trip to the Netherlands was for Penny to meet new people to find if there are places she can collaborate with anyone in Europe, so the trip here to the Hospital and TU Wien was very beneficial.

When this was all done we were left with the evening to enjoy. We walked around for a bit in Karlsplatz and then found a brew pub to have a beer. This turned into dinner and two beers. I needed a beer after all the information I took in today. What a learning experience!

Karl's Church

Decorative Column of Karl's Church

Scott has a much needed beer!

Friday was spent walking around Vienna. We started by following a walking tour which took us to the Opera, an amazing looking building. We took a tour of it and found out that most of it was destroyed in WWII. We went to Albertinaplatz for a view of some WWII statues and monuments.

Opera building

Fountain by Opera building

4 monuments in remembrance of WWII

Walking on the Karntner Strasse, a pedestrian mall with some shops, which were much nicer in the olden days, apparently. In Stephansplatz was the massive cathedral. Nice on the inside, but same as most churches. The taller South tower was nicknamed "Steffl", so we had to climb  to the top. One of the most uninspiring towers we have climbed. Not much space to look out over the city (just windows, no open viewing) very crowded, but still some good views out the small windows when you could finally get to them.

Pedestrian mall 

One of the older shops with nice exterior

decorative older building

I told them they misspelled my last name!

St. Stephens Church

Nice view from the top.

Cool tiling

Cool tiling

The Pestsaule (plague statue), Emperor Leopold I vowed to erect if the plague would end. It shows the emperor on his knees praying for the plague to end, which is something no Emperor did in public.

Emperor kneeling in middle section.

We also took a look at Peterskirche, a Baroque church. By my estimates, baraque means you need to have pink paint on the inside with a stucco ceiling. This church was designed after St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City. Very nice.

St. Peter's Church

After lunch we walked along ringstrasse to go by the museum district. Many of these buildings are built in similar fashion. The bottom section of stones are mostly square with a rough outer side. There are some short columns in each level. The second level is a mix of smooth, flat stones with some rough stones.

We walked by the Parliament House which was the main focal point from the road. It stood out with it's huge water fountain, numerous statues on the building and roof. We also enjoyed what this building looked like all lit up in the evening. A grand looking building.

Great fountain in front of Parliament House

The next great building was the Rathaus (town hall), where there was an excellent garden and park area - (beer, wine, and food stands). A film festival was going on during the month of July, so there was a huge screen and chairs in front of the building. Still a great, large, old building.

Symbol of Vienna

Love the flowers hanging from the windows, beautiful!

best view as a screen is in the way

Moving to the ring road, we came upon an old city wall and Penny proclaims "this is very important!" Scott looks over at the wall and asks, "Why?" Penny replies, "Just above it is the house where Beethoven stayed and composed music." Scott with a quizzical look - because he doesn't think something like this seems so important to Penny - says, "That's why it's important?" Penny says, "I thought you might like to know since you like Beethoven's music." That is LOVE. 

Beethoven lived in the building behind the wall.

Summer is here as we had a hot day and after a view of the Votivkirke, a dual spired church, where we sat in Freud park to view. We had an ice cream afterwards to cool off.

Dinner was at a true Austrian eatery where Scott had a 1L chili beer to go with his beef.

Chili Beer, I'll try it!

On our walk home we went by Schwarzenburgerplatz which had a Russian monument, built as thanks for the Soviets for liberating Austria from the Nazi's, and a fountain with lights which slowly changed colors as we watched. A wonderful evening made for some nice photos.

Saturday started with Schonnbrunn Palace, a summer house. These Monarchs know how to spend money building huge places with lots of rooms, huge gardens, and good views.

Schonnbrunn Palace

View from one side as the garden begins.

Trees cut flat to make a better view

Roman Ruins

Looking back to the Palace

We went back to the city and walked by the Hofburg Palace, the winter Palace. We spent a bit of time viewing the outside of this huge complex. This palace currently houses the president of Austria.

Front of Hofburg

Inside the square at Hofburg

One side of the Palace

Hitler gave a speech here after taking Austria in WWII

Opposite exit from where we entered, facing the Museum District

Close up

Walking around we saw a statue of Mozart in a park and thought the flowers in the symbol of a the Treble Clef or G clef symbol. Then walked through a rose garden for some different scenery.

Penny smells the roses

We got tickets for a concert at Palais Auersperg, which we bought on the street by the Opera on Thursday morning, when we were told the would be classical music (Vienna is the capital of classical music, so had to go to a show), ballet, and opera singing. The concert room was small, but had some figures of wrestlers on the wall above the stage. Scott found this to be mildly amusing and awesome! The show lasted for about 1.5 hours and we both enjoyed it.

They rolled out red carpet for us. No dress code in summer!

Stage, notice the wrestlers above? I certainly did!

Musicians playing well.

Penny loved the dancing.

We had a drink in the beer garden by the Rathaus before and after the show as it was close to the show to enjoy the vibe. Quite a lovely place.

Lit fountain at the beer garden

Parliament House in the evening

Sunday was a visit to the Belvedere complex, which consist of two palaces, the upper and lower. Of course it was filled with fountains, statues, and walking paths around the vegetation on the steady slope for top to bottom. We have had enough of going inside palaces, so decided to stick to just the outside again like the Hofburg. Some absolutely lovely statues and fountains, so plenty to view.

A view towards the lower palace

Upper Palace

Lot's of statues with b**bs in this garden.

Great Fountain!

Multi-level fountain

Looking up to Upper Palace

Vienna was so much fun and a great way to end our time in Europe. It will be sad to leave, but ready to be back in Sydney.