In the autumn of 2008 I made a five-week journey by rail through Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic and Poland, visiting and photographing towns and cities with musical connections – such as Bonn, where Beethoven was born; Salzburg, where Mozart was born; and Vienna, where Beethoven, Mozart, Schubert, Brahms, the Strauss family and many others made their musical names.
In northern Germany I visited Eisenach, Weimar, Köthen and Leipzig, where the great Johann Sebastian Bach was born, lived, worked, and died. I travelled to Warsaw to find Chopin's birthplace, and to Prague for Dvořák. And I 'met' other composers and made other stops in between – there were 20 destinations on my journey altogether.
This site is a photographic and written record of the tour, with over 1,300 images and some 40,000 words. I can't believe that anyone is going to start at the beginning and follow my tour all the way. Rather, I hope that visitors to the site will dip in to places that interest them – perhaps because they've been there themselves, or are intending to go – and may learn something they didn't know before. In planning this trip I often found it difficult to unearth the right kind of information, so maybe these pages will be of some use to anyone making their own travel plans.
The photos are travel photos: I recorded what was there. None of the subject matter was under my control. But I did my best, where possible, to make 'good' pictures, despite some unseasonally poor weather; some of the images still need to be optimised in one way or another to look their best on-screen. The notes are based on my diary and my memories of the tour, supplemented by additional research – both before my departure and after my return – to round out the story.
Aping the nobility of the 17th and early-18th Centuries, my journey became known among my family and friends as the Grand Tour; no doubt their accommodation was more sumptuous than mine, but my hotels were all entirely satisfactory, and my journey times much shorter than theirs. I travelled with an InterRail Pass, rather than buying a ticket for each train journey, which probably saved money and was certainly very convenient.
As well as pages on all my destinations and the places of interest that I found, there are technical notes on photographic equipment and image handling; details and reviews in the Music Trail of concerts and other musical events I attended, plus a composer index to the destinations; and information in the Rail Trail on all 35 of my train journeys. Eventually I hope to expand all three. In addition I plan to have an account of the planning that preceded the Tour, and a post-Tour analysis of what worked and what didn't work, and what it felt like to come home.
For now, I hope you enjoy the site! |
Click on Destinations and choose where to go! |
