Wandering With Jean & Bill: 2008

Christmas Greetings

Jean and Bill wish for all of you the three values of Christmas:
Thanksgiving that God has not forgotten man,
Joy that a Child who will offer salvation to all has been born, and
Peace to all men of good will.

Some Views of the Most Unique Member of the European Community

After a relaxing two days in Frankfurt, we hopped (as much as you can hop with a 25 and a 35 pound suitcase) on a jet for the two hour flight to London City Airport, an airport we have never been in before. With Neil and Myra Usher’s detailed instructions in hand we got on the proper trains and undergrounds in the correct order, ending up at Waterloo Station. Our hospitable hosts were there waiting to show us to their comfortable home, Applegarth, in the village of Effingham in Surrey.

Neil and I worked together on a committee to make new physics and chemistry syllabi for the new nation of Malawi in the 1970s. (Jean was busy creating a new biology syllabus in her committee.) The Ushers accidently ran across our blog last year, got in touch—and so we were fortunate to have great place to stay with “embedded” guides in the bargain.

It has been a rainy summer in Europe this year: in Frankfurt we had two out of two days of rain and overcast, in London we had two days of sunshine out of five days total, and in Paris about one and a half days out of three of sunshine.

Londontown and Environs

Waterloo Station

Waterloo Station is the main hub for South West England serving some 165 million passengers in the financial year 2006/07. The station was opened in 1848 and has become the the most important in England. It no longer is the terminus of the Eurostar chunnel train, but with the development of nearby attractions such as the London Eye, I-MAX, and the Royal Festival Hall, it remains a main hub on the South Bank.

Waterloo Road

This picture is London in a nut-shell: the Underground, the black taxis, the red double-decker buses, driving on the “wrong side” of the road, new, fancy architecture mixed with rather plain buildings, and an overcast sky.

Houses of Parliament and Big Ben at Westminster Hall
(Westminster bridge and the Thames River in foreground)

This picture was next to the top of my list, “To photograph in London”. When the weather report predicted a sunny day for October 16th, the Ushers helped us get an early start into town for a full day of shooting. This photograph was taken just outside of Waterloo Station.

Big Ben and the London Eye

Of course at the top of my list was Big Ben.

The Clock Tower of the Palace of Westminster was completed in 1856 and is the world’s largest four-faced, chiming clock (There is a larger one in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, but it doesn’t chime.) and the third largest free-standing clock tower in the world. It reaches a height of 316 feet.

Along with the Great Bell, Big Ben, the belfry houses four quarter bells which play the Westminster Quarters on the quarter hours. They play a 20-chime sequence, 1–4 at quarter past, 5–12 at half past, 13–20 and 1–4 at quarter to, and 5–20 on the hour, an allusion to Psalm 37, are: "All through this hour/Lord be my guide/And by Thy power/No foot shall slide". It is written on a plaque on the wall of the clock room.

We noticed this view while we were picnicking on the south lawn of Westminster Abbey.

The London Eye (Millennium Wheel)

This giant Ferris wheel at 445 feet tall is visited by 3 million people a year (30 million altogether since it opened in 2000) and thus is the most popular commercial attraction in the United Kingdom.

It rotates at 10 inches per second, completing one revolution in about 30 minutes (It does not normally stop for loading and unloading.) ; a ride costs about $25. Each pod is air conditioned and can hold up to 24 people standing or sitting.

I’ve heard the Queen was not pleased with the Wheel because from it, one could look into her bedroom in Buckingham Palace.

It’s a Long Way Up There

Although there are two other Ferris wheels in Asia that are taller, the London Eye is "the world's tallest cantilevered observation wheel" (because the entire structure is supported by an A-frame on one side only).

It was constructed in a rather unusual way: it was assembled flat lying down on pilings in the Thames River, then lifted up using a “strand jack” at about 2° per hour. Strand jacks, which in simple terms are multiple hydraulic jacks, were used in the construction the new Oakland end of the San Francisco Bay Bridge in 2006.

We did not ride on the Wheel due to time constraints—we had only one day of sunshine for all of London.

Piccadilly Circus
A Small Village Is Hidden Beneath Street Level
in the “Tube” Station

Piccadilly Circus reminds me of Times Square in New York or The Ginza in Tokyo—all the bustle and bright lights. In the cold winter the mall down in the tube station is nice and cozy warm.

It Must Be Baker Street

Chimneys near Albury, Surrey
(photo by Myra Usher)

Neil stopped the car briefly for us to jump out for a shot of these picturesque chimneys. Myra and I stood side-by-side in the misting rain to shoot the beautifully arranged chimneys which she knew from before. But her picture was better composed than mine—my excuse is we were standing in this narrow street with cars whizzing by on the wrong side of the road…

Baked Goodies in Bookham, Surrey

The Ushers often shop in the village of Bookham. Standing outside in the cold rain, I could imagine how good these just baked cookies would taste.

“The Scholar”
Guildford

This is one of my favorite images from London. We found this fascinatingly animated statue in the middle of the main street in Guildford. I was pleased at the luscious hues that were revealed on this overcast day.

Cheyney Court at Kings Gate, Winchester

As you pass through King’s Gate to enter Winchester College, you are struck by this photogenic house. I immediately got my cameras out for a photo session. The rain had left the colors deeply saturated. Myra Usher was nearby shooting and using me as a foreground object. This time I liked my result with my f2.0, 24 mm Leica lens better than hers. But mine had no foreground figure—so I borrowed me from her picture and moved me into into my image. Actually, I found out later that this house is one of the most photographed houses in England.

Winchester Cathedral, Hampshire
(photo by Myra Usher)

Myra saved me again: no matter how much I tried, I could not make my photo taken in the rain match hers taken on a sunny day.

Westminster Cathedral Choir

The original cathedral was founded in 642 and the present Norman cathedral began construction in 1079. It has the longest nave of any Gothic church in Europe (nearly 600 feet) and has many royal figures buried in it as well as Jane Austen and Izaak Walton.

Winchester Cathedral Reredos

The altar screen is very impressive.

Winchester Cathedral Organ Concert

We attended a lively organ concert that included Saint-Saëns’ “Danse Macabre” and “Carnival of Animals”. The organ’s several banks of pipes (or was it two organs?) created a total surround sound.

Southwark Bridge and Tower Bridge
(London Bridge Is Hidden
Between the Two Bridges)

Southwark Bridge was opened in 1921, replacing the “Iron Bridge” (so called because it was made of cast iron) built in 1819. The Tower Bridge, named for the Tower of London, not the towers on the bridge itself, was constructed in the 1880s because of increased commercial development in the East End of London. Taken from the Millennium Bridge.

St. Andrews Hill Lane

I was searching for an alley that would represent “old” London—and on our way from Black Friars Underground Station to St. Pauls Cathedral we walked up St. Andrews Hill Lane.

The City of London has a very small area, one square mile, with resident population of only 7,800, and is located within Greater London: over 600 sq. miles and 8 to 14 million population (depending on how much of the metropolitan area is included). Whereas Westminster is the seat of government, the City of London is a major financial center of the World.

An important settlement for two millennia, London's history goes back to its founding by the Romans. Londinium was established as a civilian town by the Romans about seven years after the invasion of AD 43. At some time between 190 and 225 AD the Romans built the defensive London Wall to protect it from Saxon pirates.

London was granted a formal charter and limited self-government by William the Conqueror in 1067.

St. Pauls Cathedral

The first St. Pauls was built in 604 by Augustinian missionaries. After more than 30 years, Christopher Wren’s St. Pauls and the fifth St. Pauls, came into use. It has the second largest cathedral dome in the World.

Queen Anne, 1702–1714
St. Pauls Cathedral

Her predecessors were her sister and brother-in-law, William and Mary (the only case of co-monarchs in English history). One of Queen Anne’s claim to fame was her Statute of Anne, “Copyright Act 1709” which was the first copyright law to give authors the ownership of their writings.

Our most gracious hosts,
Neil & Myra Usher treat us to a succulent Duck Feast
at Applegarth, their home in Effingham

The Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew—
 One of London’s Five World Heritage Sites

The Palm House

Jean’s main botanical contact when she was collecting plants in Malawi was Dr. Richard Brummitt at the Kew Herbarium. They are the World center for African plants—sort of the main clearing house for collectors in Africa, African herbaria, and plant specialists through out the World.

Summer Crocus

Kew usually identifies plants, names new species, and originates manuals of plants from Africa. Experts at Kew have been working on a manual of plants of the Zambezi River watershed since the late 1950s—50 years now! They identify dried plants sent by collectors like Jean, who can tell one green bush from another that looks just like it, naming new species if the plant was not known before, work out a key for the group, and then publish the group as a volume in “Flora Zambesiaca”. There are 38 booklets, so far.

Copper Leaf, Acalypha wilkesiana

When a new volume is published, the last one was 2006, Jean looks first at the list of new names—typically there are 2 or 3 in each volume, mostly new names for subspecies. Then she looks to see how many citations she received, in the case of Vol 9, Part 3, it was 28 citations with 8 being the sole citation for Malawi. Of course we break out the champagne when a new species is named “pawekiae”, such as Volume Six, Part One in the Compositae family which described “Brachythrix pawekiae”.

Kew Herbarium

The Kew herbarium with a staff of 700 is one of the largest in the world with approximately 7 million specimens used primarily for taxonomic study. The herbarium is rich in types for all regions of the world, especially the tropics. Kew is also important as a seedbank, co-sponsoring the Millennium Seed Bank Project.

Dr. Richard Brummitt at Kew Herbarium
shows Jean  one of the holotype specimens
named after her

Jean was in the right place at the right time. Malawi was "under collected”. It needed a dedicated botanist to systematically collect every green thing in sight, carefully press dry and label the specimens, and ship them to a herbarium for classification and identification. That is what she did during school breaks for nearly 15 years all over Malawi from tropical lakeshore to 10,000 foot Mlanje Mountain, sending one sheet each to Kew with duplicates to herbaria in Malawi, Zimbabwe, Missouri Botanical Garden, and Univ. of California, Berkeley.

The red stripe indicates it is a holotype sheet—the one used to describe the plant.

Jean with Isoglossa pawekiae
in the Msuku Hills of Northern Malawi
1976

The only one of her “children” named while we were still in Malawi was this Acanthaceae, "Isoglossa pawekiae". A layman’s description: it is a tall, 6 to 15 foot, vine-like bush with pale lavender to white snapdragon-like flowers up to an inch and a half long. Currently there are 5 species named “pawekiae” and several subspecies listed in The International Plant Names Index or you can simply Google “pawekiae”.

Memories of London—Big Ben

Paris next.

After exchanging farewells with our fellow Medjugorje pilgrims, we landed in Frankfurt’s giant airport.

Frankfurt is the transportation hub of Germany for flights, roads, & trains. That plus the fact that historically it has financed Kings and Emperors since medieval times has made it the seat of the German Federal Bank and home of the Euro (€)—The Central European Bank. It is still the wealthiest city in Europe, per capita. The third pillar of Frankfurt’s economy depends on the many large trade fairs held in Frankfurt each year, which were authorized by Kings as early as 1150.

At first I had thought to renew our acquaintance with one of our favorite European cities, Amsterdam. But after trying to work out economical air flights or train routes or even inter-country buses, I gave up—the planes and trains were far too expensive and the buses were impossible to organize in English, you had to do it from Europe in the language of the country.

So going with the flow, we stayed three nights in Frankfurt, a city we had been to several times before, but never gotten out of the airport. It turned out to be an interesting, picturesque city with reasonable priced hotels—our hotel, 3 minutes walk from main train station cost us $247 (including taxes—a big item in Europe) for 3 nights for two, a large double room with bath, and a good, substantial breakfast—(Expedia online). One caveat—the city, being an important hub—was flattened by Allied bombs during World War II and so the “medieval” buildings except for a few exceptions have been rebuilt since WWII.

What we found was a good “layover” place, between the peaceful, yet focused time at Medjugorje and the bright lights and somewhat frantic activities we would experience in London and Paris.

Looking out of a bus on one of the two days of partial sunshine, we saw a small part of the Frankfurt airport. The train from the airport into the main train station cost less than $3 each.

From the window of our well-lighted, spacious hotel room at the Ambassador Hotel, we could see we were not in California. But there was a convenient launderette across the street and German (not MacDonalds) fast food places along the street.

A Frankfurt Street

The weather in Europe this summer was said to be unusually rainy; in spite of the gray skies, we found color in our exploration of Frankfurt.

A German KFC.

The chicken is roasted in slices on a spit in the shape of an inverted cone.

Flea Market!!

Actually nothing was “neu”.

Need a pair of shoes?

“If I don’t have what you want…”

“… I am sure my friend does!”

Frankfurt was built on an early Roman settlement on the Main River. The Kaiserdom (emperor’s cathedral) in the background had a scaffolding around the tower for maintenance purposes. The metro area includes up to 3 million people.

Since it was left practically “without a stone on a stone” by the Allied bombers in WWII, Frankfurt does not have much in the way of old historical buildings, on the other hand its main claim to fame rests in being the financial and transportation center of Germany and the largest financial center in continental Europe. It is the place of residence of the European Central Bank, the German Federal Bank, the Frankfurt Stock Exchange and the Frankfurt Trade Fair, as well as several large commercial banks.

There are contrasts between the rebuilt medieval buildings and the modern skyline. Behind St. Leonards Church, are The European Central Bank, many other bank towers, and the Börse (stock exchange). The tallest commercial tower in Europe is the Commerzbank at 850 feet (56 stories). Paris and Frankfurt have the most skyscrapers (over 500 feet) in Europe.

Römerberg Plaza—a photographer's delight

Of course the Römerberg plaza was restored with tourists in mind—but they did it in a photogenic style with lots of color. The main buildings were originally constructed as wealthy burgers’ houses with several churches nearby—St Nicholas on the plaza, St. Bartholomew (now Kaiserdom)—beginning in the 13 & 14th centuries.

Römer (Town Hall) –
converted from three houses in 1405

Frankfurt was one of the most important cities in the Holy Roman Empire. From 855 the German kings and emperors were elected in Frankfurt and crowned in Aachen. From 1562 the kings/emperors were also crowned in Frankfurt, Maximilian II being the first. The elections and coronations took place in St. Bartholomäus cathedral, known as the Kaiserdom, or in the Römer.

Jean by the door to the Römer, where in nearby buildings 44 Kings and Emperors from 768 AD to 1792 were crowned or elected.

Wertheim Haus, 1600

The only original house remaining in Frankfurt is the Wertheim Haus on the SW corner of the plaza, dating from 1600.

Window detail of the Wertheim Haus

Ostzeile Houses 1400s

The east side of the square, opposite the Römer is known as the Ostzeile. This row of picturesque half-timbered houses are reconstructions of the original 15th and 16th century houses.

Apfelwein is one of Frankfurt’s culinary specialties.

The Kaiserdom

St. Bartholomews Church was raised to a Cathedral standing although it has never been a bishop's seat, when it started being used in Kings/Emperor’s coronations in 1356.

The interior soars to 312 feet in red sandstone.

Interestingly, the Mass we chose to attend at noon on Sunday happened to be in the Croatian language, illustrating the cosmopolitan nature of Frankfurt.