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Post by pieter on May 16, 2016 9:53:42 GMT -7
I wish I could make a topic like Rotterdam about a Polish city, but I have to less experience, knowledge and information and images of that. If it would be a Polish city it would be probably Warsaw due to the family roots there!
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Post by Jaga on May 16, 2016 21:30:29 GMT -7
Pieter,
do not worry about Polish cities now....
I like especially the pictures of a modern architecture in Rotterdam. I guess, in reference to Poland maybe we should try the thread with a modern architecture in Poland?
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Post by pieter on May 17, 2016 8:35:27 GMT -7
Jaga, I am going back to check the Modern Art Museum in Rotterdam ( www.boijmans.nl/en/#2RWHlKFdZGg4r8tM.97 ), the Art hall ( www.kunsthal.nl/en/#tijdlijn-2016-05 ) and to take more images with my Single-lens reflex camera Canon 5D tot take more images next monday. On April 30 2016 I took images with my I-phone. I hope to make more images with my Wide-angle lens (24 mm) and with my tele-zoom lens (70-200 mm with image stabalize). A visit to Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen is a journey through the history of art from the Middle Ages to the present day. Discover the museum’s world-class collection with masterpieces by Bosch, Bruegel, Van Eyck, Rubens, Rembrandt, Van Gogh, Magritte and Dalí and be amazed by exquisite drawings and decorative arts including medieval pitchers and Golden Age glassware, furniture by Rietveld and contemporary design. The museum’s extraordinary collection contains world-famous old-master paintings including ‘ The Tower of Babel’ by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, ‘ The Three Mary’s at the Tomb’ by Jan and Hubert van Eyck and several works by Peter Paul Rubens. Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen has a distinguished Surrealist collection with masterpieces such as ‘ Not to be Reproduced’ by René Magritte, ‘ Couple with Their Heads Full of Clouds’ by Salvador Dalí, ‘ Monsieur et Madame’ by Joan Miró and ‘ The Enigma of Isidore Ducasse’ by Man Ray. They build a stairs next to the Centrals station for a nice view in the occasion (celebration) of 75 years of rebuilding Rotterdam which is celebrated this year. The Rotterdam mayor climbing the stairsWatch this video in this link of the Dutch national public broadcast corporation NOS: nos.nl/artikel/2105362-mensen-in-de-rij-voor-immense-rotterdamse-trap.html
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Post by Jaga on May 18, 2016 6:44:19 GMT -7
Pieter, I agree with you that people in Rotterdam have skills of merchants and a big port. I saw parts of the video, its port is really amazing. Referring to the heavy bombardment of Rotterdam. Did your father went back there, since his house was still spared? How much of the town was damaged?
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Post by Jaga on May 18, 2016 6:48:44 GMT -7
How these paintings survived the war? Where they stored somewhere? The collection sounds fascinating with Bosh, Bruegel and even Dali Jaga, A visit to Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen is a journey through the history of art from the Middle Ages to the present day. Discover the museum’s world-class collection with masterpieces by Bosch, Bruegel, Van Eyck, Rubens, Rembrandt, Van Gogh, Magritte and Dalí and be amazed by exquisite drawings and decorative arts including medieval pitchers and Golden Age glassware, furniture by Rietveld and contemporary design. The museum’s extraordinary collection contains world-famous old-master paintings including ‘ The Tower of Babel’ by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, ‘ The Three Mary’s at the Tomb’ by Jan and Hubert van Eyck and several works by Peter Paul Rubens. Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen has a distinguished Surrealist collection with masterpieces such as ‘ Not to be Reproduced’ by René Magritte, ‘ Couple with Their Heads Full of Clouds’ by Salvador Dalí, ‘ Monsieur et Madame’ by Joan Miró and ‘ The Enigma of Isidore Ducasse’ by Man Ray.
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Post by pieter on May 18, 2016 8:32:14 GMT -7
Pieter, I agree with you that people in Rotterdam have skills of merchants and a big port. I saw parts of the video, its port is really amazing. Referring to the heavy bombardment of Rotterdam. Did your father went back there, since his house was still spared? How much of the town was damaged? Dear Jaga, The heart of Rotterdam was almost completely destroyed by the Luftwaffe (German airforce). Like in Warsaw the complete old city center was gone. Flat, rubble, my father cylced through an empty dustry landscape to his high school through a landscape of rocks, stones, quarters of houses, looking like Warsaw 1944/1945, dust, through a landscape of burnet wood, metal and pieces of concrete,gravel like material, dust, sand, mud, water ponds that spontaniously existed between the rubble, and just a desolate landscape for a teenage boy, a kid. Rotterdam was the largest industrial target in the Netherlands and of major strategic importance to the Germans. In total, 1,150 50-kilogram (110 lb) and 158 250-kilogram (550 lb) bombs were dropped, mainly in the residential areas of Kralingen and the medieval city centre. Most of these hit and ignited buildings, resulting in uncontrollable fires that worsened the following days when the wind grew fiercer and the fires merged into a firestorm. Hooton states that bombs ignited vegetable oil tanks on the dockside, which caused fires that spread into the city centre, causing massive devastation. Although exact numbers are not known, nearly 1,000 people were killed and 85,000 made homeless. Around 2.6 square kilometres (1.0 sq mi) of the city was almost levelled. 24,978 homes, 24 churches, 2,320 stores, 775 warehouses and 62 schools were destroyed. Rotterdam, city centre, May 1940Rotterdam, May 1940 Rotterdam, city centre, May 1940Rotterdam, May 1940 Rotterdam, city centre, May 1940Rotterdam city center, 1940 Now the biggest bank structure in Europe rears its rounded, balloon-hanger bulk out of the bomb made desert. This is the new home of the Rotterdamsche Bank. Behind its grilled windows flows the golden blood of commerce. Half a mile away, the cement spattered wooden forms of a huge, new wholesale mart climb to knobby squares above the flat sands. Wholesalers already do business on the ground floor while fresh concrete flows into the forms two floors higher. Along the waterfront, a couple of miles down the New Meuse (nieuwe Maas) river, cranes lever the bales and boxes of an industrial world in and out of the new warehouses.— Cairns Post Newspaper article,1950.
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Post by pieter on May 18, 2016 8:41:46 GMT -7
You see here some buildings after the bombardment. These were later flattened down and the city centre really looked like a desolate, somber desert. No life, not trees, no houses, no buildings, just a flat land of rubble, rocks, stones and dust. The wind played freely, my father had no protection from it. This formed him in these years. That landscape, the executions, the Hunger winter and the rebuilding years after the war. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_famine_of_1944From the rubble new Rotterdam was built. Rotterdam people are known in the Netherlands as hard working people, direct, impatient, and very proud of their city and soccer clubs Feijenoord and Sparta. Harbour workers, dockyard workers, sailors, commercial navy people, Industrial workers, employee's and business people. A commercial and corporate city like Poznan and also a vibrant International multi-cultural city. Cheers, Pieter
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Post by karl on May 18, 2016 18:46:37 GMT -7
Pieter
What may a person say of the devastation of Rotterdam other then horrible. From the total destruction to the new Rotterdam is an answer for why these people are tough and hard working. To survive this devestation is a wonderment to behold, to forget is not to be, to forgive is a blessing. For life must go on, the dead have been buried, and it is to the future to build upon.
Karl
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Post by pieter on May 19, 2016 9:02:08 GMT -7
The devastation of Rotterdam was horrible like Guernica, Warsaw, Coventry, Middelburg, Hamburg, Hannover, Dresden and Berlin. You could compare Rotterdam with Hamburg which saw similar destruction and fire storms which destroyed that city too.
Actually what happened in Hamburg, a large harbour city, was excactly the same as with Rotterdam. Only the bombers were different. The bombers in Rotterdam were German Luftwaffe bombers and the bombers in Hamburg in 1943 were Royal Air Force (RAF) and US-Airfore bombers.
The Allied bombing of Hamburg during World War II included numerous strategic bombing missions and diversion/nuisance raids. As a large port and industrial centre, Hamburg's shipyards, U-boat pens, and the Hamburg-Harburg area oil refineries were attacked throughout the war.
The attack during the last week of July 1943, Operation Gomorrah, created one of the largest firestorms raised by the Royal Air Force and United States Army Air Forces in World War II, killing 42,600 civilians and wounding 37,000 in Hamburg and virtually destroying most of the city. Before the development of the firestorm in Hamburg there had been no rain for some time and everything was very dry. The unusually warm weather and good conditions meant that the bombing was highly concentrated around the intended targets and also created a vortex and whirling updraft of super-heated air which created a 1,500-foot-high tornado of fire, a totally unexpected effect. Various other previously used techniques and devices were instrumental as well, such as area bombing, Pathfinders, and H2S radar, which came together to work with particular effectiveness. An early form of chaff, code named 'Window', was successfully used for the first time by the RAF – clouds of tinfoil strips dropped by Pathfinders as well as the initial bomber stream – in order to completely cloud German radar. The raids inflicted severe damage to German armaments production in Hamburg.
The difference was that there were more dead in Hamburg, but the destuction and devastation was the same. Both harbour cities recovered after the war and reclaimed their important positions as world ports. Karl knows Hamburg better than I know Rotterdam. Thank god Amsterdam wasn't bombed and Krakow neither. Thank god Dresden was rebuilt, also with the support of foreigners. Let's keep the peace in Europe and avoid a Third World War, because the next World War will be worse. It will finish Europe and the Europeans. And not onlly them. Mankind can annihalite whole humanity if it wants (7 billion people) withe Nuclear arms and other arms we have now.
I hope Europe, the USA, the Russian Federation, Africa, Asia, the Middle eastern nations are smart and learned from the past. War doesn't solve anything like Karl allready stated. Europe won't accept a Russian nor an Arab Muslim invasion. Europeans are a bunch of Heathen (secular humanist atheist and pagan/agnostic) and christian tribes with far right cults, far left cultist movements (Nomadic tribes) and Nationalist gangs and bands.
Cheers, Pieter
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Post by pieter on May 19, 2016 9:21:58 GMT -7
The Rotterdam spirit is alive in me. I probably could live there. A few days back I said to colleages; "I like the city because it has space, space like an American city." I like the city because it has a vibrant spirit, and it breathes the air of Freedom. It is close to the North sea, and the North sea is connected to the world oceans! In Poland probably Gdańsk and Gdynia have that spirit! In Germany Hamburg and Bremen, in Belgium Antwerp, Liverpool in England, Marseille in France and New York city in the USA! I love harbour (Port) cities. It would be difficult for me to live in a city without a large river through it, a harbour (like in Vlissingen, Amsterdam and Arnhem where I live) or just a lot of water in general. The US capital wouldn't be my place, Chicago, yes, due to Lake Michigan.
I made two harbour items in Arnhem last week. This shows the role the Rhine river plays in Arnhem and it's small but important harbour for Arnhem. In the seventies Arnhem had a large Dockyard too.
And this was a few years back about a touristic spot at the Rhine river
Nothing like Rotterdam, Amsterdam, Vlissingen-Terneuzen, Hamburg, Bremen, Antwerp, Marseille, Singapore, Gdańsk/Gdynia or New York, but it has it's charm the Arnhem section of the Rhine river and it's little commercial harbour. I have to go to Rotterdam, Amsterdam and Vlissingen East to get my real harbour feeling, but it's nice to live near the Arnhem harbour and the Rhine river. I love water, rivers and ports (harbours). Maybe that is the Sea in me, maybe it's the Rotterdam family roots. I am a water rat. Loved to swim, row, sail and surf in the past.
Cheers. Pieter
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Post by karl on May 19, 2016 13:42:30 GMT -7
Dear Pieter
With your presentations and persona reflections has revived withen my self, the need for salt water once again. I think perhaps the sea will never leave us alone, for the mother that is the sea, has no heart, for she infects us with her self, and there is no antidote but the sea.
Within my life, have I run so far and run so fast, but it is like the shadow, it never leaves us. It is liken to what once long past ago whilst in South Africa, you may shoot into the air with your guns, but you will never hit the sky. That is liken to a freckle, no matter how hard to wash, it never leaves.
Karl
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Post by pieter on May 19, 2016 15:29:02 GMT -7
Dear Karl, I found refuge inland, but sometimes I have funny dreams or nightmares, that I live as a 46 year old child with my parents in Vlisisngen, Zeeland, and that I am not a 'landman' (countryman) like I am now, but a sailor, fisherman or harbourworker. Yeah, it's true the tides, she salt water of the sea, the screaming seagulls, the sound of misthorns, heavy engines of tugboats, the shrill sounds of whistling wind, and the sharp sand which cuts into your face with storm or strong winds. It's part of us North-sea people, North-West-European coast people. The West has a magnetic attraction to me, whether it's Vlissingen in the South-West, Rotterdam in the West, Noordwijk at Sea or Castricum in the North-West (located from the perspective of Arnhem in the East) I love to go there, because the smell of the sea, the light sky due to the reflection of the water (special light) and the milder temperature (a few degrees celcius warmer than in the Eastern part of the Netherlands) attracts me. The landscape of the Dunes, the memories of long beach walks or walks over dune footpaths, looking how far you can swim into the Westerschelde or Oosterschelde or North Sea. As trained local coastal boys we could take more risks than tourists or expats who didn't knew the power of the sea or the dangers of the jetty's. We went to far, for instance into the fairway, the slippstream of large containerships and other commercial navy ships. It could drag you to deeper waters. You had to be a trained and skilled swimmer to be able to handle that, and we were as Vlissingen kids, because we were water rats. We played in and around the water during our childhood and teenage years. The Sea, Lake Veere and the chanals and ponds were our natural habitad. With beautiful sunny weather, and with bad weather. The sea has a hypnotic and magnetic attraction to us Sea kids Karl, it's like you say " The sea will never leave us alone, for the mother that is the sea, has no heart, for she infects us with her self, and there is no antidote but the sea." There is no difference between the little Danish boy Karl in Esbjerg or Cuxhhaven and the little Pieter in Vlissingen, Dishoek ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dishoek ), Zoutelande ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoutelande ), West-Kappelle ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westkapelle,_Netherlands ), Domburg ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domburg ) and Lake Veere ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veerse_Meer ) next to Veere ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veere ). ZoutelandeWestkapelleSight from the dunes of the coast of the Walcheren Peninsula in Zeeland, looking at the North Sea5 DomburgAn der strandpromenade von DomburgLake VeereI surfed like this on Lake Veere from 1985 until 1990. That is some of the things I miss from Zeeland windsurfingCheers, Pieter
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Post by karl on May 19, 2016 19:20:17 GMT -7
Pieter
Boy oh boy do you take me back some years with what we used to do as kids and young men testing our selves. On many visits back to Esbjerg, I had tried to wind surf, but was not very good at it, seemed to go well, and then whilst making a turn, would flop over as the wind took the sail. After a few not so successful attempts, just let it go and go back to skiff sailing.
The Harbour at Esbjerg is very large, but semi closed in. The bottom is deep but not regular, and with this, large ships once powering up, would leave a very dangerous bow wake and from the stern, a powerful back wash that could take a person under and whilst doing so, it will kick and flip the person around and around to then drown that person. There has been more then just a few people to meet this same fate if swimming out too far into the shipping lane.
Although fairly well protected from the North Sea, the bay still can be a trial. For as the wind picks up from North to South, it will create large white caps that if not careful, will swamp a skiff or even larger boats.
Once, and only once, we stupid kids sailed out the three of us into the white caps and into the shipping lane. We then in the stead of heading into the large waves, round the boat to take on water over the gunnels until it swamped and filled up. These wooden boats wont sink, just lay low on the water, we three idiots let the wind blow us to what we though would be land side, and in the stead, the currant took us out into the shipping lane. One of the pilot boats powered to us and took us in, our little sail boat was wrecked into just boards and torn up sail. It was not good and we got a good speaking to from the crew. Once back to land, we got a good scolding from the harbour patrol and then had to pool up our money to pay for the boat loss. Was not a good day..Yes, we were just stupid kids, but learnt well our lesson that day.
This is a nice video of the city and harbour area. It has really grown since last my visit there which is normal.
I some times wonder about dreams and if they mean any thing. What I have been told is it is a means for the mind to stabilize whilst we are sleeping and then normalize for when we wake up. I dream a great deal, but the past destructive dreams of being stalked by a very large bear and some times, a tiger. I only sleep about two hours at a time before waking, then must try to relax enough to go back to sleep for another two hours.
I think this is a sleep pattern from many years past whilst not having an alarm clock to then think the time I must wake up and then do it. The body is a very accurate clock and our minds seem to be able to control it to an extent such as this.
Karl
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