In 2023, we have relocated our travel blog to a brand-new web address: chrisnsue.com. This move comes with a host of exciting improvements, including larger photos, detailed maps, and music that will enhance your reading experience. We invite you to explore our new site and save it as a bookmark for future updates.
To make it easier for you to keep up with our escapades, we will occasionally curate a collection of links to our recent posts centered around a specific theme, such as a memorable trip or a remarkable destination. This way, you can conveniently catch up on all our trips and discoveries. We sincerely appreciate your unwavering support all this time!
These five posts cover what we saw in Turin (Torino) which was the first stop of our road trip from Lausanne, Switzerland to Tuscany, Italy.
Since the beginning of 2023, we have moved our travel blog to a new web site: chrisnsue.com. There you can find new content with better photos, maps and music that will make you feel like you are traveling with us. We invite you to visit our new site and bookmark it for future updates.
From time to time, we will post here a collection of links to our recent posts that are related to a theme, like a trip or a place, so you can catch up with our adventures. Thank you for your support !
These four posts cover a short trip to Spiez where we used as a base to explore two beautiful lakes, Thunersee and Brienzersee in Bernese Oberland, Switzerland.
Random moment is our playlist series which was started during the 2020 pandemic. We cannot travel and postings on our trips here have slowed to a crawl. So we thought sharing music is another way to communicate with friends and fans.
Nowadays, sharing a playlist with the world is effortless and generating a playlist can even be automated by Spotify’s algorithm. I (Chris) is old enough to have made and shared mixed cassette tapes and remember the sweet labor in selecting and sequencing analog music. Why do it now ? Part of the fun is to re-listen to your favorites and savor that melody, beat or performance – the magic that entertained or entranced you. As music is likely associated with a period, a place or certain events and people in one’s life, it is also a trip down memory lane for many people.
With a music streaming service, almost the entire universe of popular and classical music is available. It allows the boundless discovery of new groups, new music created by people you like, covers for an old song, or even old music you did not like before but like now. I(Chris) is particularly interested in discovering new or faint musical mood connections between the music, old and new. Playlists are the products of us amusing ourselves in this musical sandbox.
Depending on the music, the number of songs in a playlist is limited to about four on average, totaling around 10-20 minutes. In our listening experiences, there is enough time for the listener to form an impression of the overall musical mood. And the bite-size playtime is about right for a short break from chores/work.
This is the 12th playlist. The earlier playlists can be found by searching for the tag “music” on this site.
This is no. 11 in a series of posts that is about funny names or clever business signs. From time to time during our travels, we come across names in the English language that makes us smile.
You can find the other posts in this series by the tag “names”, see for example #1, and #10.
I tried to note down where we saw the shop or sign.
Rich & Royal, KievLoved, Hong KongHotel Million, AlbertvilleThe Boil, New YorkSHOP, can’t remember where we saw this Madness, BeijingFunk you, Berlin
Due to the lack of travel opportunities in 2020, the selection is limited and admittedly not as crazy as the earlier ones in this series. Check out Hilarity in names #1, #2, #3, #4, #5, and #6.
We woke up at six something and hurried out of the hotel to see the sunrise. Thankfully, the fog had dissipated overnight and the sky above us was clear.
Since Hotel Bellevue was already at the top, it was technically unnecessary to climb higher to see sunrise. But we followed the hotel’s suggestion to get atop of Esel (Donkey) at 2,118 m [6,949 ft] – the second highest point of the entire Pilatus range, just east of our hotel.
It took us about 15 minutes to reach the peak of Esel – we practically ran up the steps as we were a bit worried about missing the moment when the sun appears above the horizon.
Gasping for air which had no moisture at that altitude, we were dying of thirst by the time we reached the top. There were about 10-15 people at the Esel summit which was walled-in and crowned by an iron triangulation cross. The crowd’s sense of anticipation was at a level usually met at a concert performance, and yet sunrise is a daily thing that we all take it for granted.
At 6:56 am, an orange disc emerged from the horizon and rose above the distant mountain ranges. Dawn !
The peaks of the surrounding mountains were first to reflect the warm glow. The view of Lake Lucerne and the city of Lucerne below, visible between gaps in the clouds was spectacular, as was the view southward to the Alps.
There is no word to describe the beauty of the moment and the uplifting of spirit as the rays lit up our faces and the vast expanse above and around us.
Rise and shine. As the sun crept up from the horizon, long sharp shadows were cast across the two hotels and the terrace. We hung around to take pictures and videos along with a small crowd of now excited and satisfied spectators.
On our way down from Esel, we saw a wild mountain goat, also known as an ibex, the kind that is famed for perching on cliffs and jumping off mountainside. It caught us by surprise.
This animal was a baby as its horns were small. In adults, the horns are huge, curved and menacing. Check the photos on the internet. The species was seriously endangered in the Alps until the 1820’s when ibex hunting was banned by the dukes of Savoy in Grand Paradiso (a national park in the Italian Alps). Now they are not so rare in these parts.
Apart from the aerial cable car that we used, there is a second form of transport to get up to Pilatus-Kulm – the cogwheel train. This feat of engineering was commissioned in 1889, having a gradient of up to 48 percent that is the steepest cogwheel railway in the world. From Alpnachstad, it takes about 30 minutes travel time.
Track for cogwheel railway
When we came down from Esel, the first cable car and cogwheel train had not yet started. So we pretty much had the terrace, any sunning chair, telescope and all the viewpoints and trails to ourselves (and a few overnight guests).
I(Chris) decided to explore the “Dragon Trail” which wraps around the mountain behind Hotel Pilatus-Kulm and includes a series of short tunnels cut into a side of the mountain. Windows were created to provide a better vantage point for the view of Lucerne and central Switzerland.
Hotel Bellevue and the aerial cable car terminal from “inside” the Dragon Trail
While it was not cloudy at 2000-plus meter, it would appeared to be a cloudy morning for someone below. We could see a bed of cloud slowly creeping across the woodlands and pastures at lower altitude.
Klimsenhorn Chapel (Klimsenkapelle) at 1,864 m and its crucifix present a set of distant but stunning subjects in the scenery. The neo-Gothic building was inaugurated in 1861 and originally belonged to the Hotel Klimsenhorn, which was demolished in 1967.
The rising sun casted a long shadow behind the chapel.
The chapel remained and is now preserved by a foundation. It was last renovated in 2004. A trail visibly leads up to the crucifix. Just imagine the inspiring, spiritual sight as you walk up to it.
The Dragon Trail afforded different views from the other side of the mountain behind Hotel Pilatus-Kulm. Being the only one on the Trail, I really appreciated the sense of solitude.
Towards the end of the 10-minute walk, the paved Dragon Trail became a series of steps with switchbacks, culminating in a nearly-vertical climb though a hole. A surprising view greeted me as I emerged near the top of Oberhaupt – the other peak that is accessible directly from the terrace.
Oberhaupt (Head-Leader, 2,105 m [6,906 ft]) is located west of Hotel Pilates-Kulm. I was really glad that there were no masses of tourists on the narrow path.
The peak of Oberhaupt is closed to the public due to the communication installations. At that altitude, there were no trees only shrubs.
Hotel Pilatus-Kulm and the terrace and Oberhaupt from Esel
Following a paved path and stairs, I came back down to the terrace next to the hotel, effectively completing a circuit. As there were hardly any one around, it was tempting to do a quick hike on an easy trail to the third and tallest peak – Tomlishorn – which is 20 minutes away.
Instead, I joined Sue for a nice buffet breakfast at the Queen Victoria. After all, with a healthy dose of fresh mountain air, we were very thirsty and hungry by that time.
When we were checking out of the hotel, only a few fluffy clouds remained and the city of Lucerne 1700 meters (5500 feet) below us was visible from our window ! This kind of view of the ground is usually possible only from an airplane.
Click here to see the hotel, cable car and gondola in part 1.
On our way back home after a visit to St. Moritz, we used the motorway instead of the mountainous route we previously took.
To see photos of the mountain passes we visited on that route, click here.
Lucerne-Kriens-Pilatus
We stopped at Lucerne for lunch and then sneaked up to Mount Pilatus for the night. Not quite ready to go home.
We were very glad to find that there were spaces in the Parkplatz in front of the gondola station at Kriens, and that it would allow overnight parking.
The first section of the ride from Kriens to Kriensregg and then Fräkmüntegg took about 20 minutes and gained about 900 meters. We were the only ones in the 4-person cabin and had the full 360 degrees-view of the Lake Lucerne area.
The second half of the ride up to Pilatus Kulm was the “Dragon Ride” – an aerial cableway that claims to give a sensation of flying. It is quite new since it was built in 2015. The trip was only about 5-7 minutes and can carry about 50? passengers.
The photos above were taken on the day of our departure. On our ascent, the previous day, the weather was not cooperating (photo below). According to Wikipedia, one of the possible derivations of the name of this mountain is “pileatus,” meaning “capped” or “cloud-topped.”
There are two hotels (50 rooms total) at the mountaintop but we could only book a room in Hotel Bellevue. On arrival, the mountaintop area – Pilatus-Kulm – was obscured by fog. We were seriously concerned that our plan to see sunrise the next morning might be ruined.
All the shops and eateries were closed after the last cable car and cogwheel train departed around 17:45. The hotel room booking included a prix fixe dinner at the only restaurant – Queen Victoria – in the historic Hotel Pilatus-Kulm (which was closed due to off-season or COVID). The two hotels were connected by a terrace and underneath it the concourse for the cable car and cogwheel train.
Throughout the evening, we could roam freely outside on the terrace and stroll indoors to look at the windows of closed shops and some exhibits about the history of the Hotel Pilatus-Kulm. The terrace with empty tables looked quite eerie in the fog.
There were enough guests in the dining hall to not feel like a haunted house. The food was typical continental dishes. The night was made special by the candle lights in the dining hall contrasting the grayish fog visible through the windows.
Luckily, the fog cleared overnight. To see sunrise, we left the hotel at 6:30 am to climb to the top of Esel (2,118 m [6,949 ft]), one of the three peaks accessible from Pilatus Kulm.
View of Hotel Bellevue from Esel, 15 minutes after sunrise
The side of Esel casting a shadow against the rising sun on Hotel Bellevue (photo above).
View of Hotel Pilatus-Kulm from Esel
Queen Victoria rode up the Pilatus on horseback in 1868. Hotel Pilatus-Kulm was built in 1890 and completely renovated in 2010.
See our next post for photos of sunrise at the summit.
Back to Switzerland … On our way home back from St Moritz, we spent a night at a sheep farm at Alp Flix.
Click on the link to see our earlier posts on St Moritz, and the nearby Julierpass.
Alp Flix is a protected moorland situated on a plateau of between 1900 and 2000 m altitude, lies within the boundary of Parc Ela – the largest nature park in Switzerland.
The farm Cotti Agricultura is in the hamlet of Tgalucas (top right corner on the map; 1970 m, 6463 feet). Their web site in German (possibly Swiss German) is here.
To get to the farm, we turned into the village of Sur just after descending from Julierpass on A3. There is a restaurant/hotel, and a church. We saw hunters dressed in camouflage standing next to their truck having a smoke. Wondered what they were hunting.
We continued on the road and started ascending into the low-lying clouds. The paved road became a gravel path lined with two rows of bricks. Conifers lined the road.
After a short climb, we reached the flat plateau which gave us the impression of entering a separate otherworldly realm. The village below was no longer visible, nor were the mountains ahead/above us.
Alp Flix is apparently a popular place for hiking. Cotti Agricultura is not only a farm, it is also a cafe/bar/restaurant, sells home-made milk and cheese, and provides simple accommodation.
The front of the farmhouse has been converted into a reception, a bar and an open kitchen area. When we drove up to the farm and checked in, we were told to park the car at a public parking area about 10 minutes downhill.
Reluctantly, we drove back down to leave the car and walked back. We saw the largest (poisonous) mushroom ever.
It was a nice fresh walk as the drizzle had paused.
Tgalucas
We met the resident shepherd on the kitchen floor – a very smart and alert animal.
The day was grey and misty but it added a lot of mood to the moorland. Cotti Agricultura kept only sheep and we noticed the smallish milking machines. The owner noted that cattle farming requires more land and a much larger scale of operation.
But we did not see any sheep. Perhaps they were all herded up into the mountain to take advantage of the summer pastures, as we were there in early September. We believe they all went up the road that runs alongside a stream behind the farm.
Our dinner (lamb chop, unsurprisingly) was served in a small dining room behind the kitchen. It was spacious for 15 diners. The back of the dining room was a wine “cellar” and behind it, with its own entrance from the outside, the toilets and shower area.
The main reason we chose to stay at Cotti Agricultura was the yurts. They had installed five for guest accommodation. For us, the concept was “camping” in the Alps.
A traditional yurt (from the Turkic languages) or ger (Mongolian) is a portable, round tent covered with skins or pelt and used as a dwelling by several distinct nomadic groups in the steppes of Central Asia.
The yurts are a gimmick and it was popular with visitors. All were booked that evening. No animal pelts were used to make these tents. The white plastic-lined, wood-framed tents were a bit sterile, minimally decorated by a door painted with ethnic motifs.
Next to our yurt, there was a tiny sauna. Nobody used it. For us, we would not enjoy it as, it was rather wet and chilly when you come out. Maybe Scandinavians would like it.
There was no running water or toilet in the yurt. The farmhouse was very close-by so it was not a problem (not for us anyway, since our yurt was the closest to the house).
The yurt felt very roomy inside, except the lack of headroom. We had a circular bed, a couple of stools, and a sideboard. There was a wood-burning fireplace with a chimney sitting on a slab of concrete in the middle of the tent.
There was not a need to use the heater but the risk of carbon monoxide poisoning did cross my mind. No electricity, so we used the provided candles for light. We liked the idea of getting away from modern amenities, like wifi, for just one night. It rained a bit overnight. We slept fine as we must be tired.
Woke up to fresh air, similar foggy grey skies, wet grass. Felt alive and well.
We left after a big breakfast, and rejoined A3 heading towards Albula and then Chur. Our next stop before reaching home was Mount Pilatus near Lucerne.
This is the second post on two very different bookstores in Beijing which I(Chris) visited before the pandemic.
Page One is a bookstore chain and publisher founded in Singapore in 1983 by Mark Tan (陈家强), with locations in Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Malaysia, and Thailand, and in China (early 2010’s).
This Page One bookstore in Beijing was located in the historically commercial area of Qianmen 前門 (Zhengyangmen (正阳门) and Dashilan 大栅栏, just south of Tiananmen Square. It is now a very touristy area filled with people, souvenir stores and chain restaurants – all housed in faked old Chinese buildings.
The bookstore is situated on a side street, away from the horde. The interior cannot be more different from the chaos on the street. It is a quieter, dimly-lit, cavernous space filled with books wall to wall.
Unlike typical bookstores, it did not feel claustrophobic despite the number of volumes on display. The minimalist approach to decoration helped to maintain a calm, almost contemplative ambiance.
The overall brightness in-store was dark but the merchandises were all adequately lit and highlighted, inviting one to browse.
Like all modern bookstores, they sell toys and dolls. I guess that is one way to lure kids into a bookstore.
On each floor, several architecturally-attractive substructures were erected to create a small area separate from the main floor.
.Some of the spaces are isolating and intimate, allowing the shopper some private time with their books.
Some are display platforms while another is for enjoying a coffee.
The cafe was operated by Kyoto Ogawa Coffee, names of the origins of the beans were in English.
The upper floors resemble a more traditional bookstore with a wood-color tone on one floor, except there were books displayed in the ceiling. Interesting but not practical for consumers.
The surprise for any first-time visitor is the dramatically-framed view of the south-facing facade of Archery Tower 箭楼, one of several buildings that constitute Qiamen 前門 or Zhengyangmen 正阳门 which once guarded the southern entry into the Imperial inner City
The Archery Tower is positioned on the central north-south axis of Beijing aligned with the Mausoleum of Mao Zedong and the Monument to the People’s Heroes in Tiananmen Square, the Tiananmen Gate itself, and the imperial throne in the Hall of Supreme Harmony in the Forbidden City, the city’s Drum and Bell Towers and the entrance to the Olympic Green in the far north.
Another floor of the bookstore concentrating on the arts and literature has a plain white theme.
Photography section
Page One began as a small shop stocking handpicked art and design books in Singapore, accumulated a loyal following over the years and evolved into a brand. We believe there are other Page One bookstores in Beijing, in Guomao – the China World Trade Center 中国国际贸易中心 and in Sanlitun 三里屯.
However, the shops outside China have been closed in Singapore in 2011, Taiwan in 2015 and Hong Kong in November 2016. We can imagine the competition Page One was facing with Taiwan’s Eslite Bookstore in the same markets. See our post on Eslite Spectrum in Hong Kong.
We cannot see the Taiwanese Eslite opening a bookstore in China, let alone in Beijing. Page One is safe for now but it had to subject itself to self-censorship – books that criticize the Chinese communist party were not stocked.
This post is written in 2021, we are not sure if this bookstore in Beijing is still operating after the pandemic. I am quite sure the Wangfujing Bookstore (featured in an earlier post) is still around.
If you have not read our earlier post on the other Beijing bookstore, click here. What a contrast !
The following two posts are about two very different bookstores in Beijing, both visited before the pandemic.
The first is Wanfujing Bookstore, situated at the beginning of Wangfujing Dajie (王府井大街), in Dongcheng district 東城區 of central Beijing.
I (Chris) was on a business trip and I dragged a very patient colleague along to this bookstore. I hope you also enjoy this indulgence of mine.
Let’s start with some music made by guzheng 古箏, an instrument sold in this store.
The bookstore is one of the city’s biggest and most comprehensive bookstores, occupying an entire building.
Five above-ground floors are dedicated to books and cultural products. The entrance featured a counter for stamp collectors and a table of books on Xi Jinping thoughts and communist party teachings.
Floor 1 sells books on social science and philosophy; politics, law, and history; business and management; finance and securities; travel and geography – “一层经营：社科哲学、政法历史、经济管理、财政金融、旅游地理”.
A more literal translation of the sign below says “test preparation books for lawyers”.
A selection of biographies of famous world leaders -e.g., Obama, Hilary, Macron, Angela, Thatcher, Justin, Lee Kuan Yew 李光耀, Moon Jae-In 文在寅 and Gandhi.
Floor 2: foreign languages, primary and secondary education text books – “二层经营：外语、初等教育、中等教育、汉语、教理科普” Floor 3: children’s books – “三层经营：少儿读物”
Chinese classics (e.g., 吶喊) and translated classics (e.g., Little Prince, Vingt mille lieues sous les mers (20,000 leagues under the seas).
My favorite is Floor 4: chinese and foreign literature, arts and pictorials, music and theatre; imported originals – “四层经营：中国文学、外国文学、美术画册、音乐戏剧、进口原版”
I cannot resist snapping a picture of this section on floor 4 with books on aesthetics – “assthetic”.
According to the bookstore’s web page, the bookstore played a big role in educating Beijing’s citizens about the spirit of Olympics movement, in preparation for the 2008 Summer Games. Many hilarious or embarrassing translation gaffes and mistakes were corrected or removed during this time. This is a new one but a lot less obvious.
Calligraphy brushes, and volumes of famous calligraphic works and stone inscription rubbings.
The floors of the bookstore that stocked cultural products other than books reminded me of a Chinese government-owned department store (Yue Wah 裕華國貨) near where I lived in Hong Kong.
Western art supplies
There is a separate gallery for scrolls and paintings. This floor also sells small electronics and music.
First time I saw so many guzheng on sale. Hope you tried the Spotify link above.
Floor 5: medical and biology; living and health- “五层经营：医学生物、生活保健”
Drinking tea is good for your health.
There are several shelves full of books on Kungfu (or more literally Wuxia) – this section focusing on Wing Chun style. The selection here must be the richest and unique in the world.
The top floor provides a multi-functional space cultural exchange activities, such as lectures. The bookstore was founded on the same year that Peoples’ Republic of China was established – February 10, 1949. I think it is owned or at least supported by the government.
I do not remember what this model was for.
Superior fine books are displayed behind glass (English translation says “recommended books” which is not accurate).
It moved to the current address in 1950, expanded and renovated in 1970 and 2000. In 1994, Wangfujin Dajie was designated as a commercial street and the whole area was rebuilt with modern shops while many streets are pedestrianized.
The basement floor has a food court that was closed.
I bought several books on art and travel within China. Really wished I had more time.
After Dessau, our next stop was Weimar, 100 or so kilometers southwest, two plus hours by DB. The central German city is well known because of its rich cultural heritage and its importance in German history.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, the literary figure, lived most of his creative life here since 1775. Together with Friedrich Schiller, the city was a hotbed of the German Enlightenment. In the 19th century, Franz Liszt made Weimar a music centre. The political history of 20th-century Weimar was volatile: it was the place where Germany’s first democratic constitution was signed after the First World War, giving its name to the Weimar Republic period in German politics (1918–33). Weimar was designated as a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1996 (Bauhaus) and 1998 (Classical Weimar).
We came here because the Bauhaus School (Staatliches Bauhaus) was founded here in 1919. Walter Gropius, a renowned architect, took over the Grand Duccal Academy of Art and the School of Applied Arts and rechristened the combined institution the Bauhaus.
The School lasted from 1919 to 1925, when it moved to Dessau, after the newly elected right-wing Thuringian council put pressure on the school by withdrawing funding and forcing its teachers to quit.
Our focus was the new Bauhaus-Museum Weimar opened in April 2019 which presents the Gropius Collection, the world’s oldest collection of original Bauhaus works. Another new museum dedicated to Bauhaus was also opened in Dessau in 2019 to commemorate the centenary occasion (see our earlier post here).
The site for the museum in downtown Weimar was carefully chosen – Weimarhallenpark – which forms a historical area with the Neue Museum (which we visited) and the Gauforum buildings (see photo below) built in 1937 as a symbol of Nazi power and later used by the National Socialist movement.
When the Bauhaus School was forced to leave Weimar in 1925, museum director Wilhelm Koehler chose 168 pieces and started an archive authorized by Walter Gropius. Hidden inside unopened crates in the City Castle, the collection survived the Nazi years and was inventoried in 1950’s.
The museum exhibition on three floors focuses on the design icons who taught and worked at the School, and their works.
With a multidisciplinary focus, the museum features works of fine art, design and architecture.
Gropius argued that a new period of history had begun with the end of the First World War. In 1923, Gropius had proclaimed the guiding principle for those working at the Bauhaus: “Art and Technology – a new unity !”
Bauhaus cradle following the “color of shapes” idea of Kandinsky.
Instead of the traditional painting or drawing classes, the students were all expected to learn a craft and were designated as apprentices and journeyman. The instructors were “Masters”. The artists or “masters of form” taught color theory and design, and led workshops together with “masters of crafts”.
Swiss painter Johannes Itten, German-American painter Lyonel Feininger, and German sculptor Gerhard Marcks, along with Gropius, comprised the faculty of the Bauhaus in 1919.
The famed 1923 door handles by Gropius
He wanted to create a new architectural style to reflect this new era. His style in architecture and consumer goods was to be functional, cheap and consistent with mass production.
To these ends, Gropius wanted to reunite art and craft to arrive at high-end functional products with artistic merit.
Feininger’s wood cut
By the following year the School’s ranks had grown to include German painter, sculptor, and designer Oskar Schlemmer who headed the theatre workshop, and Swiss painter Paul Klee, joined in 1922 by Russian painter Wassily Kandinsky.
In 1922, the School also saw the move of Dutch painter Theo van Doesburg to Weimar to promote De Stijl (“The Style”), and a visit to the Bauhaus by Russian Constructivist artist and architect El Lissitzky.
The school existed in three German cities—Weimar, from 1919 to 1925; Dessau, from 1925 to 1932; and Berlin, from 1932 to 1933—under three different architect-directors: Walter Gropius from 1919 to 1928; Hannes Meyer from 1928 to 1930; and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe from 1930 until 1933.
Barcelona chair by Mies van der Rohe in 1929
A New Bauhaus school was founded in Chicago, later becoming the Institute of Design, part of the Illinois Institute of Technology. Mies van der Rohe was the dean of architecture and designed its campus.
Walter Gropius went on to accept a teaching position at the Harvard Graduate School of Design; several Bauhaus artists designed and built over 4,000 Bauhaus buildings (called the White City) in Tel Aviv, Israel, and was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2003.
The influences of Bauhaus on the idea of modernism, art and architecture, design and crafts, culture and education are deep, transformative and global.
This is the last post on our 2019 Bauhaus pilgrimage. There were just so much to see, read and digest. We can do this again and will learn something completely new.
… continuing from our earlier post on the original Bauhaus Masters’ Houses,
The first house we saw when coming from the School was the new Director’s House (Direktonenhaus) where the information desk is situated. Why are there new Masters’ Houses ?
After the Bauhauslers moved out in 1932/1933, the school was closed by the Nazis, and the Houses were altered. As the home of the Director, the Gropius building was large, had a garage and rooms for servants’ quarters, all surrounded by a tall white wall.
Dessau lost three-fifths of its buildings during World War II, being the headquarters for an important aircraft manufacturer, Junkers. The Gropius House and the Moholy-Nagy House were destroyed on March 7, 1945, although the basement and garage remained. The city, then in East Germany, sold the houses to Junkerswerke, a company that worked with the Bauhaus School and Marcel Breuer to develop tubular steel furniture before the war.
In 1956, the Emmer family purchased the site intending to rebuild the original house on the remaining footprint, but the planning office rejected this, and they were only allowed to build in a traditional style with a pitched roof.
The Haus Emmer had been on this site for almost 60 years with an internal layout almost exactly to Gropius’ ideal. It was only demolished in 2010 to allow for the new building to take its place.
A competition was held which was won by the Berlin architecture firm Bruno Fioretti Marquez. The design deliberately avoided a historically accurate reconstruction. Instead, the goal was to evoke the original design through a playful approach based on fuzzy memory – “architecture of imprecision”.
The new building was completed in 2014. When visiting the surviving and the new houses, it has been said that the visitors will become aware of the differences between historical structures and reinterpretations while taking into account the imprecision of memories. We think the choice of this design reflects Germany’s view of its past history.
In the cubic design of the new houses, the style of the old masters’ houses are found again, but the bare walls and ghostly translucent window express the destruction and the void left by the real houses.
The residential design of Gropius has now evolved into an open space that is used for exhibitions.
Last but not least, is the restored Trinkhalle – which was the first thing we saw as we approached the Masters’ House site. It was originally a 1932 modification by Mies van der Rohe of the wall built by Walter Gropius around his own residence. The so-called “pump room” was a refreshment stand which broke the monotony of the austere white wall that blocked the view of a group of elegant old buildings. The original Trinkhalle was demolished in the 60’s, and rebuilt in 2016.
Today, the Masters’ Houses are used by the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation. We were able to visit all the houses on this site except two that were used as residences for visiting artists around the year. To see more images of the Masters’ Houses, use this link to Google Arts and Culture’s Model Houses for the Modern Age site.
This is our third post on the Bauhaus site in Dessau. Our visit was made during the centenary year (2019) of the founding of the Bauhaus School of Design.
For this post, try a 2020 collaboration by the brothers Eno – Mixing Colours
A lot of the academic-sounding text in these Bauhaus posts were partially taken from our purchased books, pamphlets we picked up on site, as well as the copious volumes of writings on the internet, particularly https://www.bauhaus-dessau.de/en/index.html.
In 1926, in addition to the Bauhaus school building, the city of Dessau commissioned Walter Gropius to construct three pairs of identical semi-detached houses for the Bauhaus instructors (Meisterhaus, each housing 2 families) and a detached house for the director (Direktorenhaus).
These were built in a small pine wood on the street now known as the Ebertallee. The houses are about 10 minutes walk from the Bauhaus Building (our earlier post is here).
The semi-detached houses take the form of interlocking cubic structures of various heights, flat-roofed while vertical strip windows on the sides let light into the staircases. The light-colored have generously-sized terraces and balconies and feature colorful accents on large, black-framed windows, the undersides of the balconies, and the drainpipes. The equality of each duplex was guaranteed by simply rotating the design for the first segment and then building the second half at a ninety-degree angle.
Although they were designed in the 1920’s, they still look modern to our eyes – are they the timeless classics that the media adores ? and have we (the masses) been conditioned to recognize them as such ?
Gropius planned to build the complex based on a modular principle, using industrially prefabricated components. In view of the technical resources available at the time, apparently his plan was only partially realized.
With their white, cubic structures and complex connections between exteriors and interiors the houses showed the way forward for modern architecture and testified to the debate about standardization in housing construction.
The list of residents reads like a ‘Who’s Who’ of modernists: László Moholy-Nagy and Lyonel Feininger in one house, Georg Muche and Oskar Schlemmer in another, Wassily Kandinsky and Paul Klee in the third. Walter Gropius occupied the Director’s House – the first house one sees when coming from the school’s direction.
For the color design of the interiors, artists such as Klee and Kandinsky developed own ideas that were closely related to their works. Klee and Kandinsky used their white-walled homes as blank canvases for the color experiments, painting their interior spaces in almost two hundred colors, that came to light only upon restoration. The dusty pink/purple room below was Paul Klee’s bedroom ! I (Chris) am a long-time fan of Klee’s work – in the 80’s, I bought a postcard of a painting by him with this color scheme. So this visit was particularly meaningful.
The Kandinsky/Klee Master House was reopened to visitors on 18 April 2019 after extensive restoration. It was quite an experience for us to be able to walk through the life of Bauhaus masters in the surroundings they created for themselves. We watched all the videos running in the houses, which documented their activities.
All of the houses were fitted with built-in space-saving closets, wardrobes and cupboards, and modern (at the time) household appliances. The furnishings complied with the requirements for optimum day light exposure, ventilation, easy-to-clean surfaces and ergonomic working height. Much of these modern simple comforts are taken for granted by us now but it must have been quite revolutionary in the 1920’s.
Gropius was interested in reforming the household. Notably, the toilet is separate from the bathroom. The kitchen where meals are prepared is separated from the dish-washing area, and the dining room.
Others who lived here later, include Hannes Meyer (the next director after Gropius), Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (the third director), Josef Albers, Hinnerk Scheper and Alfred Arndt.
This ensemble of Masters’ houses is the epitome of the artists’ colony of the 20th century.
The Director’s House and the Moholy-Nagy/Feininger were destroyed during World War II. See the rebuilding of these two houses on our next post.
Our second stop in Dessau is the Bauhaus school building itself.
Let some 70’s Krautrock accompany you on this post.
A lot of the academic-sounding text in these Bauhaus posts were partially taken from our purchased books, pamphlets we picked up on site, as well as the copious volumes of writings on the internet – e.g., https://www.bauhaus-dessau.de/en/index.html. New York Times had an excellent article on the school, click here.
In 1925, the Staatliches Bauhaus moved from Weimar to Dessau and the building designed by the school’s founder Walter Gropius was inaugurated on December 4, 1926.
The sculptural composition of the Bauhaus Building comprises several volumes which Gropius planned according to their functions. Unlike traditional 19th century academy buildings, which consisted of a compact symmetric structure, the Bauhaus Building plan in the form a pinwheel conveys the impression of movement.
The Building has a skeleton of load-bearing reinforced concrete (clearly visible) and a skin of glass, which provided it with the modern signature sense of transparency, openness, and lightness. We are looking at the mother of all boxy glass buildings of the 20th century.
By moving all supporting columns into the interiors, thus dispensing with any kind of dominating corner shape, the workshop wing is enclosed by panels of glass (Gropius was allegedly inspired by shoji screens).
Instead of installing glass panes floor by floor, the design relies on a grid system which is suspended from the roof of the building like a curtain – hence the term “curtain wall.”
Opened windows in a curtain wall – you won’t find many, if any, nowadays.
The five-storey studio building accommodated 28 students and junior masters.
The three-storey north wing rendered white is distinguished by horizontal bands of windows and was used by the vocational school.
The administration occupied the lower level and the Bauhaus’s architectural department the upper level of the two-storey bridge which connects the north wing and the Bauhaus.
Among the workshops and design studios, there was a spacious souvenir shop.
We hung around the very early-mid century cafe on the ground floor and mingled with the non-tourists.
We were able to walk through several floors of classrooms (seminarraum) and studios, and peered into empty workshops.
While it looked empty, there were names on doors and people working in offices. This Bauhaus Building is a living, working museum.
The Bauhaus and its sites in Weimar and Dessau have been included on the UNESCO World Heritage list since 1996. Not only for its architecture, the award also applies to the Bauhaus as an institution.
Its conceptual thinking aimed to shape a complete modernism in which social and societal aspects played a role, as did all facets of housing and the way of living. The Bauhaus thus represents not only a milestone in architecture and art, but also a revolutionary contribution to the history of ideas of the twentieth century.
The Building is a built manifesto of the Bauhaus idea.
Our next post is about the houses built for the school masters.
Since it was not possible to do much traveling in 2020, we do not have many photos left to share from last year.
Going back …, 2019 was the centenary year of the founding of the Bauhaus school in Germany. We took a pilgrimage tour of the three German cities where the Bauhaus school existed: Dessau, Weimar and Berlin. So … this is our first post about this trip in Germany.
From my (Chris) favorite German label, Kompakt:
The school was operational from 1919 to 1933 that combined crafts, architecture and the fine arts.
Our tour began in Dessau, a town 80 miles southwest of Berlin, in the state of Saxony-Anhalt, where the school was situated between 1925 and 1932. We were greeted by this installation at the Dessau bahnhof – notice the tiles behind the installation which were laid at angle, lending it more dynamism.
The first stop is the brand new Bauhaus Museum Dessau which was opened by Angela Merkel on September 8, 2019 to commemorate the centenary. We visited it on September 29, 2019.
The museum was built by addenda architects (González Hinz Zabala) from Barcelona. Their design was selected from 831 submissions in an open international competition held in late 2015. The concept is that of a floating concrete block (“black box”) in a glass shell. The upper floor provides optimum climatic conditions for storage and display of the collection while the ground floor is open and transparent, offering a forum for talks, dances, and performances.
There was a cafe and shop as well as a semicircular wooden “Arena” by American artist sculptor Rita Mcbride, where events can be held for a number of spectators.
The Bauhaus school became famous for its approach to design, which attempted to unify the principles of mass production with individual artistic vision and strove to combine aesthetics with everyday function.
This brand new museum will select for exhibitions from the collection of the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation, brimming with more than 49,000 items. While some of the items in the exhibition are one-off experimental works, many items are now part of everyday life.
Previously the foundation did not have such display opportunities for the vast collection.
The Wassily Chair (below), also known as the Model B3 chair, was designed by Hungarian-born designer Marcel Breuer between 1925-1926. Also shown is one of his chrome nesting tables.
The permanent exhibition – Versuchsstätte Bauhaus – features over 1,000 exhibits and tells the story of the famous school in Dessau.
This table lamp (“MT8”) designed by German designer Wilhelm Wagenfeld and Swiss designer Carl Jakob Jucker, became known as the Bauhaus Lamp, embodying the principle that “form follows function”.
The exhibition aims to show Bauhaus as a vibrant place where people taught and learned, conducted artistic experiments and worked on industrial prototypes.
According to their website (click here), the exhibition does not “focus on the famed design icons and the masters, but rather the school and the students: the reality of learning and teaching between the poles of creative design and industrial prototype production, artistic experiment and economic pressure, educational institution and emancipatory aspiration.”
On display were snapshots and movies about the students’ daily lives, at work and at play.
There is a massive wall of names, photos, pins and interconnecting strings which graphically display the gatherings, networks, and influences of artists, craftsmen and architects of the 20th century.
The connections illustrate the historical conditions, visions, working procedures, methods, movers and shakers of the time.
New York artist Lucy Raven won the invitation competition “Kunst am Bau” with her concept of “Lichtspielhaus” – a dynamic lighting installation made of glass in different colors, which interacts with the architecture of the building.
The back of the museum faces a park. The previous building was destroyed in World War II. Dessau was heavily bombed on 7 March 1945, six weeks before American troops occupied the town.
“Bauhaus” graphic in a pedestrian subway near the bahnhof.
St. Moritz lies on the southern slopes of the Albula Alps, a mountain range in eastern Switzerland, overlooking the flat and wide glaciated valley of Engadine and Lake St. Moritz.
Because we were visiting just after the peak tourist season, the hotel gave us free unlimited passes for use on the cable cars and funicular trains that were still running, basically all the routes which travel up to the most popular viewpoints.
We traveled up to two other peaks beside Muottas Muragl (see last post): Piz Nair which is directly atop the center of St Mortiz Dorf, and Signal which is situated above St. Moritz Bad.
To reach Piz Nair, a funicular departs from the town center to Corviglia, a ski area at 2,486 m (8,156 ft). Then, we took a cable car to the upper station that is 30 metres (100 ft) below the summit.
Corviglia has a restaurant and a flat area for people to lounge around under the sun, and for young kids to ride their bikes in a small circuit. It is the center of the largest ski area in the Engadine valley.
This mountain hosted the alpine skiing events for the 1948 Winter Olympics. It also hosted the World Championships in 1934, 1974, 2003, and 2017.
From Corviglia, we transferred to a cable car (gondola) to continue our ascent.
There are 24 ski lifts, 36 slopes and 14 mountain restaurants.
In the summer, the same installations support hiking and mountain biking.
As we gained altitude, the conifers thinned out. The biome changed to alpine pasture, and soon the elevation was too high for most vegetation except a thin layer of lichens on rock surfaces.
At the summit stood a statue of an ibex, a large mountain goat with curved horns. Needless to say, the panoramic view from here at 10,026 ft (3,056 m) was fantastic.
Surrounding us were many higher peaks, one with a mini glacier.
We saw many trails radiating from Piz Nair. Several small groups of cyclists were riding with us in the cable cars with their dirt bikes, fully equipped for a fast and furious way downhill.
Signal at 2130 m is another destination that we visited. The cable car station was only 5 minute walk from our hotel in St Moritz Bad.
On the short ride up to Signal, we got to see St. Moritz hugging the lake, from a different direction (west to east).
The trip offered a typical view of off-season ski slopes – almost mundane.
We also saw the funicular that took us up to Corviglia. It did not seem so dramatic when we were on it.
We will end this post with a photo of windsurfing and kite-surfing on Lake Champfer and a corner of the neighboring town of Silvaplana (reaching the limit of our point-and-shoot zoom camera).
To see more above St. Moritz, go to our post on Muottas Muragl, click here.
Muottas Muragl is a location on the southern slopes of Blais da Muottas (2,568 m) and offers at 8,051 feet (2,454 m) the most beautiful vantage point above the lakes of Upper Engadine valley.
Muottas Muragl is situated between the villages of Samedan and Pontresina, accessible by a funicular railway built in 1907 that takes a 700-meter climb from Punt Muragl. At the top, there is a hotel and a panoramic restaurant.
This photo of the hotel and restaurant (with a straight-up funicular) at Muottas Muragl is taken from another mountainous location further down the valley.
We took a bus from our hotel, passed the town center at St. Moritz Dorf then the main train station, heading in the direction of Samedan to the funicular base station (1739 m).
The track is very steep, as much as 54% gradient. There are two counterbalanced carriages that ride on the same track. When the carriages come close together, the track splits into two as a “passing loop” for both carriages to pass one another.
We did not time the ride but it felt like 10-12 minutes. The first half of the line ran entirely through a forest, the second part of the line went on open mountain pasture.
The main attraction of Muottas Muragl is the view of the Upper Engadin valley flanked by views of Piz Palü, and Piz Bernina with Biancograt. Picturesque defined.
Renovated in 2010, the Romantik Hotel Muottas Muragl is the first “Plus Energy” Hotel anywhere in the Alps, producing more solar energy on an annual average than the hotel itself requires. The excess energy is stored by a geothermal circuit underground. It is also CO2-neutral.
Apparently, the restaurant is not a fast-food style cafeteria typically found at summit locations. It is a gourmet restaurant which serves dinner accompanied by a spectacular sunset view. The funicular train runs until 11pm.
We did not bother to get anything there as it was quite crowded (not safe).
The location provides a bird’s eye view of the entire St. Moritz (above).
Unlike most of the high mountain locations, it does not provide skiing, although there are numerous Alpine hiking trails, snow shoeing trails and a toboggan-run to the station below.
There is a short loop behind the hotel that takes one to several vantage points in different directions and art. The iron sculpture (above) by Curdin Niggli, presented in 2007 to commemorate the 100-year anniversary of the funicular railway, symbolises the crossing of the two railways in the middle (in Romansh “Cruscheda”).
We spotted a few hang gliders.
We encountered a herd of black Hérens cows happily relaxing behind an inconspicuous fence. They seemed to be free to roam anywhere on the mountain. We think the fence is to prevent them from wandering into the restaurant and hotel.
Along the loop, we saw “Sine sole sileo” – the world’s most precise sundial. In winter, it can also be used as an almost equally precise moondial. Its unique construction makes it possible to read the time to an accuracy of an incredible 10 seconds.
«Il Guot» – Romansh for «the drop» – is a unique work of art created by Timo Lindner to mark the centenary of the funicular railway. The drop, which is made of natural stone and mortar and coated in white marble, symbolises water in all its various forms, from rain to ice to snow.
It was a really nice sunny windless day with comfortable temperatures. R & R at high altitude.
St. Moritz is the destination of our long-weekend road trip to the Eastern side of Switzerland. We spent 4 posts describing our journey over five mountain passes to get here, see part 1, part 2, part 3, and part 4.
For this post, let’s hear a 1989 Swing Out Sister instrumental:
St. Moritz (German: Sankt Moritz, Romansh: San Murezzan, Italian: San Maurizio, French: Saint-Maurice) is an Alpine resort town situated in the canton of (the) Grisons (French), or canton of Graubünden (German). Graubünden is the largest and easternmost canton of Switzerland and has international borders with Italy, Austria and Liechtenstein.
The town lies in the Engadine valley, at an elevation of about 1,800 metres (5,910 ft) above sea level. The highest summit in the Eastern Alps is Piz Bernina at 4,048 m (13,283 ft), just about 20 km (10 miles) southeast of St. Moritz.
St. Moritz is first mentioned around 1137–39 as ad sanctum Mauricium. During Medieval times, visitors came here in the summer to enjoy the curative spring waters.
Most of the population speaks German, with Italian being second most common, and Portuguese being third (6.6%). The town is split into two halves: the older and ritzier Sankt Moritz Dorf, and Sankt Moritz Bad at the southeast end where most of the spas are located.
St. Moritz has been a resort for winter sport vacations since 1864 when Johannes Badrutt first brought English tourists here in the winter. In 1856, he bought a small guesthouse in St. Moritz and started to rebuild it, to create the Hotel Engadiner Kulm, which is today known as the Kulm Hotel St. Moritz.
The Badrutt family bought the Hotel Beau Rivage in St. Moritz and altered it to create the Badrutt’s Palace Hotel which we see today (above) in the town center.
The hotel has been a playground of the world’s rich, famous and aristocratic since then. For the status-conscious, it is still the place to be seen.
The town hosted twice the Winter Olympics in 1928 and 1948. It is probably one of the most glamorous international winter resort.
The town center is filled with luxury fashion stores, lining Via Serlas (above). We walked around and peered into some windows. As it is the low season, the town center was kind of quiet, except a group of international students from a Swiss boarding school.
Chamonix in France is also a chic Alpine resort but the shops were mostly selling designer sportswear. St Moritz seems to cater to a seriously affluent group of old-money clientele – see diamonds in Cartier’s window display.
The town enjoys more than 300 days of sunshine. The sun is the symbol of the town. It is apparently extremely popular in the summer months as an altitude training base for distance athletes, particularly cyclists, runners, and race walkers.
Lake St Moritz as well as neighboring Lake Silvaplana are also well known as a destination for sailing, rowing, windsurfing, and kite-surfing. The wind pattern in the Engadin valley is predictable and reliable.
Food truck by the lake – “Soul Food Trailer” housed in a Model Airstream 4U.
St. Moritz is the highest town (with a sizable urban area) in Switzerland with a railway station (below). We passed it on a bus on our way to the funicular station for Muottas Muragl (next post).
Many hotels in this town close during the low season – September-November. Our hotel was still receiving guests but several of its restaurants were closed. The hotel was built in 1896 as the Grand Hotel des Bains, and Kempinski took it over in 2002.
The hotel was doing a promotion of Verve Cliquot champagne, hence the orange cable car. Although the hotel was pretty empty, it was very adequately staffed and they were very helpful and accommodating.
After driving two days non-stop in the mountains, we took full advantage of the spa and sauna which were also quiet and thus relatively safe.
What a nightmarish year we had. Glad that it is the beginning of a new year. Although the problems are not going away immediately, it is however symbolic that we are all moving on, to a better tomorrow. And we will …
It is a tradition on this blog to take a look back at some of the places we visited last year. Because of the pandemic, we traveled very little, Morocco in January and the Eastern side of Switzerland in September, plus a day trip to Bern.
Marrakesh, Morocco – Jemaa el-Fna and Kotoubia
Dar Darma, Marrakesh
Merzouga – the edge of Sahara
Essaouira on the Atlantic coast of Morocco
Grimselsee at 1,908 m (6,260 ft), Switzerland
Muottas Muragl at 8,051 feet (2,454 m) above St Moritz
A night in a yurt at Tgalucas, Alp Flix at 6,463 feet (1,970 m)
Staring at Piz Bernina 4,049 m (13,283 ft)
A night on the Pilatus summit at 6,801 feet (2,073 m) to see sunrise before 7 am.
Sunrise from Esel at 6,949 feet (2,118 m), Mount Pilatus
Oberhaupt at 6,906 feet (2,105 m), Mount Pilatus
The Parliament Building, Bundesplatz, Bern
For 2021, I(Chris) bought a new camera by Olympus with 2 lenses – the pictures above (and many others on the blog) were taken using a Lumix LX7 or a Lumix TZ101. The photo below was snapped by an iPhone XR – it is not from an advertisement. We will have a separate post about the camera system later.
Testing the new camera around town – Lausanne.
We also upgraded our software from Lightroom 6 to Lightroom Classic.
On our second day of this road trip to the Eastern side of Switzerland, we drove from Andermatt (after a detour to Airolo and San Gotthard pass) to St. Moritz.
How about a bit of Bach for this stretch of the road trip:
We took Hauptstrassen 19 running alongside the river Vorderrhein (which feeds into the Rhine) to Flims, crossing the canton border from Uri to Graubünden, and passing through a string of picture-perfect villages.
The famous Glacier Express also runs through this valley. It is 90 years old in 2020 and claims to be the slowest express train in the world. See the avalanche barrier (photo below on the left) protecting the road and the track.
The tourist train with panoramic windows and catering onboard runs a 8-hour journey from Zermatt to St Moritz covering a 290-km length that includes 91 tunnels and 291 viaducts. This train is the best option to see this area without driving. We might use it to see areas that are not reachable by car in the future. Highly recommended.
We just caught sight of one going over a bridge above us.
Before the village of Disentis, we passed but did not stop at Oberalpass 6706 feet (2044 m).
This pass is important logistically, and different from the others because not only it has a small lake (Oberalpsee), it also has a train station, a ski area, and a lighthouse!
The 14 m-tall lighthouse was installed in 2010 as a tourist attraction and came from the river Rhine further downstream.
This was a local train which runs between the villages and uses the same viaducts and track as the Glacier Express.
We turned South on A13 towards Thursis but detoured to see Viamala-schlucht (see post here), before continuing to Albula.
Joining the national highway A3 at Albula, we passed Lake Marmorera within the boundary of Parc Ela.
The road became twisty again as we started our ascent towards the fifth mountain pass – Julierpass. But this road is nowhere near the spectacles of Grimselpass and Furkapass we saw the day before. Apparently, certain sections of this road were rebuilt in 2009 to reduce the number of serpentine turns.
Julierpass at 7493 feet (2284 m) in the Albula range of the Alps connects the Engadin valley with the rest of Graubünden.
Julierpass lies between Piz Lagrev (10,384 feet, 3165 m) and Piz Julier (11,090 feet; 3380 m), and crosses the watershed / drainage divide between the basins of the Rivers Rhine and Danube.
Historically, the romans built a temple of Jupiter on top of the pass. There are two buildings now – the red one with lots of windows is the Julier Theatre built by Origen – an organization that maintains the Rhaeto-Romanic cultural heritage. Rhaeto-Romance is a family of romance languages that include the fourth official language of Switzerland – Romansh.
It is a wooden construction and has multiple terraces inside. The spectator terraces embrace a central stage which directs the view of the audience outside to the vastness of the landscape during a performance. According to Origen’s web site, Julie Theatre will “dedicate itself to the world theatre, it will act with the seasons and reinterpret the mountain pass as a place of culture.”
The other building is a tower but we cannot find a description about it. Both buildings were closed and there was no one around except curious motorists.
From this point on, the drive was all downhill to Silvaplana 5,955 ft (1,815 m) and Highway 27 took us to St. Moritz – 5,978 ft (1,822 m).
We arrived at our hotel in St Moritz after 7 pm and concluded the long day of driving with a nice dinner.
In two days, we managed to see Grimselpass, Furkapass, St Gotthard pass, Oberlap pass and Julierpass – watersheds of major rivers of Northern and Southern Europe. It was mountaineering by car. Ideally, we would like to have experienced the vast openness, forever-changing cloud formations, and muted colors of the Alpine landscape by hiking. We are considering this trip as a preview.
Click to see our earlier posts on this road trip, part 1, part 2, and part 3.
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.Some of the spaces are isolating and intimate, allowing the shopper some private time with their books.
Chris & Sue's Excellent(?) Adventures 