The convenience of a November 'go-anywhere' ticket meant I hopped on a morning train to Maribor and the Slovenian border, changed my plans on a whim, and hopped off at Graz in Austria and there I spent the next 5 hours.
The city of Graz is Austria's second largest city and lies due south of Vienna. The city's foremost football team is Sturm Graz. They are generally mid-table stalwarts in the Austrian Bundesliga.
Another Graz attraction is to be found in a blue can bearing the word Puntigamer. I bought a can of the golden liquid to quench my thirst on my return journey in the late afternoon.
Here are three views of Graz's Kunsthaus. It was designed by London architects Peter Cook and Colin Fournier.
The river before the contemporary art museum is the Mur which rises in the Austrian Alps and after almost 500 kms joins the Drava river in Slovenia.
The Kunsthaus was showing an art exhibition I thought might be of interest. I was not to be disappointed.
The exhibition began with some information about the Berlin Conference which declared the Congo Free State to be the personal property of King Leopold II of Belgium, here seen with his friends the Tsar (the Russian Bear) and the German (Prussian) Emperor.
The first painting of the hundreds to be seen was this:
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| The Face of the Coloniateur |
And suddenly I as if scales had fallen from eyes it was revealed to that the design of today's EU flag must be based on the standard of the original Belgian Coloniateur.
In the country that was officially the personal property of King Leopold II of the Belgians life and death went on.
Death and atrocity on a scale never before seen in Africa.
From the museum I could see Graz's landmark clock through a hole in the roof. It was a comforting sight.
More from the exhibition to follow.
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| Graz-Wien-Praha Railjet |
Lovely to live on mainland Europe I have always though Gwil and to be able to access places of interest so easily.
ReplyDeleteAustria is the place to be for train travel. The central European country borders on Hungary, Slovenia, Italy, Switzerland, Lichtenstein, Germany, Czech Republic and Slovakia. With trains I've been as far as the Gargano (the spur on the heel of Italy) and to Naples and Vesuvius in the South, Berlin and Hamburg in the North, Budapest in the East and to France. And many other far flung places on the bus too!
DeleteA good place to stop at. Interesting architecture, old and new. That museum looks very way out, modern. The Belgium Congo has a very nasty history and I seem to remember as a child that it was always in the news because of war. Your visit to the exhibition has got me wondering what Africa would be like now if the colonisation by Europe had never happened.
ReplyDeleteI think a kind of colonisation still exists but it has another name - bribery and corruption.
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