A bit of a museum review this, I suppose.
This summer, due to circumstance, my family and I had only one week of vacation, and we made the best of it. We rented an appartment in the Black Forest in Germany, and contrary to what we normally do, managed to cram two or three activities in every day we were there. A busy schedule, but very enjoyable.
One of our trips was to the historical city of Freiburg, which was but an hour long (and free!) trainride away. Sightseeing was enjoyable, the weather (almost) pleasant and we had a great time.
I insisted on having a drink at the Zum Roten Bären; Europe's oldest inn (in continuous use to this day), having been established even before the town was founded in 1120 AD. Some of the original stonework can still be seen in the basement and I greatly enjoyed the notion of being in such a historical place. The story goes that the building has been painted red from the beginning, so illiterate travelers would be able to instantly recognize the establishment as well.
Though that's not what this post is about: When exiting the hotel from the main entrance, about 30 meters to the right is one of the city's historical city gate towers, the Schwabentor. We passed it when continuing our tour, when a small door to the side of the tower opened up and a man placed a sign outside.
It read: 'Zinnfigurenklause'...
Which means something along the lines of Tin Figure Museum. Obviously this was my day in the sun (and rain too, as it later turned out
), and my wife and daughter didn't not need much persuasion after this fortuitous coincidence. So we paid a short visit to this oddly relevant (to me) museum that opened its door right before our eyes. Entrance was by a spiral staircase up to the actual museum itself, which was located up in the tower over the gate.
In the main room, we paid a modest fee for the admission, and we started our tour.
The museum consisted of display cases with painted backgrounds, modelled and scratchbuilt landscapes and buildings, and lovingly painted tin miniatures of the flat variety. Each case displayed a specific historical scene from the long history of the town and region. In all, I estimate that there were about 30 displays, divided over two floors (and a bit of staircase). So it's not a huge museum, but large enough for a quick rundown of the history of the area and a display of an impressive amount of painted miniatures.
As somewhat of a painter myself, I found it interesting to see the different painting styles between displays, with some very good ones in there. The flat nature of the miniatures was a bit different to my usual fare obviously, but in all, I really enjoyed our short visit.
The museum has a large selection of unpainted tin soldiers for sale too, and obviously I bought (a larger) one as the perfect souvenir to commemorate our visit to Freiburg. As it happened though, I even managed to pick out the miniature of the mythical founder of the city, so doubly appropriate! Now to paint it...
So; If anyone with our very specific interests were to visit Freiburg, I would heartily recommend a visit to this small museum...
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November 30, 2006, 12:23:37 PM