I went for a lovely ambling walk in the city of York today, with the charming, ebullient and very engaging local historian, Chris Kelly.

I have to make notes for the exam he threatened, but in the meantime, here are some of the very wonderful things I discovered with his assistance (OK, look, I didn’t discover them at all. Just listened, and tried to remember).

1. There’s a little laneway in the City of York, quite near Minster, whose name is Ogleforth. Not because it’s where you can get a good eyeful, but because ogle comes from an early Nordic word meaning ‘owl’. The full name of the street is thought to mean ‘the ford haunted by owls’.
   
   

   Ogleforth Lane, York

2. My favourite house on Ogleforth Lane is called ‘The Dutch house’. It is believed to be the oldest existing brick house in York. It was built in the mid-1600s either by, or based on the imported technical wisdom of, Dutch brickmakers and architects. Dutch immigrants to York were encouraged during this period, and were a prominent sector of the city’s population. One reason the Dutch seem to have been encouraged to emigrate was because their more pragmatic, Calvinist Protestantism would, it was hoped, dilute the more radical, fiery local version. The building has a distinctive Dutch shape, which stands out in this city that showcases British architecture from the 12th to the 20th centuries, with its pretty curved gables, small windows and warm red bricks.
   

   The Dutch House, York. Built around 1648 and now a privately operated, self-catering holiday letting.

3. Grape Lane is the modernised, euphemised name of what was formerly ‘Gropecunt Lane’ – the street where ladies of financially elastic moral character plied their trade. There are, or were, once streets with this name scattered through England, but they’ve mostly been renamed something that sounds slightly similar, such as Grove, Grope or Grape.
4. In York, “every bar is a gate, every gate is a street, and every street has a pub”.

   The use of the word ‘bar’ to describe a city gate, is a modification of the French word barre or barrière, meaning barrier. The four major gatehouses of York are Bootham Bar (almost on the same site as the Roman porta principalis dextra, or ‘big gate on the left’), Monk Bar (the site of the Roman porta decumana: the gate opening on a road that passes the principia), Walmgate Bar and Micklegate Bar. There are also two smaller bars: Fishergate and Victoria.

   The use of the term ‘gate’ to describe a street comes from the Viking word gata, meaning street. The hotel where I’m staying is just near Walmgate, which leads onto Fossgate, then Colliergate before rounding a bend and becoming Stonegate, which ends at a T-intersection with Spurriergate …

   There are currently about 180 pubs in the City of York. 170 of which, I’ve decided, either claim to be haunted and/or are called either The Red Lion or The Five Lions …

5. The Five lions, just by the by, appear on the coat of arms of the City of York, prettily arranged on St George’s Cross. The use of St George’s Cross signals the highly royalist history of the city. (York sided with the king during the Civil War, which is one reason it’s famous wall is still intact – after the war was over, funds were supplied to the city to repair damage incurred during the fighting). One story that explains the use of the five lions is that when William the Conqueror besieged and defeated the city in 1068 (part of the infamous ‘harrying’ or ‘harrowing’ of the North) only five York soldiers survived. Hence the coat of arms: five lions for five soldiers. According to Chris, the central lion’s name – or the name of the survivor he represents – was Sir Percy.
   

   The Five Lions (pub and, hanging outside the pub, coat of arms)

6. This Roman pillar – or the parts of it anyway – were discovered lying under the foundations of the south transept of York Minster during reparation work. It was subsequently raised, in 1971, to mark and celebrate the 1900th anniversary of the founding of York (or Eboracum, as it was then named) in 71 AD. Eboracum was the northernmost Roman settlement in Britain – the military garrison from which the Romans defended Brittania Inferior. It was once one of 16 columns that supported the Praetorium of the Roman garrison city. [Praetorium from the Latin Praetor = leader. A site - anything from a tent on the battlefield to a large, permanent structure - in which military leaders met and, sometimes, lived.]Have a close look at the column. Tell me, if you’re a student of Roman architecture, if you notice anything … odd.
   

   Praetorium column

   Yes, it’s true. Your eyes are not deceiving you. The column has been reconstructed upside down. An inverted Roman column. Are York Civic Trust having a bit of a laugh? Were they standing on their heads at the time? I suspect it’s just human error. Oops.

7. What a girl most needs after a long, cold, brisk walk in the city of York is a really good, really warm and very delicious pot of tea. Which I found at The Hairy Fig.
   

   A warm, and warming, pot of tea at The Hairy Fig

   What I also found at The Hairy Fig was delicious food, smiling faces and an amazing selection of things-I-want-to-take-home, including a range of aged balsamics and oils, and falvoured spirits. Raspberry gin, bramble gin, damson and sloe gin. Oh, so good. So very, very good. And warmed me right up! The Hairy Fig has two side-by-side shopfronts: the cafe is out the back of number 38 Fossgate. As well as having an impressively delicious menu of gourmet treats, the two shopfronts sell an excellent range of fresh produce, specialty teas, coffees, chocolates, sweets, and so on.

+1

0

  

One of my best friends in the whole world taught me about keeping a gratitude journal. It’s not something I do regularly, mostly cos this year I’m too busy keeping my four-minute diary (I learned how from the totally awesome Lynda Barry, who tumblers at The Near-Sighted Monkey).

But today, I have to note three really amazing things that happened. Because it was a good day. And good days are worth recording and treasuring, and being very, very grateful for

1. Jeff Vandermeer put up a facebook post about Rupetta … Jeff Vandermeer ROCKS! It’s just a FB post, right? Sure, but by the time I heard about it (Rosalie at Tartarus Press mentioned it in an email) people were commenting, including the publisher at Pink Narcissus Press, who mentioned that they were sad to have missed out on publishing her.
2. I saw a squirrel while wandering in the rain in the Museum Gardens of York, just near the ruins of St Mary’s abbey. Actually, I didn’t just SEE the squirrel. It ran across my boots, then came back, parked itself between them, and looked up at me. I think I’m in love. No, I KNOW I’m in love. Now, I should be careful about that, because the squirrel was – I believe – a gray squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis). Gray squirrels are at least partly responsible for the drastic decline in the numbers of the native red squirrel (Sciurus vulgaris) in England.
   

   Mon amour in the Museum Gardens, York

   They (the grays) were introduced to the UK from America in either the 19th or early 20th century. There have even been culling programs in place for the purpose of protecting the pockets of red squirrel populations. More recently, the gray squirrel has itself become more endangered, because of the fierce competition it faces from the black squirrel (first sighted in the UK in 1912), and conservationists are now debating what measures, if any, should be put in place to protect the gray squirrel!

3. Did I mention I launched Rupetta, at The Golden Fleece in York, the world’s cosiest and most awesome haunted pub, in the company of Ray and Rosalie from Tartarus Press, and some friendly fellow travellers? I drank a pint of the Old Peculiar (Theakstons ale), ate (most of) an enormous plate of tucker, and read from the beginning of the novel. I also meet Abigail, postcard collector, historian and the current regent of the Kingdom of Redonda (even if the claim to the kingdom is highly disputed), a Dutch artist and his incredibly smart and interesting wife (Hi, Koert and Lynn!), and the sweetest, quietest performance poet who ever lived (Hi Brian!)

Reading from Rupetta at The Golden Fleece

I should note that although these were undoubtedly the highlights, I am also feeling blessed today because:

• they say its going to snow today
• I found the perfect I’ve-been-away gift for my gorgeous, smart, talented son
• the Vikings will be invading York WHILE I’M HERE!
• There are snowdrops in among the tombstones across the road
• I saw some totally awesome objects at the Yorkshire Museum, including a Roman hairpiece,
  

  Auburn hair and jet cantharus head pins, discovered in a gypsum burial in a Roman cemetery during beneath what is now York Railway Station

  the Roman equivalent of curling tongs,

  

  Pottery shards alongside ‘curling tongs’, pins, tweezers and rings for doing your hair, Roman style

  and a man with a dog in his pocket. [Ok, so the man with the dog wasn't on exhibit, but he was totally interesting. I ran into him once inside the museum - where he was showing his dog the bones of the extinct Dodo, and again in the garden, down near the Hospitium, where he was asking the dog for advice about his relationship.]

• AND Roger Federer is in The Netherlands (Rotterdam), and will still be there when I pop back over the ditch later this week.

+3

0

  

This morning I woke in the glorious and incredibly welcoming city of York. After a lovely breakfast in the hotel dining room I came upstairs and guess what had landed in my inbox? The first review of Rupetta.

Rick Kleffel over at bookotron says:

Contemporary author N. A. Sulway’s striking novel ‘Rupetta’ is a powerful, sweeping but compact epic vision that slips through genres …

Kleffel’s review includes a discussion of the limitations of genre as a way to select books for reading, and of the ways writers “annihilate genre boundaries … on a regular basis”. The review also includes discussion of Junot Diaz’s The Brief, Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, F Paul Wilson’s Cold City, Jim Crace’s Harvest, and Thomas Owen’s The House of Oracles and other stories.

You can read the whole review online here …

+3

0

  

Daniel-Day Lewis walks the Abe Lincoln walk

Today I headed to the movies* to see Steven Spielberg’s latest blockbuster, this time the historical film Lincoln, which concentrates on the last few months of President Abraham Lincoln’s life, and particularly the political machinations surrounding the passing of the 13th amendment (abolishing slavery) and the end of the revolution. I have no doubt that many Americans will applaud the film’s reverential treatment of both the story and the character of Lincoln, but as a non-American I found it difficult to connect with the film’s heavy-handed sense of earnest nostalgia.

After two and a half hours of funereal dourness, what the viewer learns is that Lincoln drove the thirteenth amendment through in the dying days of the revolution because his closest political allies believed it would not be passed if peace was declared first. According to the film, Lincoln was a firm, if pragmatic, personal supporter of abolition (in reality, he was at best ambivalent about the political and social value of abolition). During his senate campaign, for example, he said:

I will say, then, that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races – that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of making voters or jurors of Negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this, that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I, as much as any other man, am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race.

Taken out of context – taken as though this quote and others like it represented the core of his political and personal identity – Lincoln might seem to be a very different man than the one shown in the film. Instead, the film shows a almost a flipside version of our  one-sided, out-of-context horror. Aone-sided, out-of-context hero. The film’s portrait is of a man whose flaws only highlight his humanity and greatness. In fact, many of the human flaws the film shows can easily be read as their opposite. For example, his determination to stop his son from joining the army comes across as an expression of his affection for a son he is otherwise cool and distant towards. It’s a glowing portrait of an important figure in American history, and a significant period of his presidency.

Lincoln was a fairly moderate Republican, but a truly remarkable man. A highly intelligent, effective politician whose opinions changed as his understanding of the world grew, but he was also a man of his time. Perhaps if he had been more radical he would never have been elected president. Nevertheless, he did have around him men (and I presume, women) who were more radical in their support not only of abolition, but of black suffrage. For example, the fierce Thaddeus Stevens, played by Tommy Lee Jones, also appears in Spielberg’s film: an example of a more radical Republican who had to be convinced to soften his public stance on black rights in order to see the amendment passed.

It’s no surprise that Spielberg’s film is somewhat hagiographic. This is the man who made Schindler’s List and Amistad. Films that tell nostalgic, grand stories featuring men and women choosing right over wrong. They are glossy, emotionally simplified narratives that take history as a leaping off point for telling a story about the ultimate triumph of good over evil.

All of which is a long, long way of saying that it is a film worth seeing. A worthy film, that will probably garner highly polarized reviews, because, even though the film is historical, it is a highly political film, too. A film about an issue that is far from resolved; and the fact that it isn’t resolved means that how the history is told is important to many of its viewers. They are not just movie-goers looking for a bit of entertainment to go with their popcorn. They are political animals, looking for insight into how they get here, and where they are heading now.

In the interests of balance, here are a few other quotations from the inimitable President Lincoln:

The real Abe Lincoln

I am not a Know-Nothing. That is certain. How could I be? How can any one who abhors the oppression of negroes, be in favor of degrading classes of white people? Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid. As a nation, we began by declaring that “all men are created equal.” We now practically read it “all men are created equal, except negroes.” When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read “all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and catholics.” When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretence of loving liberty — to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be take pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy. (Letter to Joshua Speed. 24 August, 1855)

*In fact, when I sat down to write this blogpost, I intended to write about the cinema where I went to see the film. One of the world’s most beautiful venues: Cinema Tuschinski. It’s coming. Promise

+1

0

  

Today’s little entry in the cabinet of curiosities comes from the royal palace in Amsterdam.

The palace squats at the edge of the Dam – the large central plein of Amsterdam. It was built in the mid-seventeenth century as a town hall, and its history as a centre of bureaucracy is reflected in the building’s history, whose many rooms – while converted into the living quarters and reception rooms of a palace by King Louis Napoleon in the early 1800s – are still named for their original functions. The enormous ‘ballroom’ style space is the Citizens’ Hall, and the rooms surrounding the hall are named, for example, the burgomaster’s chambers, the magistrates court, the chamber of the commissioner for petty affairs, the bankruptcy office*, and so on.

citizens’ hall

My favourite room is the Weeskammer, or the orphan masters’ room. This room was occupied by the person in charge of the physical, economic, social and spiritual wellbeing of any Dutch minor who had lost one or both parents. I love that this office was considered so essential to the economic and political health of the nation that an office was dedicated to it in the town hall. It is an intriguing early example of the Dutch emphasis on equality and the provision of care for all of the members of its society. The orphan master’s key role was to prevent the wealth of orphans from being taken from them by dishonourable members of their family. The orphan master’s chambers were converted into part of the royal family’s private chambers by King Louis in the early 1800s, and the decorations in the room reflect his passion for Empire Style furnishings and upholstery.

The orphan masters’ chamber

The other area of the palace that fascinated me is the tribunal (vierschaar). This is a marble room on the ground floor, decorated with grim sculptures of snakes and skulls, thorned plants and blades. There are four female statues on one wall, and between them are three marble friezes depicting, from left to right:

1. The punishment of Zaleucus’ son. Zaleucus was a lawgiver who decreed that the punishment for adultery would be to have your eyes gouged out. When his son was found guilty of this crime, Zaleucus decreed that his son would lose one eye, and he himself would sacrifice one eye. The audio guide (in English) states that the crime was rape, but perhaps this is just a translation error.
2. The judgement of Solomon. This story is, I think, far more widely known in the contemporary English-speaking world. The frieze shows two women standing before Solomon. They have come to seek his decision because both claim to be the child’s mother. Solomon order the child cut in half, and the woman who cries out that she will give the child up rather than see him harmed is awarded custody on the presumption that this proves she is his true mother.
3. The final frieze shows the execution of the sons of Lucius Junius Brutus. Brutus was another lawgiver whose sons broke the law for which he had decreed the standard punishment. In this case, his sons were found guilty of treason – of plotting against Rome.

The tribunal

All of these grim and violent stories reflect the purpose of the chamber. This is where death sentences were publicly pronounced after they had been determined in the chamber of justice, which is immediately above the tribunal, and has a window through which the burgomasters can look down into the tribunal and comment on the proceedings.

Interestingly, the internal balcony from which the burgomasters could look down into the tribunal is also the site of the windows that open onto the balcony King Louis Napoleon had added to the palace during his reign. This is where members of the royal family appear to the public on special occasions, such as weddings and coronations. It is sobering to consider that the come out onto that balcony to wave and smile from a hallway that also looks down into the cold, forbidding chamber where the darkest, most severe punishments of the law were effected.

Crown Prince Willem-Alexander and Argentinian-born Máxima Zorreguieta appear on the balcony on their wedding day: 2nd February, 2002.

*One of Holland’s most famous bankrupts was reconciled in this room – that of the painter Rembrandt van Rijn.

+3

0

  

At the risk of being terribly self-centred, today’s object is not one I discovered in a museum, street or gallery. Instead, it arrived by post from the United Kingdom. A box of books. My books. Not just books I own, but books I wrote. I wonder if there any moments more precious than these, for a writer. The first sight of your very own baby. Printed, bound, posted.

Wrapped

Unwrapped

Isn’t she beautiful? I can’t take any credit for how beautiful she is. The credit for that goes entirely to the folk at Tartarus Press, in particular the luminous talents of Ray Russell and Rosalie Parker, and Timothy Parker Russell (who supplied the elegantly beautiful cover illustration).

I’m not sure that the glorious orange of the hardcover is done justice in this photograph. In reality it’s as rich and golden as a dream. I didn’t know it would be orange – and I’m so delighted. It seems like a beautiful twinkling of good fortune that this is the colour the publishers would have  chosen for a book being published while I am in the Netherlands. Land of the Oranges.

Prince Willem I of Orange-Nassau (1555) by Hans Ollermann

You can read an extract from Rupetta on Tartarus Press website here.

Or find details about the publication, including how to buy a copy, here.

Oh, and would you like to receive a gift in the post? If so, you can go into the draw to win a signed copy of the book simply by responding to this post and telling me about your favourite object, idea or person associated with the colour orange.

+4

0

  

Alpina watches for sale here

This very ordinary little wooden plaque with tin triangle advertising the sale of watches played a role in saving hundreds of people’s lives in Haarlem during the Second World War.

During the period of the nazi occupation of Holland, the Ten Boom family ran a safe house above their clock and watch store. Their modest home housed not just the three members of the family, but six refugees. It was also a temporary way-station for more than 800 people, most of the Jews, trying to evade capture by the Germans. The Ten Boom family helped people find safe places to hide, provided food and identity cards – they did whatever they could to save people’s lives.

Unfortunately, they were eventually betrayed. On February 24, 1944, a man came to watch shop. He asked to speak to Corrie Ten Boom. Corrie was sick in bed, but she got up to meet with the man. The man told her that his wife had also been helping refugees, but she had been caught and was being held by the gestapo. He told Corrie that he could get her out if he could pay a 600 guilder bribe. Corrie agreed to find the money for him, and asked him to come back later in the afternoon.

Corrie gathered the money together and gave it to her sister, Betsy, before retiring to her sickbed once again. Both Betsy nor Corrie were suspicious about the man and his story, but they were determined to help everyone who asked for help. So, later in the day the man came to the door and knocked. Betsy looked through the little glass peep-window and saw him standing on the street. She also noticed something strange. Cars. Lots of cars. At that time in the Netherlands, people didn’t own cars. Only German soldiers. The Ten Booms had set up an alarm system, and an architect had built a hiding place for the six refugees hiding in their home. Betsy triggered the alarm and slowly – oh, so slowly – opened the door.

The six refugees stood in their hiding place. I can only imagine that they stood. The space, which is behind a false brick wall in Corrie’s bedroom, is less than a metre deep and maybe four metres wide. Just enough room for six people, a little water, a bucket and some dry crackers.

Downstairs in the dining room, the man revealed his betrayal. Gestapo soldiers entered the house. They searched everywhere for refugees but couldn’t find them. They did, however, find the Ten Booms stash of ‘extra’ ration cards and false identity cards. Enough evidence to arrest Betsy, Corrie and their elderly father.

Still, they wanted the refugees, so they determined to stay in the house for as long as it took to starve them out of hiding. The dining room is one of the lower rooms of the house, with a window onto the street. On the sill of this window, the Ten Booms usually sat the small wooden advertisement for Alpina watches. Nothing unusual for a family of horologists. But the sign was their signal to the world. When it was in the window, it was safe. If the sign was not visible, nazis were in the house.

Betsy saw the sign in the window – she had forgotten to take it down when the soldiers came in. She brushed past the sign, ‘accidentally’ knocking it to the floor. To her horror, however, one of the soldiers picked up the sign and set it back on the windowsill.

During the day that followed, more than 30 people came to the door, thinking it safe because the sign was in the window, and were arrested by the Gestapo.

The six people hiding in the hiding place were never found by the Gestapo. After two-and-a-half days standing in the dark, without food or water or blankets, listening to the soldiers tap at the walls listening for an echo, a cough, anything that would give them away, the four Jewish people and two resistance members snuck out. This was only possible because on that day, the soldiers sent two policemen to watch the house. Local police, who were friends of the Ten Booms: double agents.

I remember reading about Corrie Ten Boom when I was a little girl. I had a comic book version of her story, with colourful images of Corrie and Betsy living in their house in Haarlem, working with the Resistance, praying and holding bible study and, later, surviving for as long as they could in a concentration camp at Ravensbrück. Betsy, who was always more physically frail than her robust sister – did not survive the camp.

The Ten Booms were devout christians. Corrie – the only member of the family to survive the war and the camps – spent the rest of her life travelling the world and teaching forgiveness and faith. Visitors to the museum are treated to a one hour tour that includes a volunteer sharing the story of her life and her message. Although I can’t agree with her, I think it’s astonishing and admirable that Corrie could have lived through so much. Seen so much. And still have faith, still believe that, as she put it:

There is no pit so deep that God’s love is not deeper still.

+2

0

  

Oops! I had this post half-written and forgot to post it on THE day. Better late than never.

January 28th was the 200th anniversary of the publication of Pride and Prejudice. One of those novels that has so strongly influenced English-speaking literature and culture that it is hard to imagine how we might think about (romance) novels (and films) without it.

If I were at home, I might have considered throwing a bonnet party in her honour. But here I am in Amsterdam. Instead, I have been doing an anniversary reading on my kindle, and feeling ever so awed and grateful for Jane Austen’s wit, modesty and courage.

If the value of literature is, as some people argue, in its ability to offer comfort and pleasure – to entertain – then P&P is an exemplar of the form. It is easy to read, even at two hundred years old, and offers laughter, heartache, longing and satisfaction all wrapped up in a neat bundle.

If the purpose of literature is to educate, then I have a few dot-points to offer in defence of P&P.

10 things I learned from reading P&P:

1. It is better to walk than to take any other form of transport, whenever possible.
2. Other people’s happiness, and the requirements for it, are a mystery and will possibly always remain so.
3. Ditto one’s own happiness. Although one can be convinced that one knows what is necessary, that knowing is always subject to change.
4. It is better, even if one does so internally and privately, never to publicly declare one’s prejudices too quickly. If at all.
5. Family is both a blessing and a curse.
6. Playing games only ever ends in disaster, or at the least embarrassment
7. “… people themselves alter so much, that there is something new to be observed in them for ever.”
8. “Do not give way to useless alarm; though it is right to be prepared for the worst, there is no occasion to look on it as certain.”
9. There are as many good, happy marriages made in haste as with consideration, out of lust as out of good sense. Lizzie may or may not be happy with her choice, but the degree to which she will be happy, and has made a good match, is no different to the potential happiness afforded to Jane, Lydia, Mary or – my favourite pragmatist and – in this reading at least – my favourite character – Charlotte Lucas.
10. And finally, of course, “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.”

+2

0

  

God, I think I’m becoming a museum tragic. All of my letters home are filled with the stories I find in them, and in the conversations I rarely have the courage to strike up with strangers. I’m sure I’m boring all my long-suffering friends to death, so instead I should start posting these snippets of wonder here.

So, three curios from the Amsterdam Museum.

A silver bird

During the golden age of Dutch history (the seventeenth century) the nation was awash with wealth and energy. The VOC (Dutch East Indies Company) had brought enormous financial stability through trade in spices, silver and slaves. It is the era to which the dutch cultural heart returns, again and again. A time of possibility, a time when the nature of Dutch politics and culture were formed. This beautiful silver bird is a spice container. An elegant, extraordinarily pretty but functional item. Something about the combination of practical purpose and ornamental finesse seems to me to express something fundamental about the Dutch. The notes accompanying this beautiful object note that because spices were so expensive, and so symbolic of the wealth of the burgeoning nation, spice containers were often highly decorative. Secular objects of worship.

Laying the foundation stone of healthy drinking

This beautiful decorative trowel and trowel box were used by Anna Heineken to lay the foundation stone of her son’s new brewery in 1867. The trowel box is an opened out model of the brewery building, with a silver plaque bearing a dedication in the base. The dedication refers to the gin distillery at Schiedam, asserting that while the distillery encourages unhealthy drinking, Heineken is good for you!

Tram 8

The tragedy of the second world war, and particularly of the holocaust, is ever-present in this beautiful city. Regret and sadness over what happened seem as ubiquitous as the sand that seeps up between the cobbles of the streets. Tramline number 8 used to run through the heart of Amsterdam’s Jewish quarter. It was known before the war, colloquially, as the Jews’ tram. In July, 1942, as one of the measures introduced by the German occupiers to subjugate the Jewish people, they were forbidden to use public transport. Tram line 8 stopped running, except for one awful exception. The tram was used to transport Jewish people from the city to the holding camp at Westerbork, from where so many were sent to their deaths in the camps. Since the end of the war, no number 8 tram has ever run on Amsterdam’s streets.

+4

0

  

Flamingoes in the snow at Amsterdam’s Artis Zoo

Inside the apenhuis, home of the pygmy marmoset, and friends

Natura Artis Magistra, founded in 1838, is a miniature zoo in the heart of Amsterdam’s Plantage district. It includes an aquarium, butterfly pavilion, planetarium and various other animal exhibits. The zoo is also the site of a range of beautiful old buildings, including Wolf House, which was once The Oak and Linden Inn where guests visiting the zoo could stay, and Masman Garden House.

But, of course, the best thing about Artis is the animals. Check out this adorable (adult) Pygmy Marmoset! Small enough to fit in your pocket at just 15cm tall.

+1

0