Posts tagged ‘Oberammergau’
Oberammergau Photos are Up
I’ve posted about two dozen photos from our day in Oberammergau this past Sunday on the magazine’s Facebook page. The direct link to that photo album is here.
No photos are permitted during the performance of the Passion Play, but there’s a lot to see and photograph in the town itself.
By the way, we spent a lot of time speculating on what “Oberammergau” means. “Ober” means “upper,” and it turns out that “Ammer” is a river in that region of Bavaria. Wikipedia says a “gau” is a region or province, so I guess “Oberammergau” means the upper (or higher-elevation) part of the Ammer River region.
There also is a village nearby called Unterammergau—”unter” meaning “under” or “lower.” Like Oberammergau, it’s one of those words that’s just fun to say.
Tina Hay, editor
Finally, Oberammergau
The Oberammergau Passion Play runs from May through early October, 2010.
Most of the passengers in our Penn State group are back in the U.S. now, except for a handful who extended their trip with visits to Munich and elsewhere. Although I’ve been back in State College since Monday night, I still have some catching up to do in terms of blogging, so I hope you won’t mind if I offer some more posts about the trip over the next few days.
For many of the travelers, the final day of the trip was the one they had looked forward to the most. Our 10 days in Europe finished off with a performance of the Oberammergau Passion Play, or Passionspiele.
It’s an event that happens only once every 10 years, as the residents of this tiny Bavarian town put on a huge production about the last days of Christ. The event dates to 1634, when the bubonic plague was (more…)
Where We’ve Been
In case you’re trying to figure out where all we’ve been on this Alumni Association trip, here’s a map provided by our travel partner, Collette Vacations. (If you click on it, you’ll get a bigger version.)
We started with two nights in Paris, then took the TGV high-speed train to Strasbourg, in the Alsace region of France. As you can see, Strasbourg is right on the France-Germany border, and has been considered part of France at some points in its history and part of Germany at other times. In fact, the city’s nationality changed five times in one century. As our local guide there put it: (more…)
Penn State is Pretty Much Everywhere
Ted and Lottie Dempsey brought a touch of Penn State with them on the trip.
One of the nice things about traveling with a bunch of Penn Staters is that, well, you have something in common right from the start. It was fun to be strolling the streets of some town like Kaysersberg or Bamberg and see a Penn State T-shirt or ballcap and realize, Hey, there’s someone from our group.
Ted Dempsey ’59 and his wife, Lottie, also helped keep the Penn State spirit alive on the trip. Ted packed a stuffed Nittany Lion (shown in the photo here) and brought it to the two Alumni Association-sponsored receptions—one in Paris and one in Würzburg—as well as to the group photo op outside the palace in Würzburg.
Ted also had an iPod with some Penn State fight songs loaded onto it, and at one point got our tour manager to hook it up to the P.A. system on the bus, so we could sing “Hail to the Lion” as the bus pulled away from the hotel one morning.
In Nuremberg on Saturday, several passengers in our group reported having spotted some fellow Penn Staters—not from our group, just random travelers—in the Old Town section. And I had a small-world moment of my own on my last evening in Oberammergau: I was using the town’s one-and-only Internet café when a couple walked in and the woman asked no one in particular where you go to buy the Internet vouchers. I could tell from her lack of accent that she was a fellow American, so I asked where she was from. She said, “Pennsylvania.” I said, “Really—where? I’m from State College.” And she said, “So are we.” Turns out her husband works in the College of Information Sciences and Technology.
Tina Hay, editor
A Visit to Nuremberg
Yesterday we wrapped up three days in which we were based in Würzberg and began heading for Oberammergau, where we’re spending our final two nights.
The trip yesterday included an extended stop in Nuremberg, which is closely associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazis. On the way to Nuremberg, Ronnie and Sophie talked on the bus about the historical backdrop for World War II: Ronnie’s expertise in religion and religious strife goes back to the Middle Ages, while Sophie specializes in 19th- and 20th-century history.
(The two of them are husband and wife, and they play off each other in a fun way. When Ronnie was finished speaking, Sophie took the bus’ microphone and (more…)
Passion Play Passes Muster with Both Catholics and Jews
The famed Oberammergau Passion Play—performed by Bavarian villagers every 10 years since 1634—has been controversial in years past, with critics charging that the way it portrays the role of Jews in the crucifixion of Jesus amounts to anti-semitism. (Adolf Hitler himself is said to have attended a performance and given it his enthusiastic approval.)
In recent years, organizers of the play have tried to adapt the script to address those concerns, and it looks like they may have succeeded. According to an Associated Press story, the archbishop of New York and a well-known U.S. rabbi watched the play together last Thursday and gave it good reviews.
The play “is more balanced than ever before and we need to (more…)
Dreaming of Europe
I.M. Pei's Louvre Pyramid, in the courtyard outside the Louvre in Paris
The other day I had a chance to meet Sophie de Schaepdrijver and Ronnie Hsia, the two Penn State history/religious studies faculty members who are hosting the Alumni Association’s trip to France and Germany next month. I’m going along on that trip to keep a blog, take photos, and maybe bring back a story for the magazine. And with the husband-and-wife team of Sophie and Ronnie helming the trip, I think we’re going to have a terrific experience.
We start with a few days in Paris, and although a lot of activities are already planned for us in the city through the Alumni Association and the travel company (Collette Vacations), Sophie and Ronnie have some ideas as well.
Ronnie is planning to take interested participants on a strolling tour of medieval Paris, while Sophie has offered to take a group to the city’s famous Père Lachaise cemetery. Given that I’m a fan of old cemeteries and of taking photos of funerary art, I actually had Père Lachaise on my wish list already, so I’m excited at the thought of going there with someone who knows a lot about it.
In a letter introducing herself to the Penn State travelers, Sophie wrote: “…you are welcome to accompany me to Père Lachaise cemetery on the outskirts of Paris—a vast park-like, hilly place, most atmospheric, where many celebrities are buried (Edith Piaf, Oscar Wilde, Jim Morrison) and which was the site of fierce violence during the Commune uprising of 1871.”
The theatre in tiny Oberammergau, Germany, where the Passion Play is staged every 10 years.
Which, of course, made me go to Wikipedia to read up on the Commune uprising. And that’s what’s so appealing—I can already tell that Ronnie and Sophie are going to add a very cool dimension to the trip. They’ve suggested books for the travelers to read in advance, for example. They will be doing informal lectures on our bus rides. And they both seem to know a good bit about the sometimes-controversial Oberammergau Passion Play, which we’ll see on the last day of the trip. (The residents of the German village of Oberammergau have been putting on the Passion Play every 10 years since the 1600s.)
Ronnie, in his letter to the Penn State travelers, wrote: “I have taught courses in the religious history of Europe in the period of the Renaissance and Reformation. In addition to my interest in the Protestant Reformation and Catholic reform in the 16th and 17th centuries, I have written on the relationship between Jews and Christians; therefore, I am particularly excited to be attending with you the Oberammergau Passion Play, which I have read so much about, but have never seen.”
We leave in three weeks, and I’m looking forward to sending you updates and photos from what should be an amazing trip.
Tina Hay, editor
NEXT: Passion Play Passes Muster with Both Catholics and Jews
The Season of Oberammergau is Here
Every year after the December holidays I buy one of those Page-a-Day calendars at a half-price sale, and the theme of this year’s calendar is “1,000 Places to See Before You Die.” The vast majority are places I can only dream of visiting, but the entry for this weekend got my attention: It’s somewhere I’ll be going this summer.
I’ll be joining the Alumni Association’s trip to Oberammergau, a small village in Germany where the townspeople stage a version of the Passion Play every 10 years. The legend is that the villagers agreed to this back in 1637, in exchange for being spared the plague that was sweeping their region.
For our traveling group, the Passion Play will be the culmination of a 10-day trip that starts in Paris (woo hoo!) and includes stops in Strasbourg and Wurzburg, as well as side trips to some smaller villages known for their beer, wine, and cathedrals (not necessarily in that order).
The cool part—besides how much fun it is to say “Oberammergau”—is that the trip hosts will be two faculty members in Penn State’s history and religious studies department. Their commentary should add an excellent extra dimension to the trip. My job is to take pictures, blog along the way (more about that later), and perhaps bring back a story for the magazine. Needless to say, I’m really looking forward to the trip!
Tina Hay, editor
A Trip to Oberammergau
A story in Sunday’s Philadelphia Inquirer caught my eye—it’s about the little town in Bavaria called Oberammergau that, once every 10 years, puts on a massive production of the Passion play. The townspeople have been doing it since the 1600s, and they’re doing it again in 2010.
It’s of special interest to me because the Alumni Association is offering a trip to France and Germany in July, culminating with a performance of the famed Oberammergau Passion Play—and because I’m lucky enough to be able to go along.
The trip will be hosted by two faculty members in Penn State’s history and religious studies department, Sophie de Schaepdrijver and Ronnie Hsia. (I heard Sophie speak at one of our Huddle with the Faculty programs a year or so ago and was fascinated by her research on World War I.) Sophie and Ronnie will be lecturing along the way about the areas we’re visiting—besides Oberammergau, the trip includes several days each in Paris, Strasbourg, and Würzburg. (Want to join us? It’s probably not too late to sign up.)
I’ll be taking many, many photos; keeping a blog; and possibly bringing back a story for the magazine.
Tina Hay, editor
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