The Details

(I just love this image of Germany, but the cities are actually in the geographically
correct location and the size of the text indicates the size of the city!)

So the time has come!  I will board a flight in Denver at 2:00pm MST today, Monday 19 October.  After a brief layover in Detroit, I will continue to Frankfurt, where I will arrive at 10:30am (German time).  

This post is dedicated to those of you who want to know more details about my trip.  First, it is important to give thanks for all the funding I've received!  For the conference, which I'll describe briefly, we received a large grant to fund the participants' travel, room, and board.  Then, I was awarded a travel grant by the International Center of Medieval Art to travel around Europe for a month to do dissertation research, so the month of November is brought to you by the ICMA.  I earned a 10-month fellowship from the Herzog August Bibliothek (HAB) in Wolfenbuettel to conduct dissertation research using their library and resources.  Lastly, the American Friends of the HAB contributed some funds for travel to-, from-, and around- Wolfenbuettel.

This map may help you visualize the major cities, German states, and their capitols. 

I will arrive in Frankfurt on the same flight as my dissertation advisor, Corine.  Her research partner, Volker, will pick us both up from the airport-- convenient, right?  I will go to Corine's house in a very small village near Hausen, somewhere between Frankfurt and Cologne and stay there for a couple nights to try and get my feet under me.

October 22-23 will be spent at Kloster Luene in Lueneburg, a town in the state of Lower Saxony in northern Germany.  During the middle ages, this was a women's monastery that produced TONS of embroideries.  The monastery is still standing, and the adjoining museum still houses a number of their medieval textiles.

October 23-24 will be spent at Kloster Wienhausen, not far from Lueneburg.  Like Luene, Wienhausen was (and actually still is) a women's monastery.  They also have an adjoining museum with a collection of the textiles made by nuns there during the Middle Ages.

October 25-30: During this week, I will participate in a conference with Corine, Volker, and a number of other scholars.  The goal of the conference (called "Extreme Sensescapes") is to share our ideas about the sensory environments of Birgittine monasteries during the Middle Ages.  Eventually, there will be a website dedicated to explaining this project and the people involved-- I will share that once it is available.  As part of the conference, we will begin in northern Germany and take a bus tour across the country, visiting several monasteries and collections along the way.  Road trip!

November 1-10*ish: Corine, Volker, and I will stay at Volker's family's house in a town called Bubenreuth, near Nuremberg (southern Germany, aka "Bavaria").  From "The Reuth," as it is called, I will visit Nuremberg to see their enormous museum and a number of their famous churches (namely St. Lorenz and St. Sebald), Munich to visit the Alte Pinakotech Museum and the Stadtmuseum, and Bamburg to see what they know.  [Rick Steves on Munich]

November 12*ish-20*ish: At this point, I will fly into Stockholm to spend some time in Sweden.  I will visit the Vadstena Convent Museum, the Linkoping Cathedral Museum, the Stockholm History Museum, and the Uppsala Cathedral and Treasury.  The main reason to visit Sweden is that many German women's monasteries during the late Middle Ages were Birgittine, that is, founded by Saint Birgitta of Sweden (one of my many medieval heroes).

November 20*ish-30: The end of November will be spent using Corine's house in Hausen as a home base.  From Hausen, I will make day trips to Cologne to visit the Museum of Applied Arts, the Schnutgen Museum, the Diocesan Museum, the Institute for Historical Textiles, and the Institute of Conservation Sciences.  [Rick Steves on Cologne]

Starting on December 1, I will be living in a dorm in Wolfenbuettel (northern Germany, near Hanover and Hamburg) for the 10-month fellowship I was awarded by the Herzog August Bibliothek.  Once I arrive in Wolfenbuettel (AKA "WB"), I will mostly stay put.  I do have some plans for weekend trips near WB, but the dorm and HAB will definitely be "home base" for the rest of my German adventures.  My fellowship will end on September 30, 2016.

Corine will be fulfilling a fellowship at the American Academy in Berlin for the spring 2016 semester, so I will be able to visit her by train to explore Berlin!  Other explorations, yet to be fully planned, are Braunschweig (Brunswick), Halberstadt, and Hamburg.  

So there you have it!  That is my flexible itinerary for the year ahead!!  I will be best reached via Facebook, email (kbevinb@gmail.com), or Skype (k.bevin.b).  Can't wait to share my adventures with you!