Austria & Switzerland

We buckled up and made our way to Austria, Innsbruck. It was all systems go for Christmas and many street performers were already set up when we got there.

The in thing in Europe, in terms of street performance, seems to be posing as a statue for many long hours! Some of the artists were outstanding. It must take them hours to prepare and to stand for almost the whole day in the brisk winter sunshine, well I take my hat off to them! For me, I stayed sheltered by the wooden market huts and kept my jumper on, thank you very much!

Austria is very beautiful indeed, again so clean. By this time, I wondered if perhaps our country is actually quite dirty and that is why the litter free crisp and pristine streets were such a surprise to me!

There are smoking cafes in Austria for those who want to have a drink and a ciggie. That seems like quite a good compromise to me. That down a back lane, smokers can huddle together in the warmness of a bar to have a quick cuppa and a puff, rather than have to loiter in the cold and drop their butts on the floor!

If I thought Austria was beautiful I was in for more sharp intakes of breathes when we got to Switzerland! Maybe more so because I hadn’t really known what to expect. I love the way that they make spaces into beautiful places, with art work and sculpture so that artefacts that we would normally insist need to be locked in glass cupboards to stop them being graffiti tagged, are part of street galleries overlooking the most beautiful lakes.

I played on the little balconies overlooking the river which make fabulous performance spaces off the main thoroughfare.

We travelled onto Lucerne to spend the evening. Whilst in town I found a great project called Supentag, which re-distributes the left over food from the hotels and restaurants to re-distribute and raise funds for those who are on a low income. I played ukulele whilst dinners sat in the candle lit tents.

Very early the next morning we made our way to the quayside so that we could see Lake Lucerne in its full glory. It was kissed by the bight sun and the icy fingers of a mist that hovered gently above the still waters. If peace and calm were a place, this would be it! Swans and boats slide together across the water with no effort, even the cold felt magical.

The laid back captain was excited as we were to see the mists rolling on the water in the sunrise. I was completely lost in the moment and as I stepped back to dry land I thought to myself, I am definitely coming back here one day.

The Rhine

We decided to book a trip down The Rhine ...

Up at the crack of dawn and off down to this very beautiful river. She stood calm and seemingly unperturbed by the human traffic of inquisitive time travellers, almost unaware that they were merely echoes of the thousands who had been absorbed by her beauty throughout the centuries.

It was the most amazing experience. The Rhine is littered with castles and folk legends from way back when and I would love to go back and spend time finding out all the stories and writing songs about them. The Rhine has tolerated humans for many centuries! It felt truthfully like being outside of yourself, as if your life had stopped on the quay side with the lines of coaches, whilst you floated on a daydream….

Poetic thought: Are humans the tolerated disease of nature?

How clever are we

To surgically cut

Tarmac viens into her skin?

How clever is she

To flow strong

For so long

She need not notice

This cancer traversing

Through her watery fingers

Pilgrims, are we

At her feet

Awestruck

Breath taken

Time travellers

Her tolerated disease

 

Next stops Rothenberg, Cologne & Munich

Next stop off was Rothenberg and I had been in contact with a chap that runs an acoustic folk music session, but we weren’t going to be there at the right time for this, so he very kindly arranged for me to do an acoustic day session.

Rothenberg was re-built by the Germans after the WW2 to show their cultural and historical context within and to the rest of Europe. It is truly beautiful. But for me, it is a little too beautiful! It reminded me a bit of Camberwick Green with its huge mechanical clock with chiming figures. To be fair, it was November and all the Christmas decorations were up. I couldn’t really feel a sense of real history. With the shop windows adorned with everything a tourist would want to see, it felt a little bit Disney for me! I feel awful saying this because the people were so welcoming and warm, and how can you complain that a place is too clean! It’s just a personal thing I suppose, that I felt more at home in the back streets of Florence than here.

Next stop was Cologne, where we had a sleep over. I didn’t have a performance booked here, but I spoke to the Hotel Manager and he very kindly gave me a spot in the foyer.

The following day we headed off to Munich where I had a meeting with a representative from an online TV/video company. We were running  bit late! They had asked me to do  an acoustic set in an Art House Cinema Café. When we were approaching I thought/hoped we had gotten the wrong place because it was right next door to a Sex Shop! The films in the cinema’s had just finished and everyone coming out looked like a student so I guessed it must be quite hip and happening, the cool place to hang out!

The little show case went really well! They so love acoustic music in Munich! But I guess it was the right crowd for my self penned songs!

We arrived in Munich in the dark and left so early it was still dark too, so in a way, it could have been any city. It felt like Cardiff late at night in the week. But the following morning, we were about to see Germany from a completely new perspective!

Occupy Amsterdam 11.11.11

We then headed into the City centre to the Peace Rally. Tents were huddled together on the pavement fenced off and banners mast high. It was quiet and peaceful. I sat down by the information stand and a guy, who I am assuming was one of the organisers, saw my ukulele on my back and said, ‘Music, now that’s what we need.’

I said that I could play if he liked and sat at the entrance of the site doing my thing. I felt an enormous sense of collective, of meaning, so privileged to be a tiny spec in the huge picture that will undoubtedly create change. People Power! There was a TV crew filming and they interviewed the chap that had asked me to play so that’s when I twigged that he must have been instrumental in organising the march later that week.

A song written by Cheryl Beer whilst at Occupy Amsterdam

If you want peace

Then you gotta

Work for Justice

You gotta work for justice

If you want Peace

And if you want love

You gotta work for Peace

You gotta work for peace

If you want love

So stand up

To the 1 in a 100, To the 1 in 100

You gotta stand up

And I will stand up

To the 1 in 100,To the 1 in a 100

I will stand up

Stand up for peace

When I got home I recorded this in my studio and made a little film for Youtube in support of Busk Against the Cuts in Cardiff and Disability Arts Cymru made it their Video of the Day.

We had to leave to catch our bus onto Germany and so did a quick whiz around the shops to buy little gifts for our friends and family back home. The obligatory clogs key rings!

Anne Frank's House

... And just as I thought I couldn’t be anymore inspired, as the canal boat turned the corner, the guide said, ‘And this is the house of Anne Frank …’ which is now a museum. I went cold and without any warning I felt myself weeping, tears fell down my face. She had played here on this cobbled street, looked out of these windows, no doubt cycled along these paths. The guide told us that Anne’s Father had been interviewed and asked why he had allowed publication of something as personal as his daughter’s diary and he had said that it was her childhood dream to become a published writer. I was so moved by this:

A poem written by Cheryl Beer whilst passing Anne Frank’s House

Collecting Beautiful Sentences

He asked, Sweet child

When you grow older

What do you think

You will do?

She said, Papa

I will collect with my pen

Beautiful sentences

Telling and true

The journalist calls

Readers enthralled

My words threaded

Like beaded jewels

Dear Child,

A writer such as you

Can hold a dream

That may split the seam

Life is not always as we dreamt it

Once true

Oh papa, she laughed

Your wisely old words

Fall like stars sewn

To the soles of my feet

Dream slumber outnumbered

By nightmares encumbered

Engraved on canal cobbled streets

A young girls’ daily retreat

Secrets leaked

Like blood from her pen

Etched into life’s paper chase

Her closest friend

And now, just as then

Tombstone stooped

Brick built, eyes green framed

Lest we forget

An attic forlorn by fame

Such can be the bitter taste

Of dreams come true

They asked

Why did you share her diary?

Her hope, fear, panic and pain

Why did you look

Why did you

Open her book

Papa hung his head and said

Let me explain

It’s my last gift for my little girl

The last thing that I can do

To leave her memory as a writer

Peace campaign fighter

Make her childhood dreams come true

I won’t see her skip through tulip fields

Or float on the canal with the wind

I won’t see her grow

And in my heart I know

Her story shares more than I can give

Through her words

My Anne can live

In the memories burned

And the lessons learned

Out of the mouth of this babe

Rings a message so close and true

We must teach those who come

To live and love each other as one

Be they Dutch, German, Nazi or Jew

Skinny Bridge Poem in Amsterdam

A poem written by Cheryl Beer on the canals of Amsterdam

It is said that if you kiss your loving whilst passing under skinny Bridge, you will marry him and love each other forever!

Skinny Bridge

There are 88 beautiful bridges

But only one is skinny with love

If he turns to another

I wouldn’t bother

His heart isn’t true enough

There are 88 beautiful bridges

But one stays clear my head

If he won’t kiss me there

I’ll leave myself bare

And sail with another instead

We saw the 8 beautiful bridges in a scattered row. Now there’s a tongue twister in Dutch!

Achtentachtig practige grachten!

Living the dream ...

It has been my dream since I can remember to tour as a musician across Europe and see all the places that I imagined or read in books as a child; pictures of leaning towers, smoke cradled morning lakes, monstrous mountains … and to be inspired to record my journey through song and poetry enabling me to share my experiences through my creativity.

Life seems to creep by without you even noticing it and I realised this year that climbing over the 45 bridge took me closer to half a century, and still I hadn’t realised my dream. So, I set about making it into a plan….

When we got to Calais we were met by the bus and whizzed off through Belgium before getting to the Hotel in Amsterdam. I arranged to play in the Hotel Bar to a very warm welcome! Almost everyone was from a country other than the Netherlands! I met a chap from New York who is a Graphic Designer and has done a fair bit of high profile album design work. He said some very kind things about my CD designs and it’s amazing to think my work has toddled back to the States with him.

One of the Bar staff told me about a Peace Rally in Amsterdam being held in support of the now global Occupy Campaign, so we decided to go and have a look the following day.

We woke up to a glorious buffet breakfast, Jeff had a full on cooked up mayhem and I stuck to fruit before heading out to the Canals. The Trip was breath taking! We passed under The Skinny Bridge, where if you kiss your loved one, it is reported that you will stay together forever … mmm!