Travel Souvenir Collections 4 Oberammergau Passion Play

Visit Cindy at My Romantic Home for links to other Show and Tell participants.

Today’s post is a continuation from yesterday’s post, "Europe: An Illustrated Tablescape."

In 1970 as a graduate student I spent six weeks of summer school in England. Each Wednesday was an all-day excursion to various places of interest to English majors:
I had a set of two large scrapbooks bought in England. Each day our group placed items in our albums related to literary and historic sites which we visited.

I also kept three small notebooks for daily entries about the day’s happenings.

A scrapbook page showing tokens from our visit to the National Gallery in London:

Other London sites visited

A day in Wells and Glastonbury

At the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon we saw Patrick Stewart in King John. Some of us had just studied the play along with other Shakespeare history plays in a graduate course.

Following the six weeks in England we spent two weeks on the European continent. A highlight of that time was a stay in the Bavarian Alps town of Garmisch, Germany at the Drie Mohren hotel. I can still remember the soft featherbeds in my room.

Hotel Der Drei Mohren (The Three Moors), Garmisch, Germany

From their website, here is an example of the comfortable rooms. I remember sinking into the featherbed….how dreamy….

Excerpt from my notebook:
"Houses in Oberammergau – painted scenes on sides & fronts: religious, fairy tales, etc. Very pretty flower boxes, gingerbread designs. {Surroundings evoke} clean, honest, working people. Women & men working in fields tossing hay; native dress common on women and girls."

Well, our reason for staying there is that Garmisch is very near to Oberammergau, where the Oberammergau Passion Play is held every 10 years in keeping with a vow made in 1633. The town was grateful for being spared from the plague which killed off thousands on the continent.
Since 2010 is a performance year for the Play, I am longing to go over there again, and to experience the dramatic performance.

Memories of the Passionsspiele
Excerpt from my notebook:
"Thurs. Aug. 27 -- Left hotel and arrived at Ober. at 9:15. Play began shortly after we were seated...Late Americans!"

Each attendee was given a book with full score of the lyrics in one of various languages so the audience could follow the action on stage. Here is my copy and my ticket:
Before each scene a long line of singers came out and the Prologue, a tall male singer in the middle, gave an introduction to the next scene. I scannned this postcard:

Photo of the postcard in my scrapbook

I can still see the beautiful colors of the rich costumes.

The Last Supper

Judas Betrays Jesus With a Kiss

I remember that the singing and speaking was masterfully done – all in German. I wished then that I had studied German in college or high school, in addition to Spanish and some French.

After a lunch break, we all returned to our seats for the afternoon performance with its moving scenes of the crucifixion.

Excerpt from my notebook
"Returned to hotel for quite a delicious lunch. Arrived back just before play started."

A very enjoyable feature of the play was the Tableau Vivant segments, where the actors would arrange themselves in a beautifull painting-like scene, and would hold the pose.

Excerpt from a library exhibit I did about the play in the 1980’s
"Even today, ten years residency in Oberammergau is required for anyone wishing to perform in the play, and preference in casting is given to those who were born there.
"To the 5,000 citizens of the village, the play is many things: a religious pageant, an act of faith, a civic identity and, not least, a once-a-decade commercial bonanza to sustain them through nine lean years."

You may wish to follow this link to further information about the passion play: http://www.oberammergau.de/ot_e/passionplay/

This is my scrapbook page showing a map of the area and postcard of our hotel:
Here is a souvenir teacup and saucer from Oberammergau, Germany made circa 1960's. It is of white porcelain with gilding. Cup 1 ½" tall x 3" diam, Saucer 4 ¼" diam. The cup has a gilt band on inside along with an illustration of the town labeled, 'OBERAMMERGAU'. On bottom of cup: "DD-Co/ Kunstrehal/ Bavaria/ Made in/ Germany" The gold-rimmed saucer is labelled on the bottom: "Bavaria/ S [Crown]W Porzellan/Germany"

A souvenir spoon from Oberammergau. The crest shows a cross draped with a robe to represent the Passion Play

Page from scrapbook showing post cards I bought there:
This German-made white linen is embroidered in blue with a different design on each of four squares that are joined together.

Links to previous posts on travel collection:
Travel Souvenir Collections Part 1 - Spoons
Friday Show & Tell: Travel Souvenir Collections 2 – Plates (Blue and White)
Travel Souvenir Collections 3 - Shelias Houses

Thanks for coming by today. I welcome comments and read each one.

Travel Souvenir Collections 3 - Shelias Houses

Show and Tell Friday is hosted by Kelli at There is No Place Like Home

This post features a set from the Nativity Scenes Collection. As I considered various travel souvenirs I realized that another collection based on where I have traveled is part of my Shelia’s nativity display.

Shelias is a company which produces wood cutouts of historic America. As a nativity collector I was happy to find the "Town Square Nativity" from Shelia's Collectibles "Old Fashioned Christmas" series. It is a 1997 Limited Edition, signed and numbered, and Made in U.S.A.

I really enjoy the beautiful hand painted design of the main piece called "Just Born"
It is a one-piece wood cutout, Victorian gingerbread style gazebo with Joseph, Baby Jesus, Mary and two trumpeting angels & star above.
This is the town's living nativity with various members of the community forming the nativity tableau.

I also purchased the three related pieces to make up the living nativity scene:
Heartsville’s Lil Angels [children as angels]
Michael Keeping Watch [shepherd]
Borrowed Eli [camel]

Two more town pieces and a Christmas tree came next:
Heartsville Town Square
Heartsville Carolers
Evergreen Christmas Tree

Then, to personalize the set even more, I added Shelias historic houses of New England to provide a range of additional buildings as a backdrop.

I chose only New England sites that I have visited personally. Here are the historic houses and buildings:
The Old Manse, Concord, MA
Orchard House, Concord, MA

Old State House, Boston, MA
Old North Church II, Boston, MA
Old South Meeting House, Boston, MA

Paul Revere House, Boston,MA
Munroe Tavern, Lexington, MA
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s House, Cambridge, MA

The Kingscote mansion in Newport, RI completes my travel souvenir additions.

The added Shelias accessories are wood cutouts of Snow Covered Evergreen, Evergreen Trees and one Oak Tree (for Oak Rise Cottage!)

Thank you for reading about this special set in my nativity scenes collection. For more about the nativity scenes collection please check out my new blog Carola Nativity Gallery.

To see more personal treasures, visit Kelli for a list of participating posts.

Friday Show & Tell: Travel Souvenir Collections 2 – Plates

Show and Tell Friday is hosted by Kelli at There is No Place Like Home

Blue and White Transferware Plates As Souvenirs

Souvenir plates are available at most places where there are tourists. Most will be designs in multiple colors, but for many sites the collector of blue and white transfer wares will find a plate in those favored colors as a remembrance of travel.

I have a small collection of blue and white plates from places I have visited in various U.S. states or cities, as well as places in Europe, England principally. I only want the plate if I actually visited the specific state, country, city, or location depicted on the plate.

I feel it is most effective to group all the souvenir plates together as a theme display. The majority of the collection is displayed on my guest bathroom walls. Since I was using the nails from a previously hung wall group, the plates are arrayed in four rows of three plates each.

The first group on the left, next to the bathtub, shows New Orleans, LA, The Wayside Inn, MA, and the Incline Railway, Chattanooga, TN.

The middle group has a colorful Portuguese plate in the center.* Above it is Anne Hathaway’s Cottage, England, and below is a plate for Washington, DC.

The third group has Windsor Castle, England, F.D. Roosevelt’s home in upstate NY, and the Massachusetts State House.

The final group of three has Venice, Italy, Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and Rome, Italy.

The plate depicting the Old Wayside Inn in Sudbury, MA was presented to me at a banquet, the evening following our visit to the Old Wayside Inn. We had a delicious meal in the historic inn. While visiting the gift shop someone overheard me remark on my love of blue and white dishes. When I opened the gift presented to me as host the next evening, there was the lovely plate, a reminder of a delightful stop on our tour.

Here is the book Tales of a Wayside Inn by Henry W. Longfellow which I bought there at the gift shop. Also, the brochure.

My other Massachusetts plates include Cape Cod, and the State House shown in the following photo.

When I was growing up my family attended camp meeting in upstate New York, quite near to Hyde Park, home of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. It was very interesting to tour the special presidential home and to see mementos of his life there.

My visits to the nation’s capital always fills me with a sense or awe at the grand buildings. This souvenir plate of Washington, DC depicts many important landmarks.

A visit to the city of Chattanooga, Tennessee included tours to Civil War sites. The site of the Battle on Lookout Mountain was fascinating. Our tour group took a ride up the face of the mountain in a specially built rail car with the seats built out from the sloping floor.
A vivid reminder of the ride up the Incline Railroad to the top of Lookout Mountain while viewing the city of Chattanooga below, was my concern over what it would be like to ride down the amazingly steep incline.

I never got to find out because when we arrived at the mountain top, our bus was waiting for us, having taken the circuitous route round and round to the top. So after visiting Civil War sites and admiring the large stately homes, we boarded the bus for the trip down. I actually found the plate a little over a month later when shopping in an antique mall in central Massachusetts. I could hardly believe my eyes and snapped it up for the collection.

A few plates are not hung. The Washington, DC plate is a Capsco Product from Capitol Souvenir Co..
Another is from an important state series by Vernon Kilns, near Los Angeles, CA and
represents California.

Two of my most beautiful plates represent places I visited in England. The first is Anne Hathaway’s Cottage near Stratford-upon-Avon. After spending the day seeing the sights in and around Stratford, that evening we enjoyed a sprightly rendition of "Romeo and Juliet" at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre. Note the beautiful tree foilage around this plate.

As an English major in college I had studied the work of Sir Philip Sidney and was glad to see his home, Penshurst Place. When I visited there as a graduate student, the guide said that scenes for the movie "Anne of a Thousand Days" had been filmed there shortly before.

The view of Windsor Castle on this next plate is dated 1791.

This design of the plate below is from the Spode Blue Room Collection. There the Spode company maintains an archive of pieces from their distinguished history as a china manufacturer. The 1811 artwork on the plate depicts the city of Rome, Italy.


On September 21, 2008 I found another plate with a historical engraving. This one depicts Venice, Italy. The manufacturer of this plate is another English firm, Ridgway.

............................................................................................................

*The Portuguese plate is in accent colors used in the bathroom ...

The shower curtain…

The sink accessories – tissue box, handpainted vases…

............................................................................................................

To see more personal treasures, visit Kelli for a list of participating posts.