Sunday, November 12, 2017

The Chopin Trail - museums and monuments in France and Poland



Problem
Where to go and what to see, connected with Chopin?

Answers:

1 POLAND
Grand monument to Chopin, in park, in Warsaw.
Map of Poland. Wikipedia.

Some city tours merely pass this - as happened to me on my first city tour.  Other tours, on request, will stop so you can run into the park and take a photo (which happened to me on a second city tour). Of course, everybody thinks you can just run in and take a photo of the sculpture in two minutes. But no. It's further than you think. Other people taking selfies get in your way. When You get close, you are too near to take in the whole sculpture without a wide angle lens. So you run this way and that, forward and back. Others from your coach are doing the same.

2 POLAND
Zelazowa Wola park, home of Chopin, museum (Dom Chopina).
Lovely park with ponds, trees, flowers, birdsong, tumbling water, half obliterated by the noise of groups or tourists and tour guides.
Inside the house you can see a piano, family portraits.

3 FRANCE
Grave of Chopin, Pere Lachaise Cemetery, Paris, France.
Lots of other famous musicians and singers here, too.
More in other cemeteries around Paris. Singers such as Edith Piaf. Rock and pop stars. Famous lovers such as Heloise and Abelard.

Grave of Chopin in Père Lachaise cemetery, Paris, France. Notice the statue of the muse above, the portrait below, the protective railing around the monument. 

4 POLAND
His heart was carried back to Poland by his sister, who was with him in Paris when he died. He was his parents' only son, but he had three sisters, one older, two younger, one of whom had died much earlier.

What else can you see connected with Chopin? He had a ten-year relationship with writer George Sand, which ended badly and sadly, when he fell ill some time before he died at an early age, of 39.

TB and complications.

You can get a pretty good idea of everything from:
Wikipedia - good history and photos.
You tube video of the house and gardens of his home in Poland.

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. Please share links to your favourite posts.

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