No driving today of course - instead a chance to wander round Linz and see some more Kepler-related sights, then get reader for tonight's opera. First destination was the square I had passed through yesterday and where, quite by chance, I had located the Rathausgasse, where Kepler lived at number 5. Unlike Weil der Stadt, this is not a Kepler museum - indeed it was not clear exactly what it does do. It is called the "Kepler Salon" and seems to stage some types of artistic events, but it wasn't very clear what these were.
The Square I first encountered last night
Rathausgasse is the narrow road off the Square - left of centre
The "Kepler Salon" - Kepler's Linz residence
"In this house lived Johannes Kepler" 
Linz Landestheatre from the "Promenade"
I would have bought a poster if I coud have
And from there it was a short walk up a hill towards the site of the old Castle, only bits of which remain standing. I have no idea about the history of this, but there was a large museum there (but this had not yet opened). The river Danube looked fairly bleak. It didn't take long to find the gardens and the main source of interest to me - the Kepler statue. 
The Danube from the Castle Gardens
Kepler's Statue in the Castle Gardens
Linz city centre from the Castle GardensI spent most of the afternoon back at the hotel, reading Robert Darnton's excellent The Case for Books and watching cross-country skiing on German t.v. The Darnton book has opened my eyes to the full scale academic discipline of "books as history". I think this could be a really interesting series of themes to consider in my PhD. So I have ordered a 500 page "History of Books Reader" and can barely wait for that to arrive next week!
Another important afternoon task was to buy Linda some bottles of the German champagne she likes and a stock of Rittersport milk chocolate bars that she likes. Luckily I stumbled on a supermarket near the hotel.
And so to Philip Glass's opera, "Kepler". It has been some time since I last saw a Philip Glass opera but I have remained a great fan of his music and was not disappointed by tonight's performance. The music was much more complex and non-minimalist that much of his work, but had many superb bits in it. For myself, a relative expert on Kepler, the libretto was fairly clear, but I suspect that for the "average punter", it was largely incomprehensible. It would not have been clear where the bits about Kepler being a lowly dog, or the discussion of the shape of pomengranate seeds. Moreover, about half the libretto consisted of texts by Andreas Gryphius related to the Thirty Year War. It was not clear to me that these two parts fitted together well, but muc of the best music occured during these other episodes.
The overall production I thought was excellent. I really liked the rotating stage, especially when the back projector was showing the daily rotation of stars. One section in Act 2 where the entire lighting gantry was lowered to the stage was also particularly effective I thought. It was, of course, an extremely modern style of production, but I am quite keen on this.
But the singer who played Kepler did tend to remind me a little of David Tennant as Doctor Who!
The highlight of the opera for me was towards the end when the chorus were singing Kepler's epitaph, "I have measured the heavens, now I shall measure the shadows of the earth". Very moving indeed.
I have never attempted to link a "youtube" video to this blog before. But this is the only clip I have so far seen of "Kepler" and I think it is well worth including.
Sunday to Monday
Departed fron Linz at 6:30. Direct autobane to Frankfurt via Regensburg (where Kepler died) and Nurnburg (where enough snow fell yesterday to close the airport). No trouble on the roads, lots of ploughs about. Average speed around 65mph for hours on end.
Today's music is by Radiohead, PJ Harvey, Gallon Drunk and Rory Gallagher
Total distance covered to Hook of Holland - about 675 miles - in 11 hours. Very few breaks (don't tend to like German motorway food!)
Early night - reading Pierre Bayard's How to talk about Books you haven't read. Not a great night's sleep.
Depart at Harwich at 6:30. Good journey until M1 intersection with M25. Horrendous traffic jams for much of the rest of the journey. Wheatley to Headington roundabout takes nearly an hour. 5 hours to drive 150 miles. In that time I would have managed twice as far in Germany.
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