Mr Heker`s practice, The Cathedral and Synagogue to Essen

Thursday, 21st July: This morning breakfast was followed by a quick check on the business e-mails and removing the accumulated spam comments on the Cambridge Open Studios blog.

The it was off to Oppum railway station to catch the train to Essen to meet with Mr Heker. The first train was a Regional train, stopping at every station to Duisburg. Alighting from the train there, a fifteen minute wait to catch a double decker Regional Express which then took me speedily to Essen.

Arriving at Mr Heker dental technical laboratory “Teeth R Us”, it was a great opportunity to have a tour of the laboratory equipment and techniques with Mr Heker. We then spent a couple of hours catching up on possible tasks and strategies for attendance at the BDA exhibition in Birmingham in October.
Afterwards I was taken on a tour of central Essen, The first highlight was the Dom, the cathedral of Essen. Although only a cathedral since 1958, its origins go back to the foundation of an abbey by Bishop Altfrid in the late AD 850s with a peak of influence in the elefventh and twelfth centuries.
For me, the absolute delight were the modern stained glass windows completed in the 1950s to 1960s by a variety of artists (see http://www.dom-essen.de/index.php?id=263). I took an extensive series of photographs which I hope to edit in the near future.

The tour continued to the Synagogue, renovated and resplendent with its large dome. A police bus was discretely parked nearby, indicating the sensitivities still extant. The interior was delightfully elegant with clean lines, reflecting the modern construction style at the turn of the 20th Century and there was an interesting set of exhibits on the building` history and also Jewish traditions. The technological highlight was a series of two giant cogged wheels that interlinked to show the relationship between the Gregorian and the Jewish calendar. Flash photography not being permitted, I hope that the hand-held or supported photos give unshaken results.

We finished with an evening meal in a Greek restaurant (Artemis) before I finally caught the train back to Meerbusch via Krefeld Oppum.