Today and yesterday – a photo from Uncle Emmet’s suitcase showing Vaux-de-Cernay Abbey, France over a 100 years ago and how it appears today. Today the buildings are used as a hotel with a capacity for 1,200 people, complete with a restaurant and heliport.
Photo taken June 21st, 1914 a few months before the outbreak of World War I. Below is a photo of Potsdam today.
In our research we discovered that Uncle Emmet traveled in one of the early Pierce-Arrow models. As the Pierce-Arrow automobiles started entering the “Golden Era”, so did the Pierce-Arrow advertising. During this second decade of the century, Pierce-Arrow commissioned lavish artwork from some of the most prominent illustrators of the time. Most advertising of this era had no text at all, just a painting of people driving their Pierce-Arrows. Many of the ads features Pierce-Arrows in rural or exotic settings, where few people ventured on the poor roads of the time.
The entry from July 27, 1909 said that there was sunshine part of the day and “lost left front tire.” – as if it was no big deal! Found Postcard from August 4, 1909 of L’hospice du Grand Saint-Bernard.
Great St Bernard is the most ancient pass through the Western Alps, with evidence of use as far back as the Bronze Age and surviving traces of a Roman road. In 1800 Napolean‘s army used the path to enter Italy and was depicted in many notable oil paintings. Having been bypassed by easier and more practical routes, its value today is mainly historical and recreational.
Straddling the highest point of the road, the Great St Bernard Hospice was founded in 1049. The hospice later became famous for its use of St. Bernard dogs in rescue operations. Since the Great St Bernard Tunnel opening in 1964 at 1,915 m (6,283 ft), the commercial relevance of the road over the pass was significantly reduced.
Perched in the Moyen Pays (middle country) just above the sea and leaning against the Baou rugged limestone mountains, Vence continues to stun visitors today. Image what it must have been like in April of 1913. Its special light, climate, ramparts and remains of the past blend with the festive and friendly ambience, making it a captivating town. Many artists have passed through: Matisse and Chagall, amongst others. Today, they are part of the history of this medieval town on the Côte d’Azur.
Emmet’s car in the road somewhere on the outskirts of Vence, and the surrounding area today.
I now realize that I should have a more disciplined approach to going through all of the materials in Uncle Emmet’s suitcase, but half of the fun is picking a random envelope of photos and then going to the Auto Log and seeing what they did on that day. I’m still amazed by how much they saw and what it must have been like to travel back in the early 1900s. Today’s find is a water tower in Frankfurt (Oder) – they traveled to Frankfurt from Berlin. Not sure if this structure still exists? Will need to do more research.
Update: Just spoke with my friend Alexander from Frankfurt. This tower is in the “other” Frankfurt. Germany had a number of cities and towns that repeat names. The name of Frankfurt was bestowed on two very important cities, identified by the rivers they sit upon. Frankfurt am Main was very well known as the central air and commerce hub of the European continent. But its namesake, Frankfurt an der Oder, was equally important as a border city with Poland. Nowadays, with a reunified Germany and the European Union’s expansion eastward, Frankfurt an der Oder’s star was rising as rapidly as its infrastructure was being rebuilt.
The tower still exists today and is the planetarium of a technical High School named after Johann Carl Friedrich Gauss 1777-1855 a famous German mathematician , astronomer and physicist .
Grand Tour Europe 