Bygone Beautys Treasured Teapot Museum & Tearooms is nestled in the village of Leura within the Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area. The tearooms and showrooms offer visitors a truly memorable experience – so don’t forget your camera! Home of world’s largest private collection of teawares, including more than 5,500 teapots from all over the world and spanning five centuries, most items are on display in the Treasured Teapot Museum.
The ultimate experience is to enjoy the famous silver service Traditional High Tea or the ever-popular Devonshire Tea in the Bygone Beautys Tearooms. Visitors can also purchase estate jewellery (gold, silver and diamonds), antiques, collectables and contemporary quality gifts, including a wide variety of boutique teas – all scattered throughout the Retail Emporium.
On most days you may catch the proprietor, Maurice Cooper OAM, (better known as The Teapot Man or Mr Teapot) serving customers at the front desk. Maurice will be easily recognisable wearing a bow tie, and will probably be in the midst of selling a diamond ring to a customer. Maurice and some of the staff are themselves great examples of Bygone Beautys!
To find us on foot from Leura Railway Station or, if driving to the Blue Mountains from Sydney, turn left off the Great Western Highway into Leura Mall. Go past the railway station, turn left into Railway Parade at the roundabout, then turn right into Grose Street. Continue straight ahead to the next corner and on your left you will find Bygone Beautys. With car park and lift availability, we offer Disabled Access and welcome visitors of all ages.
Museum Admission of $5.50 per person is redeemable with an equivalent purchase in the tearooms or retail area.”
At the end of our holidays on our way back home we stopped at WentworthFalls:
There is a great coffee shop bakery at Wentworth Falls, where we had some delicious lunch! Among other things I had a very good vegetarian soup!
“Schwarz Patisserie is not only well known in the Blue Mountains, it is famous as a specialist German bakery throughout the region with visitors travelling from far a-field just to grab one of their delights.
For over 24 years, the Schwarz family have hand-baked fabulous continental cakes, pastries, pies and bread daily according to traditional recipes. Wedding and speciality cakes are made to order.
They also serve coffee and a selection of delicious light meals.”
We liked the hot apple cider. This was just the right thing to have on a cold winter day. I also had a very good pumpkin soup and Peter had a chicken pie and salad.
This is the Entrance to the Cafe at the Razorback Inn in Picton
One year ago Peter mentioned the following on Facebook, and Facebook reminded Peter today of that entry which Peter allowed me to copy here:
27/07/2019 11:06 AM
Today we had lunch at the “Yellow Deli” at Katoomba. It is run by the same cult, the “Twelve Tribes”; as the “Common Ground Bakery” is near Picton where we were four weeks ago. It is a cosy little place where the service and the food are excellent. On a cold day, like today, we loved the hot…
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Mr Assange — an Australian citizen — is now charged with 17 counts of espionage and one count of hacking and faces a possible 175 years in jail if he is eventually extradited to the United States and found guilty.
The Obama administration also looked at the possibility of charging Mr Assange with espionage but eventually decided that a prosecution under the espionage act would be too problematic.
They concluded that if the US courts could charge WikiLeaks with publishing the classified information, they could also charge The New York Times.
The Trump administration obviously doesn’t feel The New York Times problem is so acute. . . . ”
On a sunny morning in winter Peter and I love to sit in front of our house with a cup of tea or coffee.
So these pictures are from early in June this year.
We had just bought this new set from Bunning when the above picture was taken. It is great that we can use the little table and chairs for sitting outside in the sun. But usually we do not leave everything outside. All these things are very useful inside here too and so easy to move around a bit! These flowers on the table we probably had already on Mothers Day as can be seen from the below picture that was taken on Mothers Day.
The following pictures are also from my June 2019 picture folder:
Early in the morning I love to stroll to these trees! To be with these trees for a while to me is the perfect start of the day.
I am about to start some morning exercise!
Here is Peter on a morning when he went for a little stroll with me. Usually he prefers to do a walk on his own, a proper walk that is, with a bit of speed. I walk too slowly for him!
In 1964 when five young newly arrived immigrants met in a Sydney migrant hostel and formed a garage band, little did they know that they would take Australian rock’n’roll to the world. This is the story of The Easybeats.
Friday On My Mind
Series 1 | Episode 2DRAMA88 mins
In part two the band are in London where success hasn’t come easily. On the verge of collapse they are introduced to smash hit producer, Shel Talmy and together they put out the monster international hit Friday On My Mind.
We liked the hot apple cider. This was just the right thing to have on a cold winter day. I also had a very good pumpkin soup and Peter had a chicken pie and salad.
This is the Entrance to the Cafe at the Razorback Inn in Picton
One year ago Peter mentioned the following on Facebook, and Facebook reminded Peter today of that entry which Peter allowed me to copy here:
27/07/2019 11:06 AM
Today we had lunch at the “Yellow Deli” at Katoomba. It is run by the same cult, the “Twelve Tribes”; as the “Common Ground Bakery” is near Picton where we were four weeks ago. It is a cosy little place where the service and the food are excellent. On a cold day, like today, we loved the hot apple cider that warms you up.
From there we went to Picton to have a look at the GEORGE IV INN. We thought we might be able to stay there overnight.
As it turned out we stayed there only for a few drinks. We did have a look at their accommodation. But it was not to our liking for they could not provide us with any heating for any of the bedrooms.
So we stayed in a motel a bit outside of Picton where we had a large warm room with all the conveniences.
There was also dinner available on the premises, and so we had some excellent food and drinks there:
This sign was in our bathroom. I think their tank water was limited because they did not have enough rain for a while.
We checked out early in the morning and had breakfast here:
We rather liked this little town where we had breakfast. Then we drove on to Bowral.
The little town where we had breakfast was Tahmoor:
Before I was three we lived in Taunus Strasse, Berlin- Friedenau. Some time during 1937 we moved to Bozener Strasse in Berlin-Schöneberg. This is where Tante Ilse and Onkel Addi lived as well and also my friend Cordula and her parents. Later on we did get to know Family T. who lived in the house opposite our apartment building.
During my early childhood Bozener Strasse was a very quiet street. There were no cars parked in the street.
Tante Ilse had this narrow but very long balcony with a lot of plants to water. As a two year old I loved to help with watering some of the plants!
Uta loves to water the plants. Mum is looking on.
Here Mum still has this “Bubikopf” which I believe became fashionable already in the 1920s.
In the next picture, which was taken in Bozener Strasse on 21st September 1947, my brother Peter is nearly six. I stand behind Peter. I turned thirteen on this day. My brother Bodo is on the left. He is nine. Beside him Eva Todtenhausen, who is going on twelve and beside Eva is Cordula who is twelve. Today I found out that Cordula died in July 2011, aged 76. This was very sad news for me. 😦
The above picture is from my birthday in 1940. We stand under the huge chestnut tree. Cordula spent part of the war outside of Berlin. She is not in the 1940 picture.
We took the following picture of Bozener Strasse during our Berlin visit in September 2012. It is still the same chestnut tree. But look at all the cars now!
Our apartment was on the third floor, Tante Ilse lived two floors further up. Mum quite often went up with me to visit Tante Ilse. One of my early memories is that Tante Ilse and Mum were lying under the bright lights of some tanning lamps (Höhensonne). They used some oil on their skin which smelled beautiful and made their skin look shiny. Their skin usually had quite a bit of a tan. They wore some protective dark glasses. Sometimes they made me lie under the lamp for a little while. I liked it when some of this nice smelling oil was rubbed all over my body. I too had to wear these dark glasses. I liked to wear them for a little while. But I was required to lie totally still. Very soon I did get sick of it, not wanting to lie still any more under the hot tanning lamp. I was then always glad when I was allowed to get up again.
I remember thinking that Auntie was a very beautiful looking woman with her very long curly hair. In the three way mirrors of her dressing table I remember watching how Auntie brushed her hair. It was very strong and long chestnut-coloured hair. Auntie usually brushed it slightly back so it stayed behind her ears. She often wore very long blue earrings. Oh, I loved the look of these blue earrings. They looked beautiful hanging down from Auntie’s ears! I think Mum did not wear any earrings, because her ears were covered by her hair. Mum’s brown hair was very fine and much shorter than Auntie’s. My hair was rather fine too. Mum always cut it quite short. I often wished that I could wear my hair longer but Mum would not let me grow it longer.
Both Auntie Ilse and Mum wore identical three big rolls of hair horizontally on top of their heads. The front rolls covered the top of their foreheads, the other two rolls were rolled behind the front roll. They often wore identical clothes, for instance light pink angora wool tops with identical grey suits.
1948: Mum 37, Uta 14, Bodo 10 and Peter 7.
Mum features her three big rolls of hair, I am already allowed to wear my hair long!
———-
Mum often called me ‘MAUSEL’ or ‘Mauselchen’, whereas Auntie liked to call me ‘HERZCHEN’ or ‘LIEBLING’. Dad sometimes said ‘HERZEL’ to me, but he usually called me by my name. Mausel is derived from Maus (mouse), Herzchen means ‘little heart’, Liebling means ‘darling’.
Cordula’s mum once told me, that her name meant ‘heart’ in the Latin language, but not to tell anyone otherwise some children would make fun of the name. I did not want anyone to make fun of Cordula. So I promised myself to keep the meaning of the name to myself.
My brother Bodo was born in June 1938. I think Cordula’s brother Tilwin was born a few months after that. Mum said that Tilwin was an extremely odd name. It turned out he grew up with very bright red hair. The children in the street teased him about his hair. As much as possible Cordula always stood up for her brother. I think for the most part Tilwin avoided playing with other children.
The Lepsius apartment was on the same side as our apartment, just two floors further up. (Auntie Ilse’s apartment was on the other side of the fifth floor). I often went up to the Lepsius apartment all by myself to play with Cordula. They had a ‘roof-garden’ (Dachgarten) above their apartment. It was the size of a big room and had no roof above it. I remember the sun shining right into it. The floor was concrete and along the walls were garden-beds . Cordula was allowed to look after her own little garden-bed.. Once Cordula’s Mum let me have a portion of a little garden-bed too! Cordula’s Mum and Dad were always kind to me. They made me feel welcome and included.
Cordula’s family had food that I had never seen before.. For snacks we children were often given some kind of brown flakes and raisins. Sometimes we were given dates or figs. I loved this food! My Mum thought it was strange to eat something like that. In Mum’s opinion this family was rather odd because they had lived in the Middle East for a while. Cordula’s father was an architect. My Mum called him ‘the Hunger-Architect’ (Hungerleider) since he seemed to get hardly any work in his profession.
Mum must have seen their apartment once for I remember her remarking how sparsely furnished it was. Mum found their choice of furniture quite odd. There were a great number of shelves stacked full with books. These shelves went from floor to ceiling. Herr Lepsius sometimes showed us children books with colourful illustrations. He also told us stories. We loved one story in particular which had a funny ending. We demanded to be told that story again and again. Each time we laughed our heads off and Herr L laughed with us. The story was about a beggar who knocked at the door of an apartment. A beautiful maid opened the door. Some time later the beggar knocked at another door of an apartment in the neighbouring building. And the same beautiful maid opened the door! We found the astonishment of the beggar very funny! Herr L explained to us, that a wall had been broken through to connect the apartments on that floor. This was actually where the family of Herr L had lived, when he was a boy.
Herr L was old and bald. He was about twenty years older than his wife. Quite a few years later Cordula and I went to the same high-school. We walked there together every morning. One morning I climbed up the stairs to Cordula’s apartment to find out why she had not come down yet to go to school with me. I rang the bell. Frau L opened the door. She was in tears. She did not let me come in but went with me to the top of the stairs. She said: “Our father just died; I haven’t even told Cordula yet.” She looked at me with despair in her face. I did not know what to say. She hugged me and then she disappeared in her apartment.
12 Responses to “Early Memories”
berlioz1935
June 3, 2013 at 10:54 am Edit #
The last paragraph is very interesting as you must have rang the door bell at a moment of great turmoil and grief for the L. family.
That gave me an idea and I Googled her and I must say I’m very sorry to say I have learnt that your friend Cordula has passed away in the European summer of 2011.
I will send you the notification by email.
REPLY
auntyuta
June 3, 2013 at 12:15 pm Edit #
Thanks for that, Berlioz.
REPLY
giselzitrone
June 3, 2013 at 7:08 pm Edit #
Hallo liebe Freundin wünsche dir auch einen schönen Tag wieder so schön geschrieben ja die gute alte Zeit man hat gute und schlechte Erinnerung daran,und alles liegt schon so weit zurück.hatte heute mal keine Lust viel zu schreiben,naher kommt jemand raus um den P.C. anzusehen manches mal stimmt was nicht ist immer was ärgerlich.Ich wünsche dir eine glückliche schöne Woche bei euch scheint sicher die Sonne bei uns ist Regen.Lieber Gruß von mir.Gislinde
REPLY
auntyuta
June 3, 2013 at 9:14 pm Edit #
Ja, hoffentlich hört der Regen bei euch bald auf. In vielen Teilen Deutsclands sind ja zur Zeit Überschwemmungen. Wir sahen es in den Nachrichten. Wir hatten auch wieder etwas Regen. Dieser wurde bei uns gebraucht, denn es fing schon an etwas auszutrocknen.
Na, dann lass mal deinen PC recht schön auf Schwung bringen!
Dann macht das Schreiben wieder Spass. Viele liebe Grüsse von Uta.
REPLY
likeitiz
June 4, 2013 at 4:34 pm Edit #
Lovely photos, Aunty. I guess back in those days the adverse effects of tanning salons was not known yet. You had gorgeous hair at 14 years in one of the pictures. Do you know where your friend Cordula is nowadays?
REPLY
auntyuta
June 4, 2013 at 4:59 pm Edit #
My husband Peter aka Berlioz made a comment to the last paragraph of this blog. It gave him the idea to research on Google where Cordula is nowadays. He found out the sad news that Cordula died in the European summer or autumn of 2011, aged 76. Sad news: 😦
Thanks for commenting, Mary-Ann.
I feel sorry that I had lost contact with Cordula over the years. The last time I had seen her was in 1986. I probably could have done more to keep in touch with her. All I know is that at the time her priorities were to give her two children the best possible start in life and to establish a business with her older and already retired husband.
The death notice the computer found for Peter in a church bulletin from October 2011. This was definitely a death notice for Cordula. It showed the correct spelling of her first name and double surname.
REPLY
WordsFallFromMyEyes
June 5, 2013 at 10:16 pm Edit #
You at 14 is wow. And your mother looks so lovely. I can’t imagine handling that many kids!
Re the oil over your body – I agree. I would have loved that 🙂
REPLY
auntyuta
June 5, 2013 at 10:31 pm Edit #
Funny you should think three kids is too many. Actually Tante Ilse thought so too. She thought two children would have been plenty, especially during times of war.
The oil, yes Noeleen, I really loved the smell. I can still imagine all the beautiful smells in Auntie’s bedroom. I am still very sensitive to smell. Some smells I love, others I detest.
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The Emu
June 5, 2013 at 11:07 pm Edit #
Beautiful yet sad memories Auntyuta, I see by one of the other comments that your friend Cordula passed away in 2011, a beautiful friendship spanning many years.
Emu
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auntyuta
June 6, 2013 at 12:18 am Edit #
Emu, thanks very much for your comment. I have so many memories about Cordula going as far back as 1937 I believe. It’s kind of strange that there are big gaps when she wasn’t around because of the war. There were some beautiful years of friendship after the war. However she was in a different school year and had not the same friends that I had. Maybe Lieselotte who was in my class, was the only mutual friend we had. Then her Mum died and she moved away to live with her aunts. Later on she lived in the Middle East. She wrote me beautiful letters. She had a good job. She married late in life. Had two children, sent me lovely photos of her family. She moved with her husband back to Germany. I only saw her once again for an afternoon visit. This was in 1986, such a long time ago! There’s so much I don’t know. Maybe there’s a chance to find out where Tilwin, her brother, is. The last we heard from him, he lived with his wife and two children in Düsseldorf. But this goes back maybe fifty years. Such gaps in time.
I can only say that I always thought that Cordula was a very special person. Maybe I’m imagining things, but I think she was filled with inner beauty. No, I’m not imagining this. This is how she was. I am sure she led a good life. You’re right, Emu, beautiful yet sad memories.
REPLY
DevonTexas
June 6, 2013 at 1:41 am Edit #
mein Mitgefühl für die Freundin. I’m pleased, however, that you are sharing these memories with us. I feel like I was there. Gute Woche!
The following is a copy of this blog I published then on the 20th July 2013:
At 8,20 this morning we caught the bus in Dapto, going to Wollongong and arriving there at Marine Drive by 8,45 am. Bad weather had been forecast. This is why we left early hoping that we might be lucky and still have a bit of sunshine before the weather turned bad. We were right. Beautiful morning sun received us at Wollongong’s foreshore and we took off on our walk. It was very beautiful to walk along the foreshore this early on a winter morning.
Peter saw this beautiful little car in the street and took a picture of it.
We waited at this bus stop for the free shuttle bus that was to take us into Wollongong City.
In Wollongong City we met up with our friend Sylvia for some coffee in a Spanish Cafe.
We went back to Dapto by bus, picking up a bit of fruit in Dapto Shopping Centre. Just before midday we were back home again. We were happy that we had left early for this terrific outing. As it turned out, in the afternoon the weather was indeed not as good anymore.
Tomorrow, Sunday, we’ll go out for lunch to meet the family to celebrate little Lucas being one year old.
Of course we are looking forward to this very much.
Here is a link to the blog I published six years ago about the celebration of little Lucases birthday:
This is the Entrance to the Cafe at the Razorback Inn in Picton 
AuntyUta 