Prague Part 2

After our visit to the tower on Monday morning we went back into the old town area of Prague.  The daylight allowed us to get a few more photos.

This stunning building is near the powder tower (see next photos) and was on our way between the train station and the old town square.

The powder tower.  The detail on this tower is amazing!

In the old town square there is another tower that has the astronomical clocks on it.  On the hour a trumpeter stands above the clocks at the top of the tower and announces the change to a new hour.  He plays and then gives a wave on each of the four sides of the tower.

Directly below him this is what the rest of the tower looks like.  Unfortunately, the two astrological clocks were not working when we were there.

As we wandered around the square we saw all sorts of wonderful crafts, including these two guys.  The first guy was fascinating and so relaxing to watch as he worked the loom.

 ...and the blacksmith made bells and plaques...all sorts of wonderful stuff...

.... and other stalls had row upon row of handpainted eggs for easter

Then there was the food, including the ham roasting on the spit....

All sorts of wurst sizzling away on bar-be-ques



..pretzels

and these things which have a sugary, almondy, caramelly coating and are very similar to the damper we made wrapped around a stick with the scouts....yum!  They are roasted on a rotisserie and smell heavenly as you walk around.

OK so that is basically Monday done!  On Tuesday it was raining so we spent a large part of the the day in a Salvidore Dali Exhibition that was being held in the building with the twin towers (see Prague 1).  It was a brilliant way to spend a rainy day.  I had not seen a lot of Dali's work before and I found it absolutely fascinating.  Richard and I had a long discussion about how interesting it would be to crawl around inside his head.  Some ....well maybe most....of his work is just so out there.  There was a series about hell, purgatory and paradise that was really interesting, as were some sketch type pieces he did based on Don Quixotes.  There were also two paintings, 'Floridali 1' and 'Floridali 2' where he made characters out of flowers, fruits and leavesw.  They all held me captivated for quite some time and made me wish I had done art at school...but then maybe I wouldn't be as enthralled as I am now!

That was basically it for us and Prague.  On Wednesday, yesterday, we drove to Vienna where I am in bed writing this now, but you will need to wait for me to tell you about that..... and today's adventure .....ohh Hundertwasser!!!

Prague Part 1

We arrived in Prague two nights ago.  It is a beautiful city in many ways.  The older part has cobbled streets, there are trams and there are lots and lots of fairy tale towers.

We arrived in Prague late on Sunday night after a resonably long drive from Cologne.  It sounds ridiculous but one of the hightlights on the way here was the fancy loos at one of our roadside stops.  The loos were in a service station and it cost 70 Euro cents!  It seems you have to pay at most of the loos at the roadside service stations!  When you got into the toilet the seat had a funny looking block on the back of the seat with a button beside...well what would you do?  I pushed it and the seat started turning around passing under the block.  It was a seat cleaner that meant the seat came out clean and dry.  I had to have another go ...just to make sure, you understand!  Anyway it turns out I didn't need to even do this in the first place because when I pushed the button when I had finished there was a repeat performance.  Then when I had washed my hands the paper towel was delivered precisely measured I am sure, at the push of a button too!  Richard wondered why I came out of the loo giggling!  The benefits of being a girl!!

Our first night in town, we caught a tram into the centre of the city. We wandered around not really knowing where we were going or what we were doing. We found Wencelslas Square, but I have to say thought at first it was just a wide street! Then wandered a bit further and saw the following alley way.

We decided to walk down it and see where it led.  The shop windows were all a glitter with the glass displays.

It led into the old town square which is really pretty.  There is this tower with the astronomical clock (not working and more photos later)

and this fairy tale double tower...

This band were putting on a free concert in the square



..and then we went to this Jazz and Blues Club for dinner....

 ...and listened to these guys play a heap of Ray Charles' music.  They were great and the guy on the saxophone could really, really play!

Yesterday we started the day by visiting a memorial to the victims of communism 'not only those who were jailed or executed but also those whose lives were ruined by totalitarian despotism'.

We then went up the funicular to Petrin Park

and while we were there we visited the Petrin Tower.  

Harvey got this view from the top of the tower

.....and on the way to the funicular we saw this little guy...

We then went back down the funicular and caught a tram into the city.  We decided to go back into the square and get some photos of the market area. 

(I seem to be having problems downloading photos so I will publish this as is now and come back to add more later.  I still have lots more to add for Prague!!)

Seven Years Ago!

Seven years ago today I nervously walked into the the park at Southbank in Brisbane to meet the man who would become my darling husband just seventeen short months later.  I have to say, it was one of the days that I now look back on, and know is a pivotal moment in my life.  Never did I guess that day, how much my life could and would change!

This morning we set off from London, bright and sparky at 8:00am.  We drove down to the Eurostar Train Tunnel at Folkstone.  As we were driving down to the platform I looked up and saw this on the side of the hill....

There are a quite a few hillside decorations like this around the UK.  Not sure what this one is about, but I did like him!

Anyway, off we went down on to Platform 4

...and eventually we all disappeared into the middle of the train!

 ...it's hard to take a photo when the car is moving and the light's not great....but I do think this looks cool anyway!

On the Eurostar you sit in your car for the whole journey.  Nothing to see so I finished reading Elizabeth Gilbert's 'Committment'.  I have to say I thought it was great.  It was all about marriage and the history of marriage.  It was really very thought provoking.  I really want Richard to read it so we can talk about it.

Anyway the drive from the Eurostar to Cologne was all on motorways.  We drove straight through and it only took us just over four hours to get here.  We found our hotel very easily thanks to our sat nav, Portia.  She coped well with the roads here as there were no tunnels once we left Calais, and no roundabouts.

Once we settled in our room we walked up the road a short way and jumped on a tram.  Sorry forgot to get a photo, as a Melbourne girl it didn't even dawn on me until after it was too dark!  We went into the middle of Cologne.  It was quite busy and the shops were still open until about 8:00pm on a Saturday night.  We didn't really look in too many (just a couple of shoe shops!).  We walked around and saw this tower:

 There was a heap of construction going on around it so I couldn't find out what it was, but I just loved the detail which doesn't show up brilliantly in this photo!

A bit further around we came upon the Cologne Cathedral.  It is absolutely huge and stunningly intricate!
These first two photos are a parts of one side and still are not the whole thing!  Check out the size of the people in front of it and it will give you some idea of the scale of it!

 This next photo is the front of it and just one of the spires (your can see a small part of the second one on the left of the photo).  I only had my little point and shoot camera with me and without the wide angle lens that was all I was able to get a decent photo of!  This photo was in fact taken part of the way down the street opposite so that I could get the height of that spire in, but the other spire was then obscured by the buildings in the street.

We have been fortunate today with the weather.  It has been a glorious Spring day, sun shining and high teens.  I think tonight is going to get cold because there is no cloud cover.  Tomorrow were are off to Prague where we are staying three nights.  Here's hoping the weather stays as it is for a while.  We may have a challenge on our hands finding our way around....Portia does not cover Prague, but Richard has worked out the route to the hotel with his phone.  Keep your fingers crossed that we don't get too lost!!

Richard's new toy!

It has been a busy weekend for me.  I have had a few days off work at the end of last week, after catching another bug from my students.  I have caught so many since being here!  Not sure if it is different bugs in the UK or the fact that I am teaching younger children and they have a tendency to sneeze and cough all over you more than teenagers!  Anyway the result was three days home in bed and then a decision to have a laid back weekend to give my body time to get over it all. 

Yesterday Richard was out for the most of the day with his last game of the hockey season and then the dinner with the boys for the final night.  I had a very peaceful day, firstly getting the housework and some washing done and then enjoying myself.

I spent about an hour and a half playing the saxophone yesterday.  I bought the sheet music for Leonard Cohen's song 'Hallelujah'.  I can play the first bit reasonably and will continue to work on it!  The hard thing is getting back to the sax after having played the recorder daily for the past few months!  I had to look up a couple of the notes because I was confusing them with playing the same notes on the recorder.  Just a gentle reminder that I need to practice more! 

After the sax I decided to spend some time drawing.  I found an activity in Carla Sonheim's book 'Drawing Lab for Mixed Media Artists' and drew the following:

There is a photo of an eye in the book and the task is to draw it using four different media.  The first one in pencil only, the second and subsequent drawings you do a basic outline in pencil and then use pen to finish one (the second one above).  I used three different thicknesses of Pitt Pens.

The third drawing was finished with charcoal.  I used Derwent charcoal pencils in light, medium and dark.  I also used a drawing stub to help with the shading!  The final drawing was finished off using Derwent watercolour pencils.  I had so much fun doing these!  I have continued to paint and draw for much of the weekend and have really enjoyed it.  I have finally added a lot of the bits and pieces from Paris into journal pages.  It is amazing what you find when you tidy your desk!  Now there are just the ones from Greece to sort!

While I have been doing all my art lately, Richard has often found himself at a loose end.  He decided a couple of months ago to get himself a 'project' to work on.  Today he finally finished and we went to the woods across the road to take it for a spin!

So this is his new toy.  He made it from a kit and it is a remote control 2WD buggy.

This is Richard making sure he knows what the controls do!  I thought he was being overly cautious given that we were on a field and well how could it be a problem in such a big space!  However once he got it going I fully understood his caution.  It goes incredibly fast!

The blur of the ground in this photo may give you some idea of just how fast!

... and it can move quite some distance away from the operator!  It tried to go off the 'course' and into those shrubs on the right at one point!

.... and quite a few local dogs thought they would try to catch it...no chance!  The children were trying when I was driving it so no photos of them!  One toddler stood beside me and kept saying 'it's gone, all gone now!'

Like all off road vehicles when they are pushed...it needed some running repairs.  The tubing that holds the aerial wire came off  and needed to be refitted!

So I guess for a quiet weekend we still packed quite a bit in.  Only three weeks to go and I will be at the end of another school term.  We are off on another European road trip and I can't wait.  Australia really does need to look at the length of its school terms!!

Athens highlights

I just thought I would do a quick catch up today as I really have not had a lot of time with the start of the new school half term.  Athens was brilliant, even though there was an attempt made to pick my pocket on the metro!  I caught the person before she was able to take anything.  She obviously denied everything.  I know what I felt and am sure that it was only because she failed that I was able to confront her.  Thank heavens for all that 'useless' art gear at the top of my bag burying all the valuables like wallet, mobile phone, ebook and camera!  I had my pencil case and water colour paints in easy reach for me...in the way for her!  Some pickpockets just have no sense of what is really important in life! I on the other hand will remember which way to carry my bag in the future!  The catch goes TOWARDS your body Ali!!!!  A sickening but useful reminder!

Anyway, even though that happened we had a brilliant time!  Here are a few of our images from Athens:

The view as we flew over the alps!

The flea markets at Monastiraki

My Birthday Cake!

Dogs sleeping on the glass in the square near the flea markets at Monastiraki!

'Mind the Gap'  ....it's all Greek to me!!!

Sharing the day I turned 50 with the love of my life..... the Temple of Zeus in the background while we are at the Parthenon....life is brilliant!!!

I saw olives on a tree for the first time ever the same day I found out my new granddaughter's name is Olive....had to take a photo!  Wow was that tree laden and were the pigeons ever feasting!

A view from the parthenon back across Athens.

The small temple along side the Parthenon

The Parthenon...lots of scaffolding around it....but WOW it is amazing and well worth the visit!

The Temple of Zeus - The original olympic stadium!  It is over 2500 years old (so at 50 I am a real baby!)

As I said a quick catch up.  We took nearly 400 photos in Athens so this is a very limited sample!  We had the most wonderful time and really enjoyed our visit.

On a sadder note, our dog Jazz passed away yesterday morning in Australia.  Rest in peace our beautiful Jazz-a-Belle, you will be sadly missed by the whole family and all those who had had the honour of meeting you.  Such a beautiful girl!