creepy religious stories abound

i don't remember the name of this dark gothic cathedral in the streets behind the old town square in prague, however the recollection of the horror at having a shriveled old human hand which was proudly pointed out, by our walking tour guide, hanging on a chain from the ceiling as evidence of a religious miracle is still crystal clear in my mind. allegedly it is the hand of a thief who came to steal a statue from the church and the statue came to life (the religious miracle) and grabbed hold of the thief's wrist - so he cut off his hand to make an escape. creepy.

perhaps i just like the quiet

the irony is not lost on me at all that despite harbouring a well-developed suspicion and deep loathing of religion, that i do love the architecture of churches and am fascinated in their history. please don't mistake fascination for admiration - i am also fascinated by world war II history. this photo is taken of the inside of st stephen's cathedral in vienna. amazing catacombs lie beneath, entombing the skeletons of thousands of plague victims. the stuff of horror movies.

the curtain was raised

and the wonders of the east were revealed. night sights and sounds in praha's old town square. simply exquisite. we were walking back to our hotel after an evening in a basement pub sinking czech beer then going to watch an extremely kitsch but highly amusing don giovanni puppet show.

not london bridge, not falling down

walking across tower bridge at sunset. tower bridge is often mistaken as being london bridge. probably because london bridge is really quite boring to look at, while tower bridge is quite striking and makes for a much better photo(s). finally i should mention that tower bridge is featured in the spice girls movie when they jump their bus over the bridge. so clearly it has exceeded london bridge in the fame stakes.

old school advertising

appealing streetscape in prague. ordinarily i loathe the painted brick look but this is stylish. which is saying something given it's a billboard for foul pepsi. i wonder if mands would love the painted brick in our living room so much if i did it like this. somehow i think not :)

twisted innovation

some very funky and cutting edge architecture we came across on one of our wanders through the eternally beautiful and interesting city of prague. this was, later research uncovered, built in 1996 and is nicknamed 'the dancing house' (originally titled 'fred and ginger' after fred astaire and ginger rogers). if you happen to be in prague and are looking for it, it is on the vltava river, upstream from charles bridge.

gratuitousness

i will continue my indulgence in paris for another post. this is one spectacular outlook from the very top of the eiffel tower. there is nothing over-rated about the tower at all - it is beautiful by day and night. it is little wonder that over 200 million people have visited this global icon since its construction just over a century ago. the only negative thing about it is that when you are up it, you are not looking at it. mands got a bit wiggy at the top because it is so high up, it took some convincing to get her up there. but she was glad she went up :)

i do love paris

i really really do. and i haven't even been there in the spring time. only in the autumn and the winter. but even then, and even on a grey cloudy day like the one in the photo, it truly is a beautiful city with so many wonderful sights and experiences. and so pleasant to walk around. it is little wonder that it is the most visited city in the world. the only thing going against it is that there are french people there. but aside from that, it is just simply delightful. i have been there twice and would go back again in a heartbeat. the third time i would stay in montemarte again as i did the first time, which is the 'arty district' up on the hill with steep cobblestoned streets near sacre de cour and the moulin rouge. mands and i saw don johnson (of miami vice fame) when we were in paris, he was staying in a hotel only 5 minutes walk from ours! i may have even taken this photo just before we saw him, as he was walking into a hotel bordering place de la concorde - a major square where this egyptian obelisk is situated, with the eiffel tower in the background. the oblelisk was a gift to france from egypt in the early 1800s - it is nearly 3,500 years old. don johnson is not as old as this, but he is even better preserved.

the water out of the tap is very hard to drink

daniel johns playing with silverchair in canberra, followed by powderfinger: 'across the great divide' tour. powderchair won the headlining spot in the tour because queensland won the state of origin that year. the state of origin is the annual interstate rugby league grudge match (well, best fo 3). powderchair is from brisbane, queensland, and silverchair from newcastle, nsw. while i don't really watch league, i always barrack for the toads (queensland) in state of origin on principle. having said that silverchair is the better band and should have had headlining spot - not decided by a dumb sports competition!

i love haggis

twice, and over ten years apart, i did an almost identical 3 day minibus tour from edinburgh up through the highlands and lochs to the isle of skye then back down returning to edinburgh. why? because i loved it so much the first time round! in 1996, it was love at first sight, making scotland my favourite country in europe. then in returning to scotland over a decade later i couldn't resist doing pretty much the same route again, and why not with the same company 'haggis adventures'. the tour again passed through the truly breathtaking sight of glencoe. driving into the start of this massive valley, with two misty massive mountain ridges towering up on both sides, you feel like you are instantly transformed into an ant - you literally feel so small in comparison. this photo gives some idea of this perspective, if you look carefully you can see a teeny tiny itty bitty yellow line in the bottom right hand corner of the photo, this is the haggis bus. it is an amazing place.

there's a mouthful of wine left there

this is a bit of an abstract one which is about my personal associations with the image. it's the end of a delicious christmas day lunch with a scrunched up and admitted un-christmassy-looking napkin, the end of a good glass of wine, and the start of a good (ie tasmanian) beer. you're full and content and sharing some good times with three generations of your family. you're making memories. it's been a good day and you're happy with your lot in life. or rather, i was :) 

art, um, autumn

part of loving trees is that i really love autumn! this is an image showcasing the natural beauty of berlin - the stunning tiergarten in full autumn glory. this massive city park stretches for kilometres through the old west berlin right up to the brandenburg gate and the reichstag. mands and i were staying in a hotel near the fringe of the park so many a time we walked through it on our wanders to various sights in our week in berlin. nature is art.

barb(aric) wire

this is the remains of a wall at sachsenhausen, a concentration camp north of berlin. i don't really want to say anything more other than the grey clouds in the background are appropriate. i only took a handful of photos when i visited this site. it still makes me feel sad to think about it. actually the one other thing i will say no country or race is without a chequered history or a mistake.

the hills were alive

one morning we walked up the hill to the castle overlooking salzburg to take some photos, and as we returned we noticed an unmarked path leading off through the trees and decided to have a little look. for the next few hours we wandered the trails meandering through autumn coloured forested hills and it was lovely. 

the quadriga & victoria

having spent a day walking throughout central berlin, mostly in the old east berlin, then the sun was setting on brandenburg gate just as we were walking beneath it. there is so much i could say about berlin, but essentially i just love it. what a gritty, dark but also beautiful city in a seemingly constant state of transformation, it seems both ancient and modern all at once, it is living history, more so than anywhere else i've experienced.

take the weather with you

simultanously (well within 24 hours) held in new york, washington, rio de janeiro, johannesburg, london, hamburg, tokyo, shanghai and sydney, the world-wide series of 'live earth' music festivals weathered some heavy criticism, accused of hypocritically producing thousands of tons of carbon emissions when the objective of the event was about raising awareness about climate change. however negative nelly naysayers aside, i think this was a really great and special event and i was proud to be there to be part of it. not to mention getting to see some fantastic australian artists perform, including missy higgins, wolfmother, esimo joe, sneaky sound system, and the re-formed crowded house who headlined - with the crowd singing along to all the old favourites played, nearly drowning out the band themselves. it was a great day - this photo is more about the memories it invokes that the photo itself. which i think often is the special ingredient which makes the best photos of all.

city of contrasts

early on in our trip and by accident we came across a series of 'free' walking tours hosted in a number of the major cities in europe. they are a lot more interesting and quirky than the bog-standard bus tour packed with seniors ;) during the one we did in paris, we were taken into the courtyard of the palais royale, near to the comédie française and the bibliothèque nationale, where we saw daniel buren's 1986 installation of black and white pillars of varying lengths. this is something we probably wouldn't have come across otherwise and was a fascinating modern contrast to the renaissance-style architecture all around - somewhat similar to the glass pyramids outside the louvre. 

very much downunder

i am very fond of trees (this is probably becoming obvious!) and photos of them. i think it's as much about the tree as the background that tells a real story. this photo, with an almost silhouetted stark and skeletal looking bare tree against a grey and cloudy sky, reminds me perfectly of the exposed, windy and cold outlook that is the southern tip of bruny island in southern tasmania. i don't think there is anything other than ocean separating it from antarctica! well that's what it felt like that day.

rising above it all

i would love to say 'look at that cool hot-air balloon ride above the lovely old city of prague which we went up in to see the city, river and castle from a lofty height'. but i can't. because we didn't. usually i can talk mands into doing most things which she doesn't think she wants to do (but then she realises she does!) but not this time alas. maybe next time. definitely next time. are you reading this mands?

we're all just big kids

sparklers are fun at any age, including at a 30th. and make for cool photos with people looking like they are holding lightning in their hands. note to self to buy some sparklers and experiment with this a bit more.