louvre

I stopped at stories. The first was a collossal  bronze depicting the four countries France had conquered. Rome, Dutch, Spain and Brandenburg. Just last week, I got to know of a place of that name. The person next to me on a flight was from there! 

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The seasoned philosopher Diogenes, the cynic, who has given up the luxuries of life tells (off) the conqueror Alexander the great..." You're blocking my sun". Alexander is known to have said, "If I weren't Alexander, I would have liked to be Diogenes". 

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Amohitrite calms the seas. She rides a sea lion, holds a conch shell (perhaps to check for water quakes, decibel of sound...who knows). The chubby child cupid ( why are they all boys?) holds a coral. She's the wife of Neptune who lords over the stormy seas, taming with his trident,  the unpredictable wild horse which I assume depicts the weather.

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Baby Oedipus is hung on a tree and left to die because of a phopheay that said, he would kill his father one day. A hunter saves him and brings him up as his own.

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Raherka ( Ra - sun god) and Merseankh (she loves life). This couple show up from time to time. Who were they? Some things don't change

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This ancient urn with antelopes and flamingos brought flashes of flamingos from back home :)

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This is a book mark, studded with rubies and turquoise and pearl, for the book of Paris. What was the book for?

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The woman is valued. What makes anything or anyone valued? Is it finesse or fate? Is it by chance or design? 

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Hercules saves the mistress of Zeus from the monster Argon. The knife on his heel signifies he has beheaded the monster. Hercules then clips on his wings and flies to the heavens.

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First sight of the big E from behind closed doors ...er...windows of the Louvre 

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Nepoleon dined well

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De la Croix of suffering at the jaws of war

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Picasso

Its a rainy day and the sky still sulks

Each ye has different thoughts. Only one mouth can speak

Picasso starts painting in spiderweb style that plays on claustrophobia and arachnophobia....a reflection on constriction and dilemma of thoughts during the Spanish civil war and the imminent world war Ii

He painted his mother-in-law

His raw thoughts he put down in a sketch book. He had wooden figures from tribes of far away. He didn't know why but it's aesthetics spoke to him

Andre Breton says of Picasso in Composition au pappillion, "it's an extra pictorial composition" Taking everyday things and assembling them in extraordinary ways.

Venus du gaz is as much an evocation of catastrophe as a totem of hope

He used colours and people and perspectives he saw around him

Materials he used...anything he could get, assembling them in new ways

From sketch to painting

Creativity in his final years involved quick brush strokes people described as doodles of a frenetic old man. Before of course his genius was understood. One such is Tete dHomme.

And then he had babies...and a certain tenderness set in

A film narrated by Maya plays at the museum

Fantacy in domesticity

Paris - artists orangerie

The orangerie was built specially for Monet by the then government after her presented a painting to the prime minister/president. Two oval rooms in the direction of the meridian so there is maximum light, and there are 4 huge panels of Waterlilies in them. You can sut for hours...mesmerised. 

Rodin

Just outside the orangerie 

There's a private collection of  Guillaume Paul which housed many many names...

Renoir

Matisse

Cezanne

Rousseau

among others. A must see.

Paris

Notre dame is under reconstruction. The destruction caused by the fire in 2019 is painstakingly being repaired. The afternoon sun plays on the piano man belting out tunes to the rarher well behaved crowd. The fountain of St Michael is just around the corner and is worth the visit. There is a big crowd waiting to get into the Chapele. There are artists who will make a portrait, caricature, charcoal sketch of you. Old (really really old) books are sold to collectors who still care. The cafes are open for business. Smell of crepes wafts around like a hungry pet. Cute French berets (made in China) are sold in rows of stalls. Boats of tourists are taking a river cruise, like I did with my mum and dad many many years ago. It's different now. I'm different now. 

The pretzel of trainlines is easy to use. And people...Oh isn't it always about the people...are quite lovely really. Very patient with the wide eyed tourist. And they do speak English! 

Ravenna

Ravenna ... It's a small town with lots of little chieses. Wisteria grows everywhere, the lilac cones dropping in multitudes from walls and terraces.
Ravena is known for mosaic work and each of its citizens has a piece of mosaic for a name plate. There are local artists who have their own studio, making modern quirky versions of church classics. The one we visited was happy to share his skills, give away secrets of material he uses and has an exhibition in Japan next week.
The church at Ravena Basilica di Sant Appollinaire nuovo has immensely writeaboutable çeiling mosaics.

This town has a sense of humour. Outside churches, on electric control boxes, an artist has fun with the holy mother of God. In another church, two guys are sorting olive branches in preparation for an Easter event. We get talking and they say that the church is a 'fake church' as in... The original was destroyed by an earthquake and the church then decided to raze it to the ground and rebuild it.

You find busy lunch places with vegetarian vegan food and you could pay by the weight. Of course with wine and desserts.. cobbled streets, wanderings, poplar trees, wisteria, brick walls, pre-roman remnants, and then the churches and the mosaics. The Baptistry is built on older Greek pre Christian temple.

It's good weather and the bus to classe cruises. Classe comes and goes and the driver, with a benevolent turn of mouth, says he can't stop now. Huh? What? Apparently he has to be told to stop.. ahead of time. So we land up at this one cafe town with no way back. Then in that lone cafe, there was this girl. I explained in the little Italian I know... Aided by a series of gesticulating limbs...we  needed to get to classe. No bus. No taxi. Walking on highway was forbidden. A customer came up and in a second offered to drop us to classe ... 10 km away. He went home, picked up his car, cleared it and drove us... He'd spent a month in Calcutta... And said he'd been stranded and was helped and that what goes around comes around...

That was one for faith in humanity.

Classe has a solitary church with its ceiling help up by wooden beams.  light filters in through high windows and hits the golden mosaic... Somehow.. today it was more about about men than about the gods...


That's Ravenna.
For everything else... There's always

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ravenna

April 2019

Basel again

There's a light installation at Basel SSB. It makes chirping sounds. Does remind me of the time I was here last time...i sat outside under a real tree and had thoughts of. On the other side of the station is a wall showing the tram stop...live. isn't that cool. I have to take tram number 8. If you've booked an Airbnb, Basel allows you to travel free to reach your booking. Isn't that cool too? :) It's raining and my fingers are starting to protest in the cold. As I say this, i get a text. A minute later a lady walks by with a big M bag from Migros. There you are :) Yesterday Italy recorded fifty thousand cases. And a 1000 flights have been cancelled. Maltese Falcon...stay safe. 

Ljubljana

Ljubljana at 4 am looks like a little lost town finding its feet. Our host Martin comes to pick us up in his blue Peugeot. This is at 8. In the 4 hours, moved luggage and selves across 3 cafes. All in 20 step vicinity of each other. The apartment is perfect. The weather, wet and a bit chill to be summer.  Sure to run into wardrobe problems. There are supposed to be 8 days of rain in July. I'm here for four of them.
Buses are not frequent but do exist and suffice. But most places are walkable if your feet comply. Don't forget to look lost with a map in hand. Friendly ljublanians will stop and ask if you need help.

Three bridges.
Dragon bridge. Many legends about the dragon. And it's green, the same color as the water in Ljubljana's river. There are three Rivers that go round. The Ljubljanica, the Sava, the Gradaščica.
The town hall is housed in an old building. It has a well and a map on its wall of older settlements of Ljubljana - a medieval one and a Roman one. The Romans called it Emona. You can find cafes along the cobbled streets. One of them is an old house with a hearth, solid wooden tables and benches, terracotta floors and the old brickwork can still be seen. One cafe along the river had this sign 'Unattended children will be given a free kitten and a shot if tequila :)' I like these people.

The museums are very well presented to the visitors and the staff are always cheerful and willing to help.  Oh one more thing, Ljubljanians speak English. This sets them apart from the rest of Europe. You can get a 48 hour pass that allows access to museums and sights and transport for 30 €.


There's a sale on at every store. The town square has a silly "own weather" spot and all the kids...and adults walk past it and get wet in the drizzle. It's so stupid, it's sweet. Next to it is a swank store, a shopping centre that is functioning since 1913.

Gelato shops line the Riverside. On some days, you have a flea market and interesting wares and interesting people. One man was playing an accordion, a small smile accompanying perfect tunes. When the song ended, he grinned and told us that its all recorded sound.

The castle is free for visitors, but if you want to go up to the tower, from where you get to see...30% of Slovenia according to the audio guide....A bugle call by suited buglers gets people smiling.


If you have time, visit the Zala cemetery. Bus no 2. People come to tend the graves. Each one has a lantern and a little flower patch. It's like a town. Here and there you can find some interesting sculptures. A rectangle of crosses marks the lives and deaths of soldiers who died in battle.

There's a fresh foods market everyday for fruit and veg, cheese and nuts and local produce. We even found a man selling ghee! You can go for a run in Tivoli park early in the morning. It's a beautifully kept green trail. There's a train station nearby  adding to the quaint air of Ljubljana.