On a cold January day .....

...we went to Stowe. Folly madness!





(Don't try this at home)

Krakow

A corner of Krakow's vast main market square (Rynek Główny w Krakowie) with St Mary's Basilica on the right.

Every hour, on the hour, from one of the towers a trumpeter plays a suitably haunting tune that cuts off mid note, commemorating some poor bloke who took an arrow in the throat while warning of the looming Mongol hordes.

Mmmmm Mongol hordes.

Ladies and gentlemen, if you now look over to your right we have the Sukiennice or medieval cloth hall, which stands smack bang in the middle of the main square (told you it was big). There are still market stalls inside today.

A short walk from the main square, up a hill (try not to slip in the icy puddles), is Wawel castle. Unfortunately, as we were up there on Christmas Eve, the interior was closed. Luckily ambling about the grounds was permitted. A pot luck of very confused architecture. The inner courtyard was very impressive.

Random picture frenzy:

On one of our forays out of the city we visited the Wieliczka salt mines. I didn't know what to expect, but even my wildest imaginings didn't include a cathedral. Made of salt. About 100 metres underground. Say what now? Salt stairs, salt chandeliers, salt floor, salt 'last supper' fresco, salt Jesus, salt Mary - the works. I believe there is around 300km worth of tunnels and thousands of chambers down there. We trotted around 3.5km. The way down was quite fun - 120ish flights of stairs as I recall. The way up was even more fun - very fast moving elevators resembling people sized sardine tins (but at least we didn't have to take the stairs).

I can't say much about our other foray. There's not many words you can use to accurately describe the vast rooms full of shoes, clothes, toothbrushes, hair. And the rest.

There is still a very strong Jewish presence in Krakow, even though the population is not particularly big. The first Jewish ghetto in the city was brought into being in the fifteenth century. Eventually it became part of the city, the district named Kazimierz. When the Germans arrived in September 1939 they built walls around the district of Podgorze and crammed 15000 Jews into an area that had once housed 3000. The square that became the departure point for liquidated Jews is today a memorial filled with chairs that represent the furniture and belongings that people were forced to leave behind.

Sad places all.

On a brighter note, Bison Grass Vodka is very good. Try some if you ever get the chance.

I very much dislike the layout capabilities (or lack thereof) of this blog site. I can never seem to get it to do what I want. Serves me right for not learning how to do it properly with all geekery and stuff.

Shamblification!

Only

left until implementation of institutionalised matriarchy!

If you have no idea what I'm talking about, don't worry, we don't mind! :)

Anais Mitchell - Hadestown: The Wall

We were lucky enough to hear Anais sing this during her set in Turners Hill a couple weeks back ....

The little things

Sometimes it's the little things that make you smile.

Take today for instance, happily driving home from a trip to an English Heritage property and this appears.


I have not the words.

A river runs through it

Amsterdam

Word-association.

Drugs, red-light-district, canals.



Check, check, check. It's got 'em all. Of course, I can't show you the drugs or the red light district since the girls don't like their photos being taken (and I'd like to keep the camera in one piece) and I think the drugs are technically illegal, if ignored... kinda a weird situation there.

Oh yeah... bicycles! Check checkily checky check check.... LOTS of bikes!


They have their own roads and traffic lights, even parking lots, I was suitably impressed.

However, it's also an incredibly nice place to be, not just some tourist trap. The people that we met were really nice, the scenery was gorgeous. It didn't seem too crowded even though the population density makes it 25th most densely populated place on earth (compared with the UK at 91st and NZ at, wow, this list is long... erm, 204th!)

Nice varied architecture (one of my pet-peeves about the UK, the lack thereof), cool canals running through it all, cheap reliable public transport and just a very laid-back feeling about it all.

So, on the Thursday/Friday it was all great, quiet, relaxed, thought we were onto a good thing. Then the weekend arrived, so did the tourists. Dear god they're obnoxious. Drunk/stoned/annoying/loud, swooping upon this poor place. And the locals just accept it and life goes on, bravo to them I reckon!

Oooh. A fair! :)


Still, the Netherlands, Amsterdam in particular, is a place I think I'd quite like to live, it's just got a nice feel to it all and everything (for the short time we were there) just seemed to work.

Hell, even the airport was nicely organised, clearly readable signs that all make sense and easy to work out where you are and where you need to be (anyone who's been to Heathrow back me up here, some airports are definitely worse than others)

Snow, no, really!

Remember what time of year this is, beginning of April... So, for the UK that means that spring is supposed to be in full swing and we're on our way to summer.

Maybe someone should have told the weather gods.


This is the best snow we've had since we got here, nice big fluffy piles of the stuff, makes for some gorgeous photos too.

So, we on quite a trip around various places like Nyman's Garden, Ightham Mote and Devil's Dyke, places we enjoyed in the sun and figured would be quite good in the snow too.


Cherry blossom... snow... cherry blossom... snow... erm.


Nyman's was nice and quite quiet. Ightham was also pretty good, and it appeared that every man and his dog (in some cases literally) were at Devil's Dyke.

Some people make snowmen, I tried that but my gloves were too thin and soaked-through, so I took them off, forgetting how cold the damned stuff is... frozen water... and I call myself smart :( and I was just a tad out of practise (I think the last time I did it properly I was nine.) but I helped a guy making what can only be described as a monstrosity of snowballs.


Since Devil's Dyke was at the end of the day the snow was a bit thin on the ground as everyone had been tromping all over the stuff all day and at that point we decided to head home.

Mel didn't stop grinning the whole day, she'd been hanging out for snow since, well, since last time.