This is one of those cool things that Bangkok seems to specialise in... Not absolutely a must see, unique in the world or anything, but none-the-less really cool and well worth a wander, yet nobody seems to ever heard of it. The derelict stairs, above, are a popular spot to Instagram yourself and show your street cred/bad-assness.
All of this used to be waste ground only a few short minutes walk from Siam BTS station, in 2015 the Bangkok turned into a playground and then the graffiti artists took over the walls and created this lovely little urban oasis.
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One of the highlights of our trips to Sri Lanka were the National Parks, and in particular, Yala. On our first viist, Gill missed out on this due to a sick child. So, was really wanting to spot a leopard on our return. We had a top time trundling around the park and, in the end, our guide got the call from his china's that a leopard had been spotted asleep in a tree. We tootled round, joined the queue and got our turn at looking at the distant form of a leopard draped over a branch of a tree. Very cool, but not earth shattering. On we went and saw all manner of bird and animal life. We were whizzing (relatively, anyway) from one part of the park to another, when as we rounded a bend, a leopard was lounging in the road with not another sole around him/her. This was a proper sighting and definitely the highlight of the whole trip. Roll on a few years and I was watching the Youtubes on how to edit one's wildlife photies, so I thought I would revisit the leopard.... One, to make it stand out from the background a little better so it has a bit more punch and then a hi-tone edit in black and white. The black and white one, has slowly grown on me. I definitely wasn't sure about it at first...
We haven't been to Wat Arun for ages... I am not sure we have been there since they finished repairing and restoring it.
Anyway, here's a sunset shot from one of the many rooftop bars that are there purely for the purpose of capturing these shots. All around the cathedral there is a maze of narrow lanes that provide some cracking views and images: You can just see on the right one above, a mural painted on what used to be a window opening. Below is another one. Of course, there are loads of interesting door ways too....
Bergamo's cathedral is an amazing baroque feast. It is not very subtle and understated. The outside is not all that, but there are a couple of nice details to look at. However: it is really the interior that is amazing...
One of the things I did really like about Italy is the railway system... Famously they run on time, but they are also cheap and seem to go everywhere. This means they are widely used... Who knew?
Anyway, Bergamo... The walk up from the station to the old town is steep! Very steep! But the views on a clear winter's day were stunning. Then you come to the old town itself which was fairly busy even on New Year's day, but still lovely and charming... But that's the next post.
Next to the Galleria is the Duomo (the Cathedral). And, oh, is it impressive? Er, yes!
It's huge, dedicated to nativity of Saint Mary the and took took nearly six centuries to complete: construction began in 1386, and the final details weren't completed until 1965! It is the biggest church in Italy... St. Peter's in Rome, is, of course, in the Vatican State.
The façade of the Duomo is very, very impressive. When Napoleon conquered this part of Italy and about to be crowned King of Italy, he insisted that the facade be completed tout-suite and that the French treasury would pay for it. Guess what? The money was never forthcoming but it get the thing done in just 7 years. This may seem like a long time, but you've got to remember that the Cathedral itself took 600 years, so that's pretty swift work!
I love the dark, looming, ominous clouds coming in behind a Duomo still lit with winter sun.
Because it took so long to complete there is, as you can imagine a huge amount of intrigue and politicking surrounding its construction. It's also really impressive that the list of chief engineers runs on and on over the 500 year period.
Next to the Duomo in central Milano, is Italy's oldest in use shopping gallery, The Galleria Vittorio Emmanuele II (First king of Italy). It is full of those very expensive clothes shop that don't seem to have any stock in and dates from around 1877.
It's certainly impressive and a nice place to wander but I dread to think how much the restaurants and coffee shops cost!
Beneath the central dome is a floor mosaic
Absolutely loved Milan and that whole stretch of Northern Italy. We had a week there at the end of '23 and beginning of 24.
So, let's start with something childish, but still quite cool.
One of our traditional winter walks when we are back at home is to Bamburgh. The only problem is that post Christmas it is actually quite busy. I would also say that this time I have never seen the tide so far in which made things even worse. Still the light was lovely and it certainly blew the cobwebs away.
One of the difficulties of the beach is finding some foreground interest but I did like this driftwood.
A relatively short post for a small but lovely temple in Chiang Mai.
It's only a small temple, but it is lovely. Although it's a big, gold Buddha and a big gold stupa and a big, gold dragon, I prefer the black and white version of the shot.
Some nice repeating patterns and the whimsy of these two.
Wat Sri Suphan is also known as the silver temple, for obvious reasons. It is described (accurately) everywhere as one of Chiang Mai's more unusual temoples. It is a unique (I'd think) work of art built entirely by the skilled traditional workers from the local community and is a modern interpretation of traditional Lanna design. It was built built during the reign of King Mueang Kaeo of the Mangrai Dynasty in the 16th century between 1495 and 1525.
One of our favourite things to photogrofate are a nice patinaed door, a pair o shutters of a window of some sort, and the Dordogne does not disappoint in this respect. Seem to have a lot of rooves too!
The other part of the Jardins is a long(ish) woodland work over the valley with some amazing views of rural, bucolic France. The shade is definitely welcome in the middle of a southern French July. There is a gentle transition from the formality and order of the box hedge topiary gardens and into the more natural woodland.
These gardens (Jardins, ooh la la!) came highly recommended and did not disappoint. A really nice day out.
There are the formal topiary gardens and a huge lovely long forest walk, which ahs amazing views over the valley. I have slit the blog post into two: One post for the cut box hedges and one for the shaded wander amongst the trees
The Château de Marqueyssac is a 17th-century château and gardens located at Vézac, in the Dordogne Department of France. The château was built at the end of the 17th century by Bertrand Vernet de Marqueyssac, Counselor to Louis XIV, on cliffs overlooking the Dordogne Valley. However; in the second half 20th century the house was rarely occupied and the gardens were not well maintained. Restoration began in 1966 and the gardens were opened to the public in 1997.
The Marqueyssac Gardens have 150 000 hand-pruned boxwood which are more than a little impressive.
Monpazier is a simply stunning town, founded in 1284 by Edward 1 of England. Its medieval centre is preserved almost completely intact and is considered probably the best of all the bastide towns to visit. Like all bastides the village within the walls is laid out on a grid pattern with straight roads criss-crossing throughout the town. These bastides were built with a very forward-thinking social plan of equality and each house is built on an equal size parcel of land. The houses all have different styles though which makes the resulting village very interesting but very harmonious too.
The centre of the town is its market place, with covered walkways and some of the original 'market gubbins' like scales and vats. The LNER Class A3 4472 Flying Scotsman is a 4-6-2 "Pacific" steam locomotive built in 1923 for the London and North Eastern Railway (LNER), so this was a journey to celebrate its centenary. The Flying Scotsman was the first steam locomotive clocked at over 100mph., which is why it is famous.
Being an LNER train, it regularly did the London to Scotland route and therefore crossed the border at Berwick. One of the events of the centenary was a journey on the mainline, and these are shots of it crossing the Royal Tweed Border Bridge.
This is, as the name would suggest, as temple made of marble. To be precise, white Italian marble. It is one of the temples that crops up on the 'top places to visit' or 'most instaramgrable places' in Bangkok (When did instagramable become a word?).
Construction of the temple began in 1899 at the request of King Chulalongkorn after building his palace nearby. The temple's name literally means 'the Temple of the fifth King located near Dusit Palace'. The ashes of King Chulalongkorn are buried beneath the Buddha statue in the main hall. It is the temple on the obverse side of the 5 baht coin, The weather wasn't the greatest, but I think these black and white shots of the Mahanakhon Tower came out pretty well, with some nice repeating patterns broken up by the, what would you call it? Half-finished design?
Bow Fiddle Rock is a natural sea arch near Portknockie on the north-eastern coast of Scotland and it is so called because, funnily enough, it resembles the tip of a fiddle bow.
This might be my shortest post, ever. Not a lot to say about it, apart from sorry from the dust on the lens and it was a cool sight.
Wat Sutheat is one of the oldest and most important Buddhist temples in Bangkok. It is a royal temple of the first grade, one of ten such temples in Bangkok. As a Royal Temple it has a special reverence within the country. First built over 200 years ago during the reign of Rama I, huge teak doors were added by Rama II , before finally finishing construction in 1847 when Rama III ascended the throne.
Just outside the temple, in the middle of a roundabout is one of the symbols of Bangkok; A Giant Swing that was an integral part of the old annual rice harvest festivities when groups of men rode it to its full 80ft height, as they attempted to grab bags of silver coins. Unsurprisingly, a few too many fatalities put an end to the custom. The magnificent teak arch, however, is still standing and forms part of much safer thanksgiving ceremonies in the modern day. Although often described as being one of the most instagramable places in Bangkok, I found it massively uninspiring as a photography subject. The temple itself was a another matter...
The marble floor outside the temple, gives great reflections. I need to go back just after it's rained and see if I can get even more pronounced reflections. It is definitely one of Bangkok's quieter temples. I wouldn't say I had to myself, but there can't have been more than a handful of others there, including locals who come to pray. Outside the walls Bangkok rages in it's noisy busy-city was but it is very peaceful inside.
Inveraray was our first base for our summer jaunt through Scotland. It is a totty-wee village on the edge of Loch Fyne and very lovely it is too. Although it might be a tad isolated in the winter, I suspect. A little bit of early morning mist over the loch, with the sun peeping through would have made for some great pics.... But no such meteorological luck.
This is exactly the sort of thing we were looking for last summer in Scotland... Not really your major sights but the smaller, less common, but cool things.
This wee kirk is certainly all that and a bag of chips! Even voted one of the top 10 buildings in Scotland in 2016 and has similar intricate carving to Roslyn Chapel.
It was built in 1881–6; and substantially extended from 1906 to 1914. The heavy oak beams in the cloister are believed to have come from the (then) recently broken up wooden battleships, HMS Caledonia and HMS Duke of Wellington. An eclectic blend of church styles, from ancient Roman to Norman, it is built of local stone. It consists of a nave and chancel, with the chancel-stalls being canopied. Large, unsmoothed boulders of granite from nearby Ben Cruachan, form the piers which carry the chancel arch, and the transepts make the Sacred Cross.
Beijing covers an insane amount of land. An hour and a half drive out of the city (north or west) and you reach mountains, yet you're still within Beijing - it's mad!
This mountainous district is a historically revolutionary area of Beijing, apparently. In the mid-winter, as the country comes out of it's Covid-zero strategy, it's hard to see how it might have been revolutionary - we were virtually the only people there! The mountain terrain covers over 560 square miles and there are plenty of hiking trails, most of which are well signposted.
The hike that we went on was meant to be a 3-hour hike; we seemed to manage it in 6! We did take a wrong turn at one point which added to our walk. Part of the trail has a protected section of an ancient trade route. The circular marks in the stone were apparently created by the donkeys constantly treading those paths on their way to the other side.
The red rock exposed is the only section of this part of mountain that clearly shows the differences in colours and layers within the rock. The scenery was stunning and we had the place, mostly, to ourselves.
The bronze monument shows three Commandos surveying the area which was their training ground during World War II, on a stone cairn and is dedicated to the men of the original British Commando Forces raised during World War II. It is here because that is where they did their original training and looks out towards Ben Nevis.
The statues are said to be of actual commandos rather than just three figures that the sculptor created. |
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AuthorsWe are teachers and have worked in various schools in Europe & Asia. This is really a chronicle of out travels over the years. It is meant for us to look back on, reflect and remember where we've been, what we've done and all our little adventures. If you like it too, then fab! If you don't, do you think we care? Archives
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