Thoughts of July during this November rain...

Swallowtails are my second favorite Butterfly, behind the mighty Monarch.

All wrapped up and ready for Christmas...

I liked this photo so much I decided to give it its own post.  This be-ribboned package was found at Demel, and inside is a Sachertorte.  The Viennese really know how to do Christmas right.  Lights a-twinkle each afternoon, Christmas markets galore, and all that gluhwein.

Peace.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas... in Wien

Another Demel photograph..  I love that cafe.  I will miss it  I do miss it.  What you see hanging are Xmas lights.  You must see Kohlmarkt at night during Xmas! 

The green dome is the tippy top of the Hofburg Palace.  Not seen in the photo, but, below the dome and to the left is where the Lipizzan stallions practice to the soothing sounds of Mozart and Strauss. 

A is for Austria

B is for Baroque Architecture; and the Belvedere (once a Palace, now a spectacular art museum which houses many Klimts)
C is for all the Cafes mit Apfel Strudel und Sachertorte mmmm
D is for Deutsche Sprachen; and the Donau (which we Englische Lautsprecher call the Danube)
E is for Empress Elisabeth (known as Sisi, and quite a story she has; she was the 19th century's Princess Diana)
F is for Franz Josef I (hub of Sisi); also Franz Ferdinand
G is for the Graben (great place to shop, relax at a cafe, or ogle architecture)
H is for the Hofburgs, which had quite a dynasty going for 600-some years,
I is for the Imperial influence which lives on everywhere in Vienna despite the Habsburg ouster nearly 100 years ago
J is for Jugendstil, which was Vienna's answer to Art Nouveau
K is for Klimt, perhaps the most famous Kunstler (artist) of Vienna and a founder of Secessionism (art movement); also, the numerous Kunst museums including KHM (utterly astounding).
L is for Lipizzaners, those graceful stallions who perform ballet
M is for Maria Theresa, mother of Marie Antoinette; also let us not forget Mozart
N is for Napoleon, who had his foot on the neck of Austria for some years
O is for Opera
P is for the many palaces
Q is for the lovely Quartiers of Vienna
R is for Rococo; also the Romans who were in residence before all the others mentioned here!
S is for Strauss.  The Lipizzaners practice their ballet to Strauss (and Schubert, and Mozart, and Brahms...)
T is for Trams, the many trams which will whisk you to various parts of the city in no time flat
U is for U-Bahn (see Trams).  U-Bahn is underground, trams are street level (trams are also called S-bahn)
V is for Vindobona, the Roman settlement in Vienna.  The Romans trafficked the Danube heavily....
W is for Wagner (Otto, famous Jugendstil architect); also, the famous Waltz; and don't forget Wienerschnitzel!
X is for Xmas Markets
Z is for Zentralfriedhof, where 2.5 million Viennese are buried, including many household-name composers...  Z is also for Stefan Zweig, who wrote a good bio on Marie Antoinette (which I read in high school).

I couldn't really think of a good "Y" of Vienna.  Oh well.

By now I think you've figured out where I am this week.  Where is it on the map?  Well, it's roughly the same latitude as Paris and Munich (within less than one degree), and it's roughly the same longitude as Zagreb and Split in Croatia.  Pretty far east, in other words. 

What have I done this week?  Well, the above is a decent list - just about all of the above (for the historical figures, I've either visited their palace or saw a monument, etc).

I visited the Albertina which had a well executed Michelangelo exhibit (his drawings - to think they are 500+ years old in many cases) as well as a Picasso exhibit. 

I visited the Belvedere (palace) which houses many Klimts (but you won't see Klimt's Bloch-Bauers, they are in NYC now); there was also a temporary Rodin exhibit there.  Rodin was a contemporary of Klimt and in fact Klimt's The Kiss may have been inspired by Rodin's The Kiss. 

I saw an opera (Rigoletto by Verdi) at the Wiener Staatsoper (the big opera house).  I visited many Christkindlmarkts (Xmas Markets) which feature warm gluhwein to sip while wandering around the grounds and ogling the wares. 

I saw the Lipizzaners go through their paces at the Spanish Riding School (and do you know there are Roman ruins right in the imperial quad where the horses are stabled?). 

I visited the huge cemetery where 2.5 million Viennese are buried primarily to see the graves of the composers Beethoven, the Strausses, Brahms, Schubert (Mozart is not buried there).  While there I was delighted to find a church built by a pupil of Otto Wagner; it is in the Jugendstil style and check out the photo of the dome below - stunning. 

My favored cafe is Demel, which was founded in the late 1700s (1786, which was not long before Marie Antoinette, daughter of Austria, found her fate).  I will miss the pastries here. 

I have seen the Imperial apartments but not yet the Schatzkammer where the crown jewels are held.  The imperials are buried in a few different churches; by this I mean their bodies are in the Royal Crypt but their hearts are elsewhere and their entrails elsewhere yet. 

I visited a tiny little museum which shelters a Roman excavation and which had some interesting artifacts from the time period. 

I've been in a number of churches including the Stephansdom; I do want to climb its tower.  I have been lucky with weather so far (cold but no rain) and I hope that continues otherwise the climb may not be worth it. 

In starting to post photos of Vienna, I am finding there are not a plethora of Vienna travel blogs, or Vienna photo blogs, or blogs on Vienna, on the interweb!  At least not in English.  You cannot swing a stick without finding a blog about life in Paris, or photos of Paris, or what have you.  Not so Vienna.  That is a shame.  I wonder why?


Here are some photos of the past few days:

Where am I?

Test your world knowledge.  Where did I take these?

I couldn't decide which one to post so I posted both.  Which one do you think is better? 

I am really impressed, these photos were hardly a clue at all - yes, they are Machu Picchu.  Same scene, different camera settings.  I also cropped in tightly.  The photos I took are below.

Big Sur, part two

Here are some more foggy fotos from Big Sur.  When I started planning I decided that since my time was so short I was going to drive to Nepenthe, have lunch, and turn around.  Things didn't work out as planned.  It was so very foggy the view from Nepenthe was essentially staring into a white void.  No photos of it, alas.  I had high hopes!  The below will have to do, instead. 

Nepenthe would be worth a visit during clear weather.  It is quite an intriguing story.  Vast swathes of coastal land was bought by the Fassett family post-WWII from Orson Welles and Rita Hayworth.  They hired a protege of Frank Lloyd Wright to design the building which stands there now and they decided that the site was so magical it should belong to everyone.  Now you will find a restaurant and shop - and apparently some magnificent views.  I will take that on faith.  Nepenthe means, loosely "no sorrow" or perhaps "no cares".

What was interesting is that during my stay at the lovely B&B, one guest told me that when they visited Phoenix (the gift shop) they saw a simply stunning quilt by internationally renowned quilter/textile artist Kaffe Fassett.  They did not know it (and I only learned it first by talking to them), but, he is a son of the Fassetts who bought the home in the 40s.  Even more interesting is that his mother's family founded Carmel-by-the-Sea as an artists' colony!  When I used the Nepenthe "facilities" there was a large mural signed by Kaffe Fassett.  I think he now lives in London (another place after my heart...)

Regarding the photos, if anyone happens to know what the frondy vegetation might be called, I'd be much obliged if you would tell me.  I saw it EVERYWHERE along the coast. 

Big Sur, part one

The second day of my trip I left Pacific Grove in the morning for a drive down the coast to Big Sur.  Despite the fog (or maybe because of?) it was a beautiful day.  I didn't have my tripod, so my photos aren't nearly what I had envisioned for this visit.  Nonetheless, here are a few.  I'll post a few more sets in the next few days. 

Just then, I saw 20 heads bobbing in the water...

What a chilling sight.  Twenty heads, some torsos...  rolling up and down with the waves....  shudder.   The water had to have been 55 degrees, tops.  Nonetheless, the surfers were all having a whale of a time.  What was their porpoise?

This was just north of Santa Cruz, which apparently has surfing conditions par excellence... 

By the sea, by the sea, by the beautiful sea!

I took a brief hiatus from my job last week and spent 4 days visiting the central coastal area of California.  I flew in and out of San Francisco and meandered down Highway 1 from Half Moon Bay to Big Sur over the course of my stay.  My home for three of the five nights was in Pacific Grove at the Old St. Angela Inn. 

The time was far too brief but I got enough of a taste to wonder why I waited so long to visit.  I had never seen this part of California before.  I've long been interested in seeing the Steinbeck Center in Salinas, for instance, and who isn't curious about Carmel-by-the-Sea, Big Sur, and Pebble Beach.  I remember first reading about Carmel in the book "The Parent Trap" and of course the movie with Hayley Mills...  it sounded so glamourous (by-the-sea...  sigh...)

Below are a few photo highlights from the first day of my trip.  They are all handheld - no room for the tripod this trip.  I visited some beaches, and stopped briefly in Pescadero for lunch at Duarte's Tavern.  Duarte's Tavern was awarded the James Beard Foundation's America's Classics award in 2003.  It has been in the family for three, going on four generations.  Just this little stretch of Hwy 1 held so much interest and it's a shame I swept through in a matter of hours.  I could have spent days meandering through the small towns, hiking, taking photos.  This is what happens when you can only spare a few days off work. 

I spent the most time at Pigeon Point Lighthouse, which are the bottom six photos.  There is actually a hostel there, which is apparently quite a nice place to stay.  It has the location down, for sure!  The name comes from the wreck of the ship named Carrier Pigeon in the 19th century.  It holds a tie for the tallest lighthouse on the west coast of the US.

TGIF

A toast to Friday!

Above:  from the Eremo Gaudio in Varenna, Lake Como.

Below:  from the Vecchia Varenna in Varenna, Lake Como.

All photos taken in Italy.

Rocky Mountain High... Colorado

In honor of the three year anniversary of my first/only trip to Colorado, enjoy some photos I took on that trip.  It's a beautiful part of the world and one I hope to return before too much more time passes by.  The slideshow for the whole trip is far below. 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/skywalkerbeth/sets/72157602458502247/show/