Cee’s challenge this week is about Bridges. Of course there can be both indoor and outdoor bridges! Both hot and cold!
Arkitektur
CFFC: Stairs or Steps
Lens-Artists Challenge #36: – Around the Neighborhood
Tinas challenge this week is to take us Around the Neighborhood. Your own, someone else’s or maybe from where you stayed on one of your travels. I have chosen our summer paradise in Blekinge, Sweden.
We have a tiny cottage there, where we spend some lovely summer weeks every year.
Our summer house is small, but the area is known for its big and beautiful old buildings.
The park, Ronneby Brunn, is a famous, prize winning beauty, but in the neighborhood you will also find old mansions – some abandoned- but their gardens are kept alive.
So, what more will you find here? Harmony…
and the sea. Quiet mornings you can take the canoe and paddle along the little stream reaching from the sea to a lake nearby.
Or, you can walk or bike along the country roads and listen to the birds singing and the cattle munching away. You will soon get used to the strange looks you get…
Blekinge is also renowned for its many old oak trees. This giant stands at Gökalv, where we spend much time hiking and watching the sunset. Estimated age – several hundred years old.
When dinner is finished, we walk or bike along the shore to see the horses and the swans showing off their young.
And when sunset is approaching, we return to Gökalv for the glorious ending of the day.
Maybe a final swim before going to bed – if it is a warm night…
The longest day of the year, darkness will never fall, so, we walk along the water line and listen to the swallows chasing mosquitos. Being grateful to just exist.
Thank you, Tina, for an inspiring challenge and the opportunity to visit so many neighborhoods around the world!
Lens Artists Photo Challenge #35: Architecture
As Amy’s challenge this week is Architecture, I invite you to follow me to Umeå for a visit to a very special hotel.
The Grand Hotel in Umeå, by architect Viktor Åström, was built 1894-95. The facade is in neorenaissance. Close up to this beauty is U&Me Hotel, opened in 2014, by architects from Snøhetta, and interior design by architect- and design Stylt Trampoli.
The more than 120 years old Seafarers’ House and Grand Hotel in central Umeå has been exquisitely renovated, and the concept of historic influences from the seven seas is so unique that the hotel was elected World’s Best New Boutique Hotel 2014.
The whole interior is spectacular…
and some pieces remind you of a shipwreck.
The old Grand Hotel is closely connected to (a real juxtaposition) U&Me, something that feels a bit awkward from the outside – while the inside might be described as a smooth swim through a coral reef…
Thank you, Amy, for an inspiring challenge and the opportunity to follow in your footsteps to one of the new seven wonders of the world!
Cee’s B&W Photo Challenge: Made by Humans
Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #29: Cityscapes
”In the visual arts a cityscape (urban landscape) is an artistic representation, such as a painting, drawing, print or photograph, of the physical aspects of a city or urban area.” This is the Wikipedia definition, and I must express my love for the easiness by which the English language constructs new words, adding – scape is only one possibility.
I must admit, this time I have had to struggle a bit, because I seldom take the time to see a city from a high up vantage point. I am not a city girl – more of a town girl and most of a country girl. I do enjoy visiting big cities for a very short time – for the architecture and all the other arts found in museums, opera houses, exhibition halls and the like. But one week is enough for me. Thus, my photos for Patti’s challenge, are mostly shot from boats, trains or planes. I have to excuse the lesser quality through all those windows…and the biggest city, Shanghai (25 million people), in rain.
Rain, fog and smog – that is Shanghai, and so many other big cities all over the world – in China not the least…but here I found most of my cityscape photos.
We managed to get a short glimpse of Shanghai by night – in heavy rain.
Our ship passed many big cities on the Yangtze cruise – I don’t even remember their names…
…through the windows it seemed to me…they all looked – the same.
Now we are on the other side of the world, Quito (2 million people), Ecuador. The people here are gentle and very sweet, and I loved their friendly and colourful city.
How about returning to Europe? London (8 million people) is an absolute favorite with me, and I have chosen the moment I first saw the Shard – through a dirty train window on arriving from Gatwick. Funny, I was chocked, I did not even know it existed!
Another favorite is Barcelona (1.6 million) – the home of so many of Gaudí’s architectural masterpieces. I do plan to return to see the Cathedral finished.
I recently found a new favorite city of mine, in Bulgaria – ancient Plovdiv (345000 people, and 2019, The European Capital of Culture). A true gem.
Lastly, my nearest big city in Sweden, Malmoe, with its 312000 inhabitants. A windy city by the sea, just opposite Copenhagen on the other side of the water. Shot through the plane window flying in with a beautiful sunset. The only skyscraper you will see here is Turning Torso – by the architect Santiago Calatrava.
In the header, the City of Cities – Rome, in late afternoon light.
Thank you to Patti for this wonderful opportunity to dig in the archives for cityscapes I did not think I had… and for the chance to see so many cityscapes I will never be able to visit!
CB&W Photo Challenge: Rocks, Boulders, Stones
Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #21: Splash!
This week, Patti is hosting our challenge – and she has chosen an interesting subject – ”Splash!” for us to illustrate, and relate to. The essential Water. And in order to survive and live on this beautiful planet, we rely on water. (And oxygen…and…)
In the header, the photo shows the bathroom at Casa Battló in Barcelona. (Fake water…)
Memories from the Spanish west coast – a warm and glorious evening!
The sound of a River in Iceland, making its way to the cold winter sea.
Lofoten, Norway, is something otherworldly…
And down to the tiniest spot, we rely on water. To catch fish, drink, but also to play with – and in…Bring your mum if it looks too dangerous!
My students always had to go through several ”tests” when they first started college. One of them meant filling a tube with water, and to cooperate to stop the water from splashing through the holes in it. Using yourself only! And there were several holes drilled in it…. They almost always threw themselves into the game – After some minutes the leftover water was measured, and the winners were…:-D
Thursday Thoughts – Art Nouveau Villas
Wherever I travel, I love to walk among architectural big or small wonders. In Łódź, on our last day, I found a guide about famous houses in the city. Not much time left, but I just had to see their famous Art Nouveau gem.
Villa Gallery, a house built in 1903 for the manufacturer Leopold Kindermann from Łódź, is listed on the prestigious Iconic Houses platform.
The global list of outstanding architecturally-significant houses is created by the Amsterdam-based Iconic Houses Foundation.
The aim of the Iconic Houses organisation is to popularise knowledge about 20th-century great architectural designs, gathering documentation on them and promoting the idea of opening such buildings to the public.
Only the houses that are open as public museums can enter the Iconic Houses list.
Among the list of most beautiful houses of the 20th century, there are icons such as Antonio Gaudí’s Casa Batlló in Barcelona, Le Corbusier’s Villa Savoye in Poissy, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin West in Arizona, as well as the houses of Alvar Aalto in Helsinki, and Victor Horta in Brussels, Theo van Doesburg in Paris, Arne Jacobsen’s in Copenhagen and many others, all considered milestones in the history of modern architecture.
Just to look at the elaborate details is magical. The iron gates were magical wonders.
The windows, and the visible – or hidden – sculptures really kept your eyes alert.
I met with some great difficulties trying to photograph the house – high gates and impossible angles. But I hope you get a hint of the beauty of the villa. It made me long for Bacelona and Gaudí, again…
Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #20: Open Sesame – Doors and Doorways
Tina’s challenge this week is for us to find doors – and maybe to open them…or at least making you want to find out what is hidden behind them.
“Doors can lead you to other worlds, or to what is behind what is in front of you.”
Stephanie Torbert
I like that quote from Tina’s post, because I like word play, and my doors are simply a diverse gallery of some favorites from my travels. All of them works of art – natural or man made. In the header, the enigmatic doorway to Rila monastery in Bulgaria.
Bhutan
Tibet
The Moroccan desert – where the doors are the woven, striped and checked ”carpets” on the left hand side.
Spain
Latvia
Sweden
Sweden
Please remember the Lens-Artists tag to be seen in our Reader section. For more information about our challenge click here. And don’t forget to join Patti for her challenge next week!
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