Arkitektur

CFFC: Windows

/ Leya / 13 kommentarer

Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: Windows

Windows for Cee – gigantic formats from Madrid’s old railwaystation and Bilbao’s Guggenheim museum.

 

Thursday Thoughts – A Story of …Love

/ Leya / 12 kommentarer

In Vilnius I saw this young couple coming out of a church. They did not hold hands. The young lady was holding her dress instead. He was walking casually right behind her.

In one of the old city’s most famous spots, they were photographed.

They looked so young…yet I believe they had known each other for a while. No infatuation shining, no signs of being ”in love”. I watched them silently walking down the street – no sign of guests or friends. Still not holding hands. Half an hour later we saw them sitting on a bench in the square, munching some fast food and watching the air balloons sailing across the sky.

I wonder what they were thinking. I wonder about their lives and their future. I would have liked to listen to their story.

Travel theme: Dark

/ Leya / 6 kommentarer

Travel theme: Dark

For Ailsa – Dark. As a child I was afraid of the dark. I read many books and had a vivid imagination. Today I can still be afraid sometimes…

In the header, a beautifully lit sky on my own doorstep an early morning.

The darkest country I have ever visited was Tibet. But high above Lhasa there is a soaring,  shining light – the Potala Palace.

WPC: Transmogrify

/ Leya / 16 kommentarer

WPC this Friday – Transmogrify.

 

Transmogrify into something distorted and ugly or into a work of art? This house in Bilbao reflects and mirrors a bridge where a red car is passing.

The Evening Charms of Lerma

/ Leya / 21 kommentarer

We spent an evening walking in Lerma, in Castile and León, Spain. A little village the size of my home town in Sweden, but Lerma has important monuments dating from the 17th century, which were built by the Duke of Lerma, the King’s favourite.

To me, the greatest attraction here was the two main streets. One of them in the header, and in the very old part, I found this remarkable house.

Its façade and its colours caught my eye – and held it there for longer than just a moment.

The unevenness was made even more beautiful in the stray rays of the setting sun.

And further on, down the road, I also found a little door into the unknown…maybe 45 cm wide and 1.50cm high – No key. A stray…uncomfortable bench in a dark alley and some dry thistles on a stone fence…

I do love these things…

…as I loved the stork nest on the church and the lonely dog in the lonely street…

…and the charming restaurant waiting for its bustling guests arriving by 9 p.m.

I do love odd places and odd things and  – almost everything about Spain.

Ansó and the Vultures of Foz de Arbaiun

/ Leya / 22 kommentarer

A gallery of pictures from the little village Ansó – isolated for many years, but rather recently opened up to the world.

After a couple of hours on a narrow, winding road, we finally reached
…Ansó
A charming little mountain village
…with narrow, cobbled streets
We found a great bar with absolutely fresh appetizers and tasty beer
And everyday life went on
…just like the water running through the narrow gorges

On our way back to our hotel, we passed Foz de Arbaiun, a narrow gorge made by the river Salazar, 400 m down. As usual, click to enlarge. (Sometimes needed twice)

On the cliff sides, many vultures have found their homes. We saw at least a dozen coming in. Here they are free to live – nobody can touch them.

Unfortunately we had not brought any pair of binoculars – but the flight of the majestic vultures was still great to watch.  We did not see any of the other species.

Thursday Thoughts – The Fairy – Castle

/ Leya / 20 kommentarer

We were driving along the road from Bilbao to visit Gernika this day, when suddenly, out of nowhere, without any road sign – we saw the pinnacles above the dense forest. A castle. This castle is located in Gatika, in the province of Biscay, in northern Spain

We turned left off the road and decided to have a closer look at it – and after some twists and turns of narrow roads – we found it.

The castle has a fairy-tale look about it, and as we started walking around it, we realised that the place was abandoned and nobody lived there. Further down the road we found pictures of knights and horses, together with a closed down, dilapidated café. The premises had probably been used for games or jousting.

A look at Wikipedia tells us that the present building was created as a hobby for its then owner and to create something visually spectacular rather than to produce something for people to live in. ” In fact it would be quite inconvenient as a home as the towers have little useful space and various parts of the castle have exterior connections which are not particularly apt for the wet Basque weather.”

The building is surrounded by an overgrown park which includes palms and exotic plants. We thought the forlorn castle must be totally unknown, but in fact it seems this is not the case…As any other little girl,  Kate Middleton’s dream once was to get married in this fairy tale castle. (Said in a BBC interview with David Ferald.)

Back in Bilbao again in the evening, we learned from our host that the castle is named Castillo de Butrón . (He even had a painting of Butrón on the wall.) It dates originally from the Middle Ages, although it owes its present appearance to an almost complete rebuilding, inspired by Bavarian castle models, begun by Francisco de Cubas (also known as Marqués de Cubas) in 1878.

The castle fell into disuse, was later renovated and opened again, but the building was finally closed to visitors although the grounds remained open.

In November 2005 the building was purchased by INBISA (Grupo Empresarial) for about 1,6 million euros, but it remains under the general protection of Spanish law in respect of historic buildings in Spain.