Where To See Popular, Traditional, Modern, Serious, Humorous, and Minority Interest Statues And Monuments

Mr Bean at Leicester Square.
 

Popular Statues

Mr Bean is not a has-been. His videos are loved worldwide. In Singapore when I was teaching my pupils loved videos of him attempting to cheat in exams.

UK Royalty

In the UK statues of Royalty and peers are in London, Nelson's Column in Traflagar Square, Piccadilly, and inside and outside cathedrals and city squares. 

UK Royalty Worldwide

Queen Victoria's statue is in squares worldwide.

Kings, Queens and Bishops are in central squares. Royalty and Presidents are outside Parliament buildings.

Belgium

Famous mythological characters and animals, cherubs and children include Belgium's Mannekin Pis.

Outside parliament and municipal buildings you will find city founders.

Jewish, Spain & Arabic Maimonides

The seated statue of Maimonides commemorates the writer of The Guide For The Perplexed. Maimonides was Jewish, but wrote in Arabic. He left Christian Spain and became the revered physician for a Moslem ruler. He is revered by Arabs and Moslems in several countries as well as by Jews.

Moslem India & The Taj Mahal

Because of the taboo against worshipping statues in the bible, Islamic countries and those with Islamic rulers and communities do not have statues. Instead they have buildings and monuments named after those they wish to commemorate. For example, the Taj Mahal, built by the widower to commemorate his beloved wife in India.

The USA and Pocahontas

Countries I have visited - best places, worst moments, wish lists

 I have visited fifty countries.

 My family have had homes in the UK, the USA, Spain, and Singapore.

We have had au pair girls living with us, who came from France, Germany, Italy and Yugoslavia. 

I speak French fluently. I have restaurant Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, German and Dutch. I am struggling to read menus and signs in Greek, Hebrew and Russian (Cyrillic also in Bulgaria) and Chinese symbolic signs (also used in Japan).

ALBANIA

The Best Thing In Albania? 

The colourful capital is Tirana. The colourful buildings in the capital city centre and throughout the country were designed to raise morale at a time of economic crisis.

The Scary Thing In Albania

- Cliffside roads in the remote north. More near Greece, up to wonderful mountaintop cafe viewpoints, and resort south to busy beach resort. 

ANDORRA

Best Thing about Andorra - learning linguistics, languages.

The country's capital is the city of Andorra la Vella. Like the Latin word villa, the word vella originally meant city. 

Wishlist. 

Three countries tour in one day from Barcelona, covering France, Spain and Andorra. 

The Caldea Spa my daughter in law visited while our son was skiing. The Caldea Spa is the biggest in Southern Europe and has multi-level lagoons.

AUSTRALIA 

The best things in Australia

Super cities, Sydney and Perth. 

Pavlova meringue dessert with fresh fruit in the middle. Lamingtons, sponge cubes covered in chocolate and coconut.

The Twelve Apostles, on the great Ocean Road photo opportunity of rocks in the sea.

AUSTRIA

Best things To See And Do in Austria

 Grinzing wine tasting area in Vienna. Learning about Sachertorte cake. I loved Salzberger Nockerl, a large soft floating meringue. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salzburger_Nockerl. Mozart Chocolates sold on the plane and everywhere.

Worst Moments In Austria: The hotel where are room was on the top floor and you needed a coin to operate the lift going upwards. 

The city map which had south at the top which made me as map reader say turn left when signposts told the driver to turn right. 

Wishlist For Austria

Esperanto Museum of the National, library, Vienna, Austria. 

BAHAMAS

The name comes from the Spanish for shallow water.

Wish List for the Bahamas. Hear calypso and watch dancing to soca music at the New Year parade. 

BELGIUM

We went to the Melipark, based on bees, which is now Plopsaland.

https://www.plopsa.com/en/plopsaland-belgium

Best Things In Belgium

Chips (potato chips). Waffles. Chocolate. Beautiful Bruges. Looking at lace, buying lace ear-rings.

Worst problem in Belgium. We were looking for signs to Ghent and only saw signs to Gand. Place names in two languages, French and Dutch languages. You need to know both when driving and looking for signposts. 

Serious and saddest sites, are all the WW2 area of Flanders, such as the Menin Gate. We always seem to stop at In Flanders Field in Ypers. You can find monuments to various nationalities in the places where they fought.

https://destinationwwii.com/wwii-sites-in-belgium/

https://whichmuseum.com/place/belgium-2/t-war

BRAZIL

Wish list. Rio Carnival. 

BULGARIA

Best. Opportunity to learn Cyrillic script, used in Bulgaria and Russia.

CAMBODIA

Best moment - Siem Reap for a tour of: Ankor Wat. Wat means temple, but it is a walled city, takes most of the day to walk along the causeway and around the walls and into the centre and up a central temple. 

Angkor Thom, approaching South Gate, 

Scary moments. Losing our rickshaw at the entrance. One rickshaw when we said goodbye. At the end of the day, a national holiday, there were hundreds, and our vehicle had been told by police to move to the next car park. 

Second scary moment. I lost my rickshaw. Supposed to meet me by the gold Buddha at the entrance. The route through a temple was in one entrance and out the other side. All four entrances had a large gold seated Buddhas. 

CANADA

Best Views - Niagara Falls. 

Quebec City - you can see history, the cliff climbed to conquer the city, by British General James Wolfe. Historic hotel Chateau Frontenac.

Canada Wish List - see the mural revealed by falling tide on the wall of the St John Harbour at the Bay of Fundy.

CHINA 

Best - Shanghai waterfront. Great Wall. 

Wishlist - Terracotta warriors. 

Scary moment - losing my tour group in China where I could not speak a word of Chinese. Getting on a coach tour bus and half a mile down the road discovering they were a German-speaking group.

CORSICA 

Worst disaster - Guitarists played late into the night keeping me awake. The coach to the airport broke down and we were told to cross the road. I was knocked down by a car, had multiple injuries and was not expected to survive.  (1984.) 

Wishlist - Maison Bonaparte.

CROATIA  

Best - Dubrovnik which I visited with my parents from a cruise ship back when it was Yugoslavia.

CZECH REPUBLIC

Best Moments - in Prague, Charles Bridge statues; Franz Kafka Museum. 

CYPRUS Greek and Turkish. 

Best moments - The wine museum. 

Walking across to Northern Cyprus, Greek to Turkish and back to Greek.

Worst - Embarrassment, first asking for Turkish coffee, then Greek coffee, being told it was Cyprus coffee.

DENMARK 

Best - Hans Andersen's Home

Wish list. Legoland in Billund, Danmark.

ENGLAND 

Flag of the United Kingdon

Flag of England.

Best sights, so many: Brighton Pavilion, York Shambles, Cornwall , Lake District - Wordsworth's House, Waddesdon, Bronte House Museum, Yorkshire, Oxford, Cambridge, Hadrian's Wall, Cadbury's Factory. London's Keats House, Dickens House, National Gallery, Tate Modern Gallery, National Portrait gallery, London Zoo, Windsor Safari Park. 

Worst moments, wondering whether you have missed the last train and wondering there the night buses go.

FINLAND 

Best moment. Meeting Santa Claus. 

Worst moment, finding we were naked in saunas, with a large group of people, journalists I was travelling with.

Worst moment. On the same travel press trip, I was offered beef steak or reindeer meat. The latter is rare and very expensive in the UK, so I ordered the former. Later I learned that reindeer meat is cheap in Finland, whilst beef steak is exorbitant.

Wish List

Music museum - Sibelius Museum, Turku, Finland.

FRANCE  

Best Paris

You can visit the chateaux of the Loire Valley. Do a Champagne cellars tour in Rheims.

Worst disaster. My family drove from overnight at our ex au pair girl's home in Rheims, across France to the border. I then realized I had left my passport behind in a passport neck bag on the back or a chair.

GERMANY

Best sites: Romantic road cities such as Rothenburg ob der Tauber.

Heidelburg barrel. 

Wish list. Upside down house, Bayern, Germany. Legoland.

GREECE 

Best moments. Restaurant meals in Athen's hillside restaurant district, La Plake. 

Learning the story of Alexander the Great in the tomb at the second city, Thessalonkia. 

Scary moment - Earthquake whilst I was in a hotel on Zakinthos island. The drinks in our glasses shook.

HAWAII

HONG KONG 

Best. Sun Yat-Sen museum. Funicular. Disney. Visiting the famous Peninsula Hotel.

Worst - smog.

HUNGARY

INDIA Scary moment. Losing my taxi at a shopping centre with four entrances. All the taxi drivers had dark skins, dark hair and black moustaches. All the taxis had number plates ending in the same three letters which was code for a taxi from that city.

INDONESIA

IRELAND

ISRAEL 

Best sights: Historic and biblical Jerusalem, Art deco (Bauhaus) beach city of Tel Aviv (founded in 1909), kibbutzim, Ein Gedi waterfall into the water by the cave. 

Worst moments: 

Searched before catching a local bus from the bus station in Jerusalem, riding with teenagers carrying what looked like machine guns. At first scary, later reassuring.

Hitching a lift in a van whose driver fired gun shots into the hills which echoed around alerting everybody for miles that we were there. 

At a university in the 1960s finding they did not take money on Friday night so you had to pre book and pay and get a ticket for the meal. Luckily, a student whose friend did not turn up was able to give me and my friend a spare meal ticket.

In 2026 learning that you might be woken twice or more in the night to sirens warning you to go down to a shelter.

ITALY 

Best Sites

Roman Rome, 

Opera in La Scala Milan, 

Umbria Cliffside Etruscan gateway at the entrance to Perugia. Venice.

Wish List. Trulli.

JAPAN 

Miyajima Torii giant gate on the beach, in the water at high tide in Hiroshima.

Worst moment, being asked to how how to eat a fried egg, with chopsticks.

JORDAN Best sigh - Petra. Scariest moment: getting on and off a camel which knelt down and tried to tip me off.

KOREA (SOUTH KOREA)

LUXEMBOURG

MALAYSIA

Best sites. Hill stations. 

Museum and observation deck in Petronas twin towers centre of Kuala Lumpur.

MALTA

MEXICO

MOROCCO Marrakesh - best moment, pigeon pie, and bread kept under conical rafia hats.

NEPAL Best moments - the domed temples with eyes watching you.

NEW ZEALAND

Best moments. Skiing in New Zealand, at Queenstown, South Island. The maze museum. Lam on every menu. BYO. Vineyard Visits. Op shops (which the Americans call thrift shops and the British call charity shops.)

POLAND 

Best moments: eating Borscht in underground restaurants in rebuilt Warsaw. 

Most chilling moments - Auschwitz  Birkenau, but a little ray of hope in the Schindler's Factory Museum

Wish list - Ludwig Zamenhof museum about the creator of the made up language, Esperanto, in Bialystok. 

Wroclaw dwarfs, tiny pavement statues.

Arthur Rubinstein at his piano, statue in Lodz.

PORTUGAL 

Best site. WOW wine theme park on a city hillside overlooking the river. Restaurant with peacocks parading outside.

Mountainside s-bends along the Douro valley from Oporto to Regua which has a museum with smells of wine and flowers, and onwards to Spain. 

Madeira, saw triangular A frame houses called Casas Tipicas at Santana. Walked along the levadas, cliffside walks originally carrying water to farms, now pleasantly overhung by trees and leading to a waterfall. Madeira wine shop Blany's offering guided tour of their historic building and tastings in the capital, Funchal.

ROMANIA

Best. Second Langauge spoken is Italian. Dracula's castle and tourist area. 

Worst - Dracula's Castle. Beware of bears.

RUSSIA

Wish List

Underground stations.

SAN MARINO

SAINT MAARTEN

Best - two languages, French and Dutch, two experiences. 

Worst - Confusing. You might need two visas or passports.

SCOTLAND 

Best Sites

Edinburgth and Edinburgh Festival. Hilltop Castle. Portrait Gallery. Poets' area of old town and museums.Tartans and bagpipes.

Worst Experience. The first time I had breakfast porridge with salt, as is usual in Scotland, instead of sugar, as in England, and sent it back, resulting in confrontation and embarrassment.

Wish List. Burns House. Shetland Islands.

SINGAPORE 

Singapore Best moments - Giant Jewel waterfall, tallest in the world, in Changi Airport. The airport's free Butterfly Garden (two floors, one way, allow time). 

Any journey on the underground, with glass doors separating you from the rails until the train arrives, protecting people on platforms. Everything running frequently, about five minutes average, so sometimes even less. Free toilets on every station. Demonstrations banned. Litter swept by the elderly attendants given employment in food courts. Durian in season in ice creams and cakes. Hotel and apartment complexes with giant or ornamental swimming pools. Marina Bay Sands with an Observation Deck, and infinity swimming pool at the top, and boats on a created canal in the basement.  Get invited to dinner at the Tanglin Club.

Night Safari. Gardens by the Bay. Botanic Gardens, free, containing the Orchid Garden (paid?) 

Raffles hotel. 

The museums including the history museum, with docents (guides) Philatelic (stamps) museum.

Singapore Worst moments, a live crocodile under a boardwalk.

SLOVENIA

Slovenia wish list - Cliffside castle in a cave. Train ride through caves. Poppyseed pastries.

SOUTH AFRICA 

Johannesburg. Pretoria. Cape Town's Table Mountain, with inquisitive dassis (a bit like squirrels) ogling crumbs when we had cake. Memorable Moments in South Africa. Table Mountain. Nelson Mandela sites. Jewish museum mentions Mandela hidden on a farm bought for that purpose by his Jewish supporters.

Wishlist for South Africa - wine trail.

SPAIN

My parents had a one bedroom home in Marbella for years.

Best Moments:In Spain, weirdly shaped hotel Marquez de Riscal, Rioja region. 

In the Canary Islands in 2026, Tenerife, Hotel La Joia Mirador, Absurdia illusions attraction. Vino Museum and Honey Bee museum. 

Worst Moment in Spain - my bag stolen in Marbella. Previously my mother's bag was stolen.

Spanish wishlist - Barcelona's Gaudi Cathedral and other Gaudi monuments in Barcelona and other cities. Some of them require you to park your car and can't be seen from the road. 

Spanish Scary Moments. Cliffside S bends in Picos de Europa.  

SWITZERLAND 

Best Sights

Alprose Chocolate Factory. 

Covered bridges.

THAILAND 

Best sites - Royal Palace. Floating Market.

TUNISIA

TURKEY 

Best sites:

Istanbul Blue Mosque; and Green Mosque

UAE (United Arab Emirates)

Best site: Dubai, largest city

Huge hotels, opulent and gold. Shopping.

UK

Best: London Tower Bridge, British Museum, Science Museum, Victoria and Albert Museum. Handel and Hendrix museums, Madam Tussauds, Trafalgar Square, Bethnal Green Museum, Horniman Museum and mini zoo, London Zoo, Dickens House. Out in the suburbs, Ruislip Lido train. Harrow School. Sherlock Holmes Museum. Get invited do dinner at the Cavalry & Guards Club or the Civil Service club, or one of several clubs, some with military or overseas associations.

Day trips to Roald Dahl Museum. Waddesdon Manor, 

Lake District. Cornwall, St Ives.

Wishlist Charles Rennie Mackintosh House, Northampton, England. Optical Illusion museum in London. Any Winehouse statue in Camden. Museum of Illusions. Paradox Museum. Twist Museum. Legoland, Windsor. Last Night of the Proms, promenade concert in the Royal Albert Hall.

USA

Best Sites

New York. Empire State Building. Boat tour. Smithsomian Museums, DC. Lake Tahoe, California and Nevada. Blue Ridge Mountain drive along the East coast. Washington DC. Florida art deco. Disney. House museum of Webster who gave us the dictionary and American spelling. House museum of Nobel prize winning author Pearl Buck. Peabody Ducks. Bryce Canyon. Dallas. San Francisco. Golden Gate Bridge. LA Disney. Hollywood stars walk.

Wish List - Graceland, home of Elvis. Napa Valley Wine train. Hemingway House at Key West, Florida. Houdini Museum at Niagara. Queen Mary on Long Beach, LA.

Worst list - crocodiles in Florida.

VIETNAM 

Halong Bay. best sight

Scary moment - first tuk tuk ride at speed from airport to checking at hotel.Tuk-tuk (motorcycle carriage) transfer to hotel in Siem Reap. 

YUGOSLAVIA Dubrovnik, now CROATIA

WALES Brunel's bridge Fishguard Last Invasion Tapestry, Caerleon Roman Museum. Worst disaster. I was driving to my annual writers summer holiday in Caerleon, Wales. On the M4. Another car drove into the back of my car. I had to transfer by train to my destination.

USA Disneyland LA, Disney World Florida, Grand Canyon, Bryce Canyon.  New York's Jewish Museum, Sex museum and many more.

WISHLIST

CHINA

Terracotta Warriors are on my wishlist.

UKRAINE

BEST TRANSPORT

Tuk-tuk (motorcycle carriage) transfer to hotel in Sien Reap. 

TRAVEL TIPS

1 Keep a track of your own best and worst holiday experiences.

2 Make an Excel document of trips, hotels, museums, favourite food.

I am compiling this all week. Come back every day for updates on mine.

London Fun At Museums of Illusions - and more worldwide

 The opportunities for fun in London seem to be expanding.

 I loved the Absurdia museum I visited on holiday in Tenerife in the Canary Islands in June 2026. I  put photos from that in an earlier post. 

Angela at Absurdia in Costa Adeje, Tenerife, Canary Islands. Photo by Trevor Sharot.

Now I have seen online not one, not two, but three such places in London. The prices vary. If I simply wanted some funny photos at the cheapest price I would opt for the upside down house .

The Upside Down House, London, England

 The Upside Down House takes one of the illusion ideas which you also find included at the other attractions, but expands upon it with multiple rooms.

Worldwide - Most Affordable Museums of Illusions

If you are driving through Europe to Belgium or another country with Belgium en route the capital

s Belgium boats of the first Museum of Illusions. They are offering, in July 2026, the attractive and competitive price of 12 Euros for an adult. You can take in one toddler under six free with a paying adult. You also get small reductions for teachers and students who have an identify card showing their status. As the supermarket ad says, every little helps.

Museums of Illusions Worldwide

AUST|RALIA

Trickd Illusions, Gold Coast

https://trickd-illusions.gold-coast-tickets.com/

BELGIUM

Museum of Illusions, Brussels, Belgian

https://illusionbrussels.be/en

CANARY ISLANDS

Handy websites for Museums of Illusions

Absurdia, Tenerife, Canary Islands

https://absurdiatenerife.es/

UK

Museum of Illusions, London, England, UK

Paradox Museum

Upside Down House

Twist Museum, Oxford Street, London

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THE ALPHABET EXPLAINED: The origin of every letter, and which countries will help you to be bilingual

I knew some of this about the origin of language. Very effectively presented. The presenter has a lovely, attractive English accent with perfect pronunciation. A pleasure to listen to him.

I have been studying Chinese (Mandarin). Chinese combines the earliest form of writing, pictograms. diagrams of natural objects, with signs representing sounds.

He shows how the modern Roman alphabet was derived over time. 

What he does not explain is how the Cyrillic alphabet was constructed at one point in time by Cyril and his borther. Just like Korean was invented by one person.

He has another video exaplining how German is easy to read if you can see how some letters in German are equivalent to others in English. 

Useing the existing Roman alphabet, the language Esperanto was devised to help Europeans who spoke several langagues, to speak to each other in a commong language which combines parts of each of the main languages, but kept to a regular structure with only 14 rules, quick to learn. 

If you are interested in languages you might be interested in these places:

SINGAPORE

In Singapore the four major official langauges and English Chinese (Mandarin), Malay (which is mostly the same as Indonesian) and Tamil.

Go on the MRT (underground railway) and you will hear announcements in four languages and see signs in four languages.

CANADA

You will hear English in Toronto and French in Montreal but in the capital all government empolyees are required to speak both languages. Most hotel and restaurant staff are also bilingual.

BELGIUM

You will see signs in two languages, French and Flemish (Dutch).

SWITZERLAND

A chance to practice three languages, French, German and Italian.

Looking at Lace in France and Belgium, and Tapestry Embroidery in England and Wales

Lovely Lace

 I love lace. But white lace doileys look old fashioned. You can dye them colours. Use them as collars, neck fillers or dickeys.

Lace can be made with strong thread, fine thread, or a mixture.

Black lace can be worn as a sophisticated evening fashion. 

It can add delicacy and distraction at a funeral or time of mourning.

You can create lace with a crochet hook. 

Or several bobbins (long heavy holders of thread which are hung down from a hump and moved around in a fan shape, semi circular or circular, like weaving, to create the patterns.

A third type of lace is machine made lace.

See more at lace museums on Holland and Belgium.

You can buy huge table cloths entirely of lace, or lace trimmed tablecloths and matching napkins. 

The History of Lace

A queen, Catherine de Medicis, took lace from Italy to France. (The country of Belgium was created by Queen Victoria's family to console a aspiring king of England who was bypassed and had to be made king of somewhere. I learned that they chopped a piece off France and a piece off Holland and made Belgium, which at first went well. However, reading Britannica, it appears that the whole area was bounced around like a football between France, the Netherlands, Austria, Spain. It now has a clear identity, but three languages, French, Belgian and German for the German speaking  minority in the East, with French in the capital Brussels, as well as the EU and NATO providing employment.  Belgian lace.

Lace in Bayeux, France. Apart from the medieval buildings, and museums, the tourist can enjoy Belgian chocolates, such as the Godiva brand, Belgian waffles, Belgian chips/frites, and Belgian beer. 

Lace in Bayeux, France

Northern France has lace in Bayeux. A second kind of exquisite fabric to admire. Not just the Bayeux tapestry, featuring embroidery. (Hastings has a rival tapestry about the same event.)

Tapestry in Fishguard, Wales

 Wales has another long story-telling embroidery, celebrating local heroes, and heroines., Fishguard's tapestry tells about the time when Welsh women wearing tall back hats and red cloaks resisted an invasian by French soldiers in boats.

Fasion & Lace Museum, Brussels, Bemlgium

Useful Websites

Brussels, Belgium

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fashion_%26_Lace_Museum

France

https://www.rfi.fr/en/culture/20221224-crafty-bayeux-artisans-give-traditional-french-lace-a-modern-touch-normandie-handcrafts

Calais

https://www.cite-dentelle.fr/en/

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Oddments of the week - the upside down house, disappearing pictures on a sandy beac

 Tassenheide, Germany. Built 2008 in Germany, on the northern coast, as a tourist attraction. 

The town also had a giant red sneaker.

Sneaker Attribution: Löwe 48

USA

WonderWorks, Orlando, Florida, USA

Huashan Upside down house. From Wikimedia Commons. Author 吉爾

Upside down house

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trassenheide

dailymail.co.uk/travel/travel_news/article-10519213/Pictured-Casa-Loca-upside-house-thats-drawing-tourists-Colombia

Sand art, Torquay, Melbourne, Australia, by artist Edward.

.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10529425/Banksy-like-artist-Edward-creates-regenerative-art-Victorian-beaches

What Are Stolpersteines? A new kind of holocaust memorial

 

Stones recalling the Frank family lived here. 

Maybe these are the first ones you have seen. But once you know about them, it becomes easier to find them. There are 70,ooo of these stones, in more than 700 locations,.

Countries include Austria, Germany

Stolpersteines sound like stepping stones but they are literally stumbling blocks. Stein is stone.  They are raised stones which make you stop and read the engraving that here lived a person before they were taken away by the holocaust. Mostly stones commemorate the last happy home of Jewish families such as the family of Anne Frank. But also other holocaust victims. 

The movement started small and spread city by city, sometimes unanimously welcomed, sometimes facing fierce opposition. Why put stones on the ground instead of the wall? Stones on the ground are harder to read.  You may have to stoop to see the writing. Is it disrespectful to tread on a memorial?

 Sometimes the actual house has gone. Sometimes you want the stones to stay even if the site is later redeveloped, unlike a plaque on a wall which could be removed. Sometimes the house is a private dwelling, but the road outside is public land so it is easier and quicker to get permission. Now these little memorials have spread through several countries.

Stolpersteine are found in Austria, Hungary, the Netherlands, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Russia, Croatia, France, Poland, Slovenia, Italy, Norway, Ukraine, Switzerland, Slovakia and Luxembourg.^[4]

Useful Websites

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_places_with_stolpersteine

About the author

About the Author Angela Lansbury

BIOGRAPHY

Angela Lansbury B A Hons ACG ALB PM5 EH5 DL5 VC5 
The Author of several books, including  Etiquette For Every Occasion. Wedding Speeches & Toasts. How to be the Best Man. Quick Quotations. Who Said What When.

Blogs travelwithangelalansbury.blogspot.com

dressofthedayangela.blogspot.com

translateforfun.blogspot.com

Braddell Heights Advanced Toastmasters Speakers Club Vice President Public Relations (VPPR), Previous President

Join BHA 1st Wednesday 7pm and 3rd Saturday 2 pm Singapore time 

Vice President Public Relations (VP PR) of Tampines Changkat Advanced;

Secretary of weekly online Singapore International Dynamic Toastmasters Speakers’ Club;

Member and past president of Harrovians toastmasters club, UK; Past member of HOD Toastmasters, London. Past member in Singapore of: Toastmasters Club of Singapore (TCS); Tiarel; and Senja Cashew.

More details from Toastmasters International find a club.

Regular attendee at annual Swanwick Writers’ School, England.

Regular attendee at annual Writers’ Holiday, Wales.

Contributor to poetry readings, and after tea courses on: Speaking On Radio To Promote Books; and Plots And Character.

Winner of many club and area speaking contests in the UK and Singapore.

Language advisor to Empire Toastmasters club in Indonesia.

Language and speech workshops in Singapore.

Speaker on radio and TV in England, Scotland, the USA, and Australia.

Compiler of a school course on public speaking for teachers to prepare pupils for school open days with attending ceremonies before government ministers, Singapore.

Former member of Harrow Writers’ Circle, London, and two writing groups in Singapore.

Angela is on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Twitter. She would be delighted to link up with new friends.

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Where to See Napoleon and Josephine

 

Young Napoleon.

1 CORSICA - Ajaccio

Napoleon was born in Corsica and a museum about him is in the capital, Ajaccio. Napoleon was not a poor unknown boy. His father had worked at the court of the king. The Bonapartes owned vineyards.

2 FRANCE

Vendome Column, Paris. A bit like Nelson's column. Based on one from ancient times.

Napoleon's tomb is in Les Invalides, Paris.

3 ELBA

Napoleon was exiled to Elba. the little island is off the west coast of Italy, on the way to Corsica, one might say. Not so little, actually. Napoleon was allowed a bodyguard of 600 men. 

They ordered in wine, made on the island. Napoleon is still the local hero. He renovated the mansion he lived in. He built roads and dealt with stray dogs.

His sister Paulina and the place she lived in were centres of attraction. She had objects and events such as a masked ball. Who would have thought exile could be such fun.

4 BELGIUM, Waterloo

Waterloo is near Brussels, the capital of Belgium, about ten miles or 15 kilometres away. I have been there. Just a field with a mound and a lookout point. 

5 ST HELENA

Napoleon died here. He was buried on the island. 

Two decades later his body was returned to mainland France to be buried in an accessible place and with honour.

Useful Websites

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleon

https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleon

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empress_Jos%C3%A9phine

s://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Waterloo

https://www.tripadvisor.com.sg/Attractions-g202314-Activities-Elba_Island_Province_of_Livorno_Tuscany.html

https://www.visitelba.com/discover-elba/napoleon-on-elba/

https://www.tripadvisor.com.sg/Tourism-g1767153-St_Helena_Island-Vacations.html

About the Author

Angela Lansbury teacher of English (advanced and English as a Second Language or English as a Foreign Language, French and other languages, aspiring polyglot.

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. Member of many toastmasters  speaker training clubs and speaking contest judge.

Angela Lansbury, the author of 20 books including Wedding Speeches & Toasts, and Quick Quotations, has lived in the USA, Spain and Singapore. 

She  has several blogs and writes daily on at least two of the following:

travelwithangelalansbury.blogspot.com

dressofthedayangela.blogspot.com

translateforfun.blogspot.com

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Circle of Money fountain in Aachen, Germany

 

Circle of Money Fountain in Aachen Germany, near Cologne and the borders with Belgium and the Netherlands. Each character or group shows different attitudes to money.

The wiki caption says:

The fountain Circle of Money (Kreislauf des Geldes) in Aachen, Germany. The figurines show different persons dealing with money, while the rotating water symbolizes the circle of money. Sculptured by Karl-Henning Seemann, sponsored by the Sparkasse Aachen.

Photo by User:Ahoerstemeier

An amusing picture. Also a great illustration for a talk or workshop or speech about money.

About the Author

Angela Lansbury is teacher of English. (Advanced English and English as a Second Language or English as a Foreign Language, French and other languages, an aspiring polyglot.)

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. Member of many toastmasters  speaker training clubs, and speaking contest judge.

Angela Lansbury, the author of 20 books including Wedding Speeches & Toasts, and Quick Quotations, has lived in the USA, Spain and Singapore. 

She  has several blogs and writes daily on at least two of the following:

travelwithangelalansbury.blogspot.com

dressofthedayangela.blogspot.com

translateforfun.blogspot.com

 Please share links to your favourite posts.

Dessert in the Desert. French Menu Words Made Easy For French Restaurants and Travelling to French Speaking Countries

Flag of France

You can find French menus is France, Belgium, Switzerland, Canada, St Martin in the Caribbean, many more French speaking islands, French speaking Africa, and major cities all over the world.

A fancy French restaurant - how exciting. But how do I read the menu? Here are some French words you may see on a menu. Mystery solved.

amuse-bouche or amuse gueule - literally to amuse your mouth - complimentary, compliments of the chef, a teeny taste to keep you busy with a bite size morsel while they are preparing your next course

croissant - crescent, crescent shaped flaky pastry often eaten for breakfast, in Paris and France and sold freshly baked.  Where do they find the room to cook, don't worry, it might actually mean baked in an oven or microwave from supplied dough, or shaped dough. Find it in supermarkets in London even a tiny branch of Tesco Express. Nowadays the crescent is often straightened out.


Croissant cut to show texture. Photo by SKopp in Wikipedia under croissant.

Biftek - beefsteak - a Franglish or mixed English and French word, English beefsteak pronounced the French way

boeuf - beef - the English word beef comes from the French word for beef or cow, (vache being the female or dairy cow)

bombe - bomb or ball shaped desserted, often chocolate with ice cream inside, sometimes exploding to reveal contents when heated, an exciting surprise.

dessert - dessert or sweet dish - from/outside of, the service, just like hors d'oeuvre or starter is outside the service of the main course. From des servir, so the letter 's' doubled. Now you can remember that dessert is the sweet dish. Desert with only one s is the noun sandy desert, short of water and short of the double s. Desert, to desert, the verb to desert also has a single s. Only the sweet dessert with too much sugar has the double s. Alternatively remember that the word sweet has a double e and the word dessert has a double s.

flambé - flamed (The word is pronounced flom-bay to rhyme with Bombay. That upward accent tells you that your voice goes up at the end of the word as if you were asking a question. The accents are there to help you. The same system is used in translating other languages including Chinese). Just think of flambé like the word comb which has a silent b and you will instantly see and remember that the word flambé means flame.




glacé - glazed or with icing or preserved as in glace cherries

hors d'oevre - literally outside of (the main) work or main course, starter

Maitre d - master of - all the other waiters, man in charge of dinner time servers. Want help, not satisfied got a complaint or compliment, call for him. He may wear a smarter outfit.
menu - menu


Petits fours, picture from Wikipedia.

Petit four (singular) or petits fours (plural) - Petit means small as in the word petite which is feminine ending in e. The four is the oven like a furnace, so you know this is some cooked concoction, not merely fruit, but little things cooked in the oven. Up come tiny biscuits and cakes and chocolate whatnots and all or mostly marzipan shapes, sweets to end the meal.

Pain au chocolat - bread or pastry with chocolate chips or filing inside, for breakfast in France and UK supermarkets and hotel buffets

Pot de chocolat - pot of chocolate, or chocolate pot

The sommelier. Photo from Wikipedia.

sommelier - knows something about serving the wine, much more than you do and is happy to advise because he has a qualification in serving wine and spends hours choosing the wines and bargaining and buying and storing them at the right temperature and serving them at the right temperature hopes to get a tip if you like his suggestions

service compris - service included (as in the word comprised)

valet parking - they park your car and take the keys so they can bring it back. Check if this service is complimentary, if the restaurant make a charge, if you have a choice, if you are expected to leave a tip

Where do you find French?
WIKI SAYS:
French is an official language in 29 countries across multiple continents,^[5] most of which are members of the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie (OIF), the community of 84 countries which share the official use or teaching of French. It is spoken as a first language (in descending order of the number of speakers) in France, the Canadian provinces of Quebec, Ontario and New Brunswick as well as other Francophone regions, Belgium (Wallonia and the Brussels-Capital Region), western Switzerland (cantons of Bern, Fribourg, Geneva, Jura, Neuchâtel, Vaud, Valais), Monaco, partly in Luxembourg, the states of Louisiana, Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont in the United States, and in northwestern Italy (region of Aosta Valley).

Useful Websites
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:French_pastries

Note that the French accent in Paris is different from the French accent in Canada. To hear the french click on the sound symbol in Wikipedia, Google translate and several other websites.

You can use your French in Belgium, Canada, France, Switzerland and French islands in the Caribbean such as St Martin, and in many more countries as well as when reading menus in French restaurants, in kitchenware shops.

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To learn more French and many other languages such as Spanish, you can use the free websites for beginners, such as Duolingo and Memrise:

Useful Websites
Free Language Learning
duolingo.com
memrise.com
https://translate.google.com/



SHOPS
Cheese Shops in London, England

https://www.lafromagerie.co.uk/
French Department Stores worldwide
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Printemps
www.galerieslafayette.com

TRAVEL
UK Tourist website

visitbritain.com


French Tourist Board Website

http://ee.france.fr/


BELGIUM
http://visitbelgium.com/

CARIBBEAN - ST MARTIN

http://www.stmartinisland.org/

Official website of the Tourist Office of St Martin island in the Caribbean, information on the island of St Martin, French West Indies.

Canadian Cities Tourist Board Website
http://www.visit-canada.com/

Swiss tourist official website
https://www.swiss.com/

General Information on food, wines and service
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sommelier

About the Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. Please share links to your favourite posts.