Landmarks and Attractions in Basel, Bern, Lucerne and Zurich, Switzerland

 

Chapel Bridge, Lucerne, Switzerland.

• Basel

  • Basler Münster (Basel Minster): A  red sandstone cathedral featuring colorful roof tiles and the historic tomb of Erasmus of Rotterdam.

  • The Rhine Embankment & "Fähren": Scenic riverbanks featuring historic, cable-guided wooden ferries that cross the Rhine using only the river's current.

  • Basel Spalenentor: One of three magnificent medieval gates from the city's old fortifications.

  • Jüdisches Museum der Schweiz - Basel - Jewish Museum of Switzerland, on Vesalgasse.

• Bern

  • Altstadt (Old Town): A UNESCO World Heritage site famous for its six kilometers of medieval arcades (Lauben) and sandstone architecture.

  • Zytglogge: An iconic 15th-century astronomical clock tower where animated mechanical figures perform before the hour.

  • The Rose Garden (Rosengarten) & Bear Park (BärenPark): A terraced hillside park offering sweeping views over the loops of the Aare River.

  • Einstein's House.

  • Smaller exhibition on Einstein in the main museum.

• Lucerne

  • Chapel Bridge (Kapellbrücke): A historic 14th-century covered wooden footbridge spanning the Reuss River. The bridge is famous for its interior triangular painted panels. The city's main attraction. Allow a long time to cross the bridge and read captions.

  • Lion Monument (Löwendenkmal): A 'poignant and dramatic' sculpture carved directly into a rock face to honor the Swiss Guards killed during the French Revolution.' This is on tours of the city. Rather small.

• Zurich

  • Fraumünster: Zurich's landmark church, famous for its tall, stained-glass windows designed by Marc Chagall.

  • Bahnhofstrasse: Long shopping avenue, running from the central station to the shores of Lake Zurich.

  • Useful Websites

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einsteinhaus

Tea Time Fun For Families At Fortnum's

Enticing window displays. Huge flowers and animals to entertain children. Look closely and you will see a gold topped Champagne bottle in the lower middle.

 Upstairs in Fortnum & Mason food store in Jermyn Street, London.

I had a freshly squeezed orange juice. Hard to find in London. But everywhere in Singapore.

Teeny ice cream cone came with the double espresso. 

A informative placemat for adults, with a reverse for kids to colour.

Useful Website on Fortnum's

fortnumandmason.com

Please share links to your favourite posts.

Yarn Bombing and More Street art worldwide - bollards, pillars, rejuvenating streets

 

Where can you see free street art?

An open top bus tour anywhere, any city. A walking gtour of murals. London's East End. 

USA, Philodelphia.

What else? Statues of people sitting on benches. In London, England. Spain and Portugal.  

Banksy murals worldwide. Wroclaw dwarfs or gnoes, about 600 ankle height miniature sculptures in Poland.

English: Democrat (Demokracja) dwarf from KOD located on Plac Solny Polski: Demokracja wrocławski krasnal ufundowany przed KOD znajdujący na placu Solnym 20 autorstwa kongijskiego rzeźbiarza Jeana Louisa Kotagomby.
Date	27 October 2018, 16:24:33
Source	Own work

You can find more amusing pictures of the ankle height sculptures in Wroclaw, Poland. I chose this one because it shows you the size of the sculpture.

Angela with mural at London Cru winery, London, England. Photo by Trevor Sharot. Copyright.

Railway mural, Rayners Lane, London, England. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

In Philadelphis you can do a self-guided tour, following a map guide.

You can see street art in countries you hope to visit, and countries you cannot currently visit. Decorative and permanent street art, controversial banned, damaged, painted over by mistake (UK) or lost street art. I recently saw street art in New Zealand, even in small suburban corners of Auckland. Street art online in Wikipedia is from Australia, Israel, European countries and many other countries. 

To sum up

Past - to see online

Sculpture exhibitions

UK

Elephants, London and Waddesdon

Permanent - to visit

UK

England

London

East End walking tours - murals

Paintings for sale along Piccadilly some weekends

Sculptures of famous royalty and characters such as Oscar Wilde and Amy Winehouse animals and sculptures and monuments Trafalgar Square

Public fountains

USA

Philadelphia - murals

Poland

Wroclaw - ankle height sculptures

Sculpture parks

For free entertainment in any city, look online for murals, street sculpture, markets.

Useful Websites

London, England, walking tour

https://www.walks.com/our-walks/the-street-art-walk-bombing-with-banksy-co/

Philadelphia, USA, tour

https://muralarts.org/tours/

Armchair travelling from your desk

Facebook

https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/rejuvenatedstreets

https://www.facebook.com/guerilla.knitting/photos

https://www.instagram.com/streetartfestival.ch

Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Street_art_by_country

https://www.instagram.com/streetartfestival.ch

Please share links to your favourite posts.

Colourful Tiles and Artistic Artwork To Admire on underground stations all over London, England

Southwark

Southwark underground station, London, England.

The pink and green - and blue - doesn't it arrest your attention! Isn't it delicious? For me its memories are sugary. I don't often relate to people who can translate pictures into sounds, or colours into tastes, but this bright pink seems to me almost edible.  The pink evokes delightful images of pink drinks. Sweet foods. Childhood. Parties. Birthdays. Days out. Fairgrounds. Like pink candy floss.

To me this design is both good and bad. Let's start with what is good. The colours are warm, wonderful, vivid, varied. 

But the rigid squares, stiff stripes? It could have had waves. Ovals. 

The upright stripes are like crowds of soldiers or commuters. It is a marching design. Hurrying on. Energetic.

Not soothing. Yet, I like it. Why?

Yes, on the whole, on second thoughts, on last thoughts, final decision, I like it. it is better than the old plain walls of so many public places. I like the bold colours. It looks easy to clean. It won't show the dirt like a white wall or any wall all one colour. It discourages graffiti.

You can see the colours from a distance. No challenge tao your knowledge of local history or national culture. No guessing the meaning of symbols. Just colour and simple shapes.  

The shapes are a bit of a mish-mash. Squares or diamonds, circles, stripes. Make up your mind, Mr or Mrs artist. Which is it, rigid straight lines or soothing circles? 

What about the patterns? Looks like a five year old picked the design from a book of patterns. Black and white stripes on day one. Diamonds on day two. Then circles.

Finally, when teacher or parents suggested add some colour, colour. Turn both squares and diamonds into colour. Random colours.

What are the colours? Red, orange, yellow, green, blue. Black and white. No pink or purple. (Nothing too flamboyant. Nor anything depressing, grey or brown, not colours of mould and or earthy dirt.) Nothing challenging. Something for everyone.

No detail. Never mind. This is a corridor. Can't have people stopp ing to inspect the detail, check the text. We want them to more on, along the corridor and up the escalator. 

Energize everybody. Get them off to work, or shopping, with enthusiasm. Give them the energy to get home after their tiring day.

Okay, that works.

Vauxhall Street.

I love colour. On murals. Anywhere. I prefer colour to boring black and white. But the black and white informative panels featuring historical and fictional characters also grab my attention. 

Usually I am hurrying past to a destination. On the way home I am tired and do not want to stop. But once in a while I have the time, the leisure and pleasure, to stand and stare, and photograph the murals.

My favourite design on the London underground is Sherlock Holmes on Baker Street. Simple, straightforward, one person featured, easy to understand and recognize. On one mural, tiny black silhouettes of Sherlock Holmes in his deerstalker hat make up the image of his pipe.

Baker Street underground railway station mural.

I was puzzled by the little Labyrinth on the wall at ground level near the entrance to Northwick Park station in North London. I asked the man serving at the kiosk, "Do you know what this little design means?" He simply shrugged and raised his hands in the air. "It's an artwork."

 Now I can explain it, to local people, or foreign visitors. I feel really pleased with myself. I am a guide, a teacher. I can write about it in my blog. I can put it on Pinterest. I can add it on Google maps.  

I only recently,  yesterday, discovered that the same artist has designed different labyrinths for stations all over London. The artist is Mark Wallinger.  Mark my words, his name is easy to remember. Mark the wall. Wall injured. Or, if you prefer a positive memory aid, wall enjoy. Or wall ingenius. Mark Willinger. Why bother to remember his name? Because you will see his little mazes on the walls of railway stations all over London, the station you depart from and the station you arrive at. 

For years I had walked past the little maze on the wall at Northwick Park station and wondered, what is that doing here? What has a maze got to do with this area? The answer is, nothing. The mazes are all over London. Each station has its own maze and each one is unique and charming.

Mark's Labyrinth at Heathrow. Picture from Wikimedia.

Useful Websites

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Labyrinth_(Art_on_the_Underground)#/media/File:Mark_Wallinger_Labyrinth_269_-_Heathrow_Terminals_1,_2,_3.

https://travelwithangelalansbury.blogspot.com/2020/10/delightful-decorations-on-london.html

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Labyrinth_(Art_on_the_Underground)

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10622805/Secrets-Victoria-Line-station-tiled-mura

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

If you like this post, please save it, bookmark it, and share it.

Clarke Quay Riverside's Romantic Restaurants for strolling and sitting sipping by Daylight and Twilight

 

You can take a very pleasant walk along the riverside from Clarke Quay MRT station. The area is named after a Mr Clarke. (Clarke is a popular British name inherited from an ancestor and once derived from the trade of being a clerk?)

We started at one exit. Exit C, which has 90 steps, was closed. We walked along the southern bank towards Riverside Point, facing Clarke Quay which is on the Northern side.

I muddle up Boat Quay and Clarke Quay. Firstly, we went to Clarke Quay MRT. Secondly, we saw the sign Clarke Quay.

Clark Quay sign. Photo by Angela Lansbury.

Some couples were strolling along. Others stopped to sit and watch the boats go by.

Clarke Quay couple watching passing boats. Photo by Angela Lansbury. copyright.

Notice the old shophouses. (Shophouses are shops or shopfronts with housing overhead and at the back. Usually two storey terraces. With shutters. Elaborate carved wood doorways, door shutters and window shutters. Bright colours.)

Here a consistent colour scheme has been used. The roof tiles are all orange. The shop fronts are rotating four colours, blue, yellow, pink, green.

We took a walk along to Brewkerz which has outdoor tables overlooking the river. We then returned to a Projector area for a film show.

When we left Clarke Quay, near the bridge crossing, we re-entered the station at another exit which is next to a shopping mall which includes bargain store Daiso.

We stopped at the Cheers shop for an inexpensive choc ice on a stick called a Magnum, paying with a credit card. You have to finish your food before entering the train station.

Come back for more text and pictures shortly.

Useful Websites

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

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.

 Please share links to your favourite posts.

See Banksy Murals In London - and more murals planned in Rayners Lane and Harrow & Wealdstone, public input invited!

Hurray - murals are planned to enhance Harrow and Wealdstone and Rayners Lane. the designs are displayed and the public's comments are invited. I like all the designs submitted for public reaction. The trees design looks great. The railway train design is terrific.

I am glad the neglected north of London will have murals to match those in Central, East and South London. 

London already has many murals.

The historical event of the Battle of Cable Street, a major political story, is in the East End of London.

BANKSY MURALS

Near Waterloo station and on the South Bank, Banksy painted the girl with a balloon, which was painted over. However, we are indebted to LYDIA with her SALAD days for the photo which was put on Flickr and copied to Wikipedia where I found it.

Latest version of the Banksy, girl with a red heart shape balloon.

Earlier lost version by Banksy.

A later version of the mural was painted nearby. Wiki has a list of murals all over London. I have also written posts about murals in other parts of the world.

Useful Website

https://www.harrow.gov.uk/news/article/10836/murals-go-straight-to-the-art-of-wealdstone-and-rayners-lane

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Murals_in_London

http://londonmuralpreservationsociety.com/murals/battle-cable-street/

About the Author

Angela Lansbury, the author, lives in London and Singapore. Please share links to your favourite posts.

Rila Monastery Must See - top sight in Bulgaria

Rila Monastery is absolutely the top sight in Bulgaria, above the superb capital, Sophia, above a trip to picturesque Plovdiv.

Rila Monastery and tree. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.



Rila Monastery, Bulgaria. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

The pictures speak for themselves. The outer walls and ceilings are decorated with religious themes and moral murals from Adam and Eve and the serpent tempting them to eat the apple, onwards.

What will it cost you in time and money? We hired a car for the day and drove there from our walking tour centre of Borovets. Other costs were the parking outside 5 Leva. No charge to go into the monastery nor to enter the main church, however extra for the museum, or a guidebook, or a human guide, or to climb the tower.

A panel in the entry arch gives you the basics. To summarise: the area was the refuge for a hermit. After several years of being alone, communing with God, the holy recluse gathered a huge crowd of disciples and ended up with this magnificent, monastery. You might like to read about the history in advance.

Make sure in the church to see the grave of the last king, who loved the monastery so much that he built a railway out towards it.

The complex has two shops selling books, cards, religious items, red rosary bead bracelets. Also an eatery at the back.

About the author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.

Free, fun Amazing street art, statues and murals, outdoors in the sun or sheltering underground

Where is street art which you can see for free - or join a walking tour for a small fee or donation in good weather? The places which spring to my mind are:

UK London's Amy Winehouse trail and Camden; Brixton; Croydon. Bristol and Banksy.


Brixton mural from Wikipedia.

Big Splash, on Glenelg Road (London, SW2) by Christine Thomas, assisted by Dave Bangs and Diana Leary – 1985.

 Iemanja75 (talk) LeticiaGolubov 10:56, 15 March 2010 (UTC) - self-made.

BRAZIL Rio de Janeiro's slums or favelas transformed in rainbow colours.

Praça Cantão, 2011

André Sampaio - Own work

Foto panorâmica da Praça Cantão, situado na Favela Santa Marta, em Botafogo, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil. Esta foto foi tirada para ser incorporada ao site www.wikirio.com.br e disponibilizada ao público sem restrições.

INDIA - the Mumbai makeover, painting slum houses into street art and happy homes. (Mumbai, previously called Bombay.)

POLAND Wroclaw has a trail of tiny not even nearly knee high statues, 20-30 cm. Most are on the ground, a few higher up or even overhead.

e	23 August 2017
Source	Photographed during 2017 IFLA Conference, Wroclaw, Poland.
Author	Photographed by Bobby Bothmann.

Muzeum Poczty i Telekomunikacji, ul. Krasińskiego 1, I piętro 

USA Philadelphia's mural trail

Singapore
In Singapore one of my favourite streets for colourful buildings is Waterloo Street.

Waterloo Street, Singapore, for colourful buildings. Photo by Angela Lansbury. The bright yellow of this building, with the green shutters is immediately obvious. Look up and you can see the pink of an HDB skyscraper behind on the left, and blue and white on the right. Copyright.

Where do you work or live? In the yellow building. In the pink building. In the blue building.

Over in Chinatown the traditional houses have coloured tiles and co-ordinating flowering trees. Notice the green tiles with embossed patterns. the salmon pink wash, with deeper contrasting lines. the white window shutters with the white fretwork above. the double doors are white with wavy edges and orangey salmon pink lines. The tree is green and white.

Chinatown traditional house. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

Many of the modern government built housing blocks, called HDB, are in bands of colour.
If you are lucky, the block you are visiting has a different colour or design or murals of flowers so that children and adults and strangers can quickly identify it.

If the weather is bad, you might have to take a tour of the underground stations.
Singapore has art on underground stations such as Newton.


UK and London Underground

Sherlock Holmes on Baker street station underground platform. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

Baker Street in London, UK, has a platform featuring Sherlock Holmes.

Who and where is this? It must be Victoria station, London, England.

Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

Fun for tourists, and transform the lives of those who live there.
Fodor's travel picks 12 cities, starting with:
Dublin,
Glasgow,https://peoplemakeglasgow.com/things-to-do/city-centre-mural-trail
and several more destinations, including: Melbourne, Mexico City, New York, New Orleans, Paris and Rome. Enough to keep you busy for a year.

Useful Websites
The Effect on the community - a TED talk.
https://www.ted.com/talks/haas_hahn_how_painting_can_transform_communities
Places for tourists to visit.
https://www.fodors.com/news/photos/these-12-cities-are-home-to-the-best-street-art-on-earth
Philadelphia mural walking tours
https://www.muralarts.org/tours/
https://www.straitstimes.com/lifestyle/arts/mumbai-slums-get-colourful-makeover

Underground stations and railway stations
https://travelwithangelalansbury.blogspot.com/2019/01/my-favourite-humorous-artwork-on-newton.html

TRAVEL AND TOURISM
Singapore Airlines
singaporeair.com
visitsingapore.com
visitbritain.com
visitbritain.org
visitlondon.com
incredibleindia.org
visittheusa.co.uk

Author
Angela Lansbury
Travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. I have several more posts on murals, at stations in London, Russia, and Singapore, plus more pieces on destinations and the weird and wacky and wonderful. Please share links to your favourite posts.

Amy Winehouse Exhibition In London, England

Jewish Museum, London, England. Picture from Wikipedia.

Jewish Museum, London, England
A new Amy Winehouse exhibition at the Jewish Museum in Camden features Amy's music CDs and other items. The exhibits are linked by comments from her brother Alex.

The Jewish museum has a shop and cafe.

Also look for her statue in Stables Market, Camden, London, England.

Photo author from Wikipedia.

A model of Amy is in Madame Tussauds. Madame Tussauds is beside Baker Street train station. Often long queues (line ups). Must book. Look for combined tickets featuring two or more attractions.

At least three London destinations for an Amy Winehouse tour.
Also look for her favourite pubs, the Good Mixer and the Hawley Arms.

More Musicians
Many other musicians are featured in London. Handel. Jimi Hendrix. I also have posts mentioning Aretha Franklin and Detroit, USA, Elvis, Country Music, Waltzing Matilda.

Amy performed at several concert in the USA and married Blake in Florida.
Overseas, murals featuring Amy Winehouse are in
Barcelona, Spain, and
Tel Aviv, Israel.

Useful Websites
Amy Winehouse singing Back to Black with her backing group
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebf171vP74k
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statue_of_Amy_Winehouse
https://mashable.com/2015/07/03/amy-winehouse-london-street-art/#0wqtI4qIgaqI
https://jewishmuseum.org.uk/
visitlondon.com
visitengland.com
Flight comparison website:
opodo.com
Review of exhibition at The Jewish Museum, London, England
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/jul/02/amy-winehouse-jewish-museum-exhibition
https://travelwithangelalansbury.blogspot.com/2019/01/music-museums-to-visit-worldwide.html

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

Marvellous Murals In Little India, Singapore

At the time I noticed that the horses, large and incongruous in a side alley, were on the theme of Race Course Road. Only when I looked at the photo of the mural later did I realise the humour. The horse and rider are shown not on a racecourse but leaping over vegetables - bags including carrots on the left, and fruit - oranges on the right, which have been knocked onto the ground.

Problem
Which way is the quickest route to Mustafa's department store, to and from Farrer Park MRT, or Little India?

We changed at little India and got off at Farrer Park on the way there. We thought it would be quicker to walk back to Little India MRT station. Why? To avoid the delays of walking around Little India station to change lines, then along the underground exit from Farrer Park, finally the short walk from Farrer Park to the department store (turn left towards the Indian temple).

We were wrong. It's a hot walk back to Little India station. However, it has two advantages, One is that if you keep in the shade of the covered way in front of the shops, you can't see what they are selling. Lots of suitcases on wheels, mobile phone covers, clothes, and a man with a sewing machine outdoors - handy if you want something repaired.

Murals
An added bonus was discovering the murals near the MRT. The first one we found was the amusing mural depicting a worker with tools and rubbish.

Next was a mural of horses. Unusual? Why horses? You are on Racecourse Road. One way to remember the street on your map needed for the little India MRT exit. Racecourse Road has some of the well-known Indian restaurants which we visited int he 1990s before the MRT was built.

The last annoyance was the Little India exit we reached had an escalator up and none down. You might think that the extra walk and exercise does you good. You might find walking or running up and down stairs and stations and back alleys is exhilarating. On the whole, most days, I prefer not to arrive feeling hot, damp and tired.

When you are rushing into a station to catch a train to meet friends or for an appointment, you might not have time to register what's on the nearby mural. This one seems to show a bull with horns riding a bicycle.

When I saw the murals, I had wondered, vaguely, whether the artist had been paid by the owner of the building, or was the owner of the building, or like Banksy, had just painted the murals for a joke or a dare or to practise on an empty wall.

I then googled murals in Little India and discovered that the source of the artwork was artists at the nearby LaSalle art college. The source of the funding was the heritage department.

Useful Websites
visitsingapore.com
http://www.lasalle.edu.sg/praxis-press/cattleland-art-walk-little-india/


Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. See my other posts on Little India and Indian restaurants. Please share links to your favourite posts.

What to see in Serbia? Belgrade's murals and Tesla

Problem
First where is it?
Second what is there to see? Four fun places.

Answers
Serbia was part of the former Yugoslavia. The capital is Belgrade. Not meaning beautiful city, although the tourist board says it is, but white city. In the local language it is spelled BEOGRAD.

What's on my list of what to see in Belgrade?
You arrive at Nikola Tesla airport. After seeing the man's name at the airport, it's easy to remember who is one of the national heroes.

The first place to see is:

1 The fortress above the city overlooking the town and river. Free!

2 Nikola Tesla Museum.
Who was Tesla. He invented household items using alternating current. How will I remember that? TElsLA ALTErnating current. TEsla alTErnating current. TesLA ALternating current.

Nikola Tesla Museum
Open Tuesday to Saturday, 10-6. (So the staff get Sunday and Monday off. Visitors can see the museum one day at the weekend, the first day of the weekend, and every day of the week except the first day.)
Is there an entrance fee? Yes. RSD 500.
(Check on opening times and prices before you go.)

After modern science, some ancient art.

3 Gallery of Frescoes at the National Museum.
Medieval murals.

(NB two of the main museums and galleries are closed in 2017, opening 2018. Check all opening times.)

4 After ancient murals, all the modern ones, troupe l'oeuil of old time buildings, in the Bohemian area of Skadarska street (in local language Skadarlija). Cobblestoned area, the Serbian Montmartre, arts and artists and old style Serbian restaurants.

Trompe l'oeuil mural in Belgrade, capital of Serbia, in Skadarlija, pedestrian street.

After modern murals, the traditional Roma culture.

4 Museum of Roma Culture.

What else? An aviation museum, a railway museum, as usual in big cities - a zoo.

Stories
Years ago when I was a teenager we went on a cruise which stopped at the port city of Dubrovnik, a popular cruise stop. My parents were very taken with the beauty of the architecture and Yugoslavia.

Later we had an au pair girl from Yugoslavia, then under Communist rule. She told me three things about her country at that time:
Yugoslavia has three groups of people and five great lakes.
If you want something done, you need to have a friend.
I cut the labels off my clothes to pretend they are old, so nobody knows I earn money or buy clothes in England.

I had very mixed feelings when Yugoslavia divided. From a tourist's point of view, I now have more countries to add to my list of places I have visited or want to visit.

Getting There
The national airline is Air Serbia which flies to : JFK, USA; Heathrow, London; Sarajevo ; and Skopje. Air Serbia is linked to the smaller carrier Aviolet. The Hungarian low cost carrier, Wizz Air, goes to Luton, UK, for London and other area.

What to eat, drink and buy to bring home? Slivovitz or plum brandy. Pear in spirits with a whole pear in the bottle. Cheaper in supermarkets than at the airport.

Where next? Maybe the art nouveau city of Subotica.

Tips - websites
Wikitravel.

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer, photographer and blogger. See my previous posts on murals.

Graffiti Museum - Urban Museum In Berlin, Germany

Graffiti and Street Art, same thing or opposites?

Problems
Graffiti spoiling beautiful buildings.
Modern artwork on historic buildings.
'Art' done hastily by people with no talent or care.
Tunnels and alleys and buildings with boring blank walls.
No activities for bored teenagers and young workers.
No plan to remove bad graffiti and create good graffiti.

Answers
A plan to cover blank walls and beautify a city.
Protection for historic and empty buildings. (Barriers and CCTV.)
Restrictions on sale of spray paint to minors who are too young to understand the damage they cause and too young to be prosecuted.
Publicise the cost of clean-up - extremely expensive in time and equipment, admin costs, time consuming, dangerous, and hard to do without damaging the walls, a waste of tax payers' money.
Good graffiti can transform morale and turn into a tourist attraction, generating jobs and income.
If you are bored or looking for voluntary work or a good cause, especially if you in the art or admin world, here's a project for you and your area or city.
Every city should have a central wall which shows its historic landmarks and famous characters.
Commission art work which is trompe l'oeuil, realistic, surreal, skilful.

Stories
I was horrified by the graffiti on wonderful old art nouveau buildings in Bucharest, capital of Romania. My second city stay was in Brasov (the city near the Dracula Castle). One of the famous landmarks in Brasov is the 'string street', a narrow alley, which was ruined by random, unsightly graffiti.

Tourist Visits
Cities Famous For Graffiti
Berlin - Berlin Wall; UrbanMuseum
Bristol - Banksy

Cities Famous for Murals

Philadelphia, USA

London, England

Famous Street Art artists:
DALeast
www.daleast.com
Eine
IcyAndSot
Jeff Soto Facebook

Urban Museum

• • Tuesday-Sunday 10.00 -18.00
• ADDRESS

URBAN NATION MUSEUM FOR URBAN CONTEMPORARY ART
Bülowstraße 97
10783 Berlin
Germany

CONTACTTel.: +49(0)30 32295989E-Mail: office@urban-nation.comhttps://www.urban-nation.com/de/

Tips
BBC article on the Berlin museum:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-41291813#_=_
Concealing Swastikas:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-europe-40809266/berlin-street-artist-group-cleverly-undo-swastika-graffiti
Facebook on the Urban Museum
https://www.facebook.com/urbannationberlin/
Urban Nation Museum Webpage (has a video)
More ideas on where to go in a visit to Berlin from a Wiki list of museums in Berlin:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_museums_and_galleries_in_Berlin

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.
See my other posts on graffiti in Romania and murals.

Philadelphia - American history and murals

Problem
How do you make a list of facts (about Philadelphia) interesting?

Answer
President and Food
Here's an article which does it well. The article starts with a President everybody knows, Obama, plus a local food, cheesesteak, which is foreign to readers elsewhere (eg us in the UK).

Murals and Grafitti
The article ends by describing not just the murals of Philadelphia, but the fact that they were installed to end graffiti (a problem I recently mentioned in a post on Romania. Hurray - here's the answer to Graffiti.

I loved the description of the mural which starts with the past at the bottom of the picture, with segregation, and moves on up.

Tips
https://www.ttgmedia.com/news/news/the-streets-of-philadelphia-discovering-the-usas-new-king-of-cool-10770?utm_source=newsletter

FLIGHTS
www.virginatlantic.com
I found their lounge at the airport in Philadelphia had wonderful food and service.

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.

Where to see murals of comedian Billy Connolly CBE in Glasgow

Problem
What can you see that's new and quick and makes a good photo?

Answer
A mural. The latest in Scotland, in Glasgow is three murals of comedian Billy Connolly CBE.
Where exactly?

1 Osborne Street, Glasgow, Scotland, UK.
2 Dixon Street (near Central station), Glasgow, Scotland, UK.
3 Gallowgale, Glasgow Scotland, UK.

Billy Connolly went to see them and loved them. The original artwork is on display at People's Palace Museum, from June 15th 2017. At the People's Palace you can also see the Banana Boots used in his stage act.

You can follow a mural trail around Glasgow. My favourite humorous mural is the taxi pulled by balloons.

People's Palace Museum, Glasgow, Scotland, UK>

Glasgow links the Edinburgh by train in less than an hour if you want to see both on one holiday or business trip.

Tips
http://www.chortle.co.uk/news/2017/05/18/36541/the_very_big_yins%3A_glasgow_to_get_three_giant_billy_connolly_murals
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-402399
http://www.glasgowlife.org.uk/museums/peoples-palace/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Connolly
https://peoplemakeglasgow.com/things-to-do/visitor-itineraries/city-centre-mural-trail

For more about tourism in Scotland, check out:
The Scottish Tourist Board
British Tourist Board
Glasgow Tourist Board
TripAdvisor
National Trust for Scotland

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. Please share posts.

Murals in London Painted By Pete The Street

Pete the Street sounds a great character. Love the stories about painting the people who were considering moving him on, and the triangle of dots showing where to paint.

Here's the press release:
Pete the Street captures the heart of London at Messum’s

Vivid scenes of the capital come together as a whole for the first time in January show by ‘Virtuoso painter’

Next time you cross Waterloo Bridge, look down at the pavement. If you can see three yellow dots set out in a triangular shape, you are looking at the mark of Pete the Street.

He’s not a graffiti artist, and this is not his ‘tag’; but Peter Brown (his real name) is an artist and the yellow dots are the markers for his easel, so that he can return to the exact spot he previously set up to paint.

The streets of London – north, south, east and west – are literally dotted with his easel marks. The result is not only dozens of remarkable paintings depicting the light, shade, tone, weather and mood of the capital, but a new coffee table book, London, Paintings by Peter Brown. Its more than 200 reproductions of paintings give as good a guided tour as any of the famous landmarks and local high streets that cohere to make the greatest city in the world.

And almost all of them were painted, come rain, shine or snow, en plein air, with rainwater often dripping down the canvas.
Now Pete the Street – a moniker he picked up from his insistence on working on the spot so that he can soak up the atmosphere of his surroundings – is the subject of a one-man show at Messum’s in Cork Street, Mayfair, from January 13 to February 12, launching the new year by cramming the whole of the Great Wen into a few square metres of wall space.
Brown, an art student turned satellite dish engineer, gave up the safety of the day job to paint full time around 20 years ago.

Previous books and collections of paintings have focused on his home city of Bath and his travels in India. Each is accompanied by a fascinating commentary of what happened around him as he painted.

These led up to the much larger London book, reflecting his obsession with the city that he visits four times every week, travelling up from the West Country on a daily basis in his nine-seater VW van.

It is no coincidence that Pete the Street has ended up showing at Messum’s. His impressionistic work, inspired by the likes of Walter Sickert and Ruskin Spear, follows the gallery’s dedication to what it recognised as an individual artistic movement that it controversially dubbed British Impressionism.

Perhaps that is also why in 2006 Brown found himself painting from the window of Room 508 – where Monet had worked a century before – as the hotel’s first artist-in-residence.

David Messum, who describes Brown as a ‘virtuoso painter who echoes the talent of the old masters’, sensed ‘something great in the making’ when he bumped into the artist on a traffic island in the middle of Piccadilly.
It was just one of the many extraordinary encounters Brown relates when talking about his life, many of which appear in his new book.

While painting Hammersmith Bridge, for instance, having returned to his van to renew his parking ticket, he came back to find a ‘wild, hairy man in a leather jacket’ painting a horse on his easel.

On St George’s Day by London Bridge, a fanfare heralded the approach of six men dressed in chain mail, draped in the colours of St George, blowing trumpets as they made their way along the towpath.

On another occasion, while painting in Eagle Place, he was approached by a beautifully dressed man who started dancing for him in the street. “He had just bought a grand piano for his 87th birthday and talked to me about working in the secret service. Meeting people like is that is a real treat.”

Less happy, initially, was a run-in with local council officials who tried to move him on in Piccadilly. While trying and failing to get through to their bosses on the phone, he used them as models for his picture. They liked the results and so left him to it.

As one of the most successful members of the New English Art Club working today, Pete the Street enjoys the “huge nostalgia involved in it”.
“Our greatest English painter is Constable or Freud, but I have a huge affinity for Walter Sickert, because of those impressionist roots. A lot of the members now are descendants of famous painters of the past, which I find fascinating.”

As well as Sickert, he admires Constable’s oil sketches, Richard Parkes Bonington and Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, as well as Alfred Sisley.

“I also have a passion for Ruskin Spear’s domestic scenes and graphic lines. And we just stand back in awe at Freud.”

Now you can stand back in awe as Pete the Street’s London panoramas and street scenes hang together for the first time at Messum’s. It’s an experience he is looking forward to as well.

“I want to see how it hangs together because I really did paint the collection with the show in mind and this is the first chance to see if it will work.”

Peter Brown at Messum’s starts on January 13 and runs until February 12.
www.messums.com

(Shepherd Market)
Evening, Shepherd Market, 2015, oil on board, 16 x 12 inches.

______________________
If you would rather not receive future communications from Lucas Field Media, please go to http://eu.vocuspr.com/OptOut.aspx?3053006x20797x9934x1x2605719x24000x6&Email=annalondon8%40gmail.com.
Lucas Field Media, Fairacre Farnham Lane, Haslemere, Surrey GU27 1HA United Kingdom