Category: Europe
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3-D Devotion
Going through the Herkyna gorge south of Livadia, a town in Boeotia, Greece, one passes the Fountain of Memory and the Fountain of Forgetfulness, the ancient Mnemosyne and Lethe of which Pausanias speaks. For me the water of Mnemosyne has done its work because I remember well first having seen from down the façade of…
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Café Kafka
Several cafés in Prague where Kafka liked to come a century ago with his friend Max Brod do not exist anymore. Instead we now find cafés named after him. If Brod had followed Kafka’s wish and had destroyed his friend’s unpublished manuscripts after his untimely death in 1924, the world would not have known the…
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Gorazdova Heaven
This heaven seems badly in need of a lick of paint. But even if it was less run down, it would still be a rather strange impression of a heavenly abode, at least from the outside. Good that it is clearly indicated so we know where to report after our death. Photo of the week:…
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Gorazdova 13
Again no.13, my lucky number, this time in Prague! The lady’s head above the door and the delicate pattern of leafy twigs and fruits all around is nicely done. It’s a fine example of the decorated façades in Art Nouveau style for which this city is known. When walking the streets of Prague do not…
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No. 13
I have friends in Delhi living on the 23rd floor of a big apartment building. Once, when taking the elevator up to their flat, I noticed that there was no button for no.13. The column of figures jumped from 12 to 14. There was no 13th floor! So actually my friends are living on 22nd…
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Wintry welcome
This lonely hiker is not as lonely as it looks because I was there to take his picture. He is my friend, reaching the frozen chalet just a little after me. When I saw him appearing in the distance it struck my eye how his tiny figure enhanced the icy desolation of the scene. Photo…
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Snowbound
This is the fate of small villages lying isolated at higher altitudes in the mountains away from roads and passes that are kept open in winter. They’re deserted during this time of the year and inhabited only in summer. But as we can see here quite surprisingly, the hiker on skis or rackets who happens…
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Blue nude
Throughout his long creative life the female figure, dressed or nude, has been a favourite theme of Henri Matisse. In hundreds of paintings, drawings and sculptures he has sung the beauty of woman. The last ten years of his life he was bedridden and couldn’t paint anymore but his creativity remained unbroken. From this period…
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Fränzi
More than a century ago, the painter Ernst Ludwig Kirchner was part of “Die Brücke”, a small group of German artists that with their work wanted to form a bridge (Brücke) between the old art and a new style of painting which became known as expressionism. For a few years around 1910, a young girl…
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Rolled, rubbed and rounded
The rock and the stones, they look of the same soft make-up, only differing in colour. What a nice and quiet ensemble they make in the blazing sun. Till the tide comes in and the waves wash over them. Then the stones roll up and down in splashing water, rubbing against each other over the…
