Tag: art

Boys Big Bike Bash in Tassie

 

big boys on a dirt road at Poatina

 

It was a boys big bike bash

looping Tassie like it was a race track

Roaring bikes

From the cold damp west coast

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Misty wet Queenstown

settled in the heart of the wild west coast

windy roads in the mountains

constant dam filling drizzle and rain

looping across to the east coast

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St Helens Tasmania

 

The beautiful fishing harbour of St Helens at dawn

Fresh fish washed down by local beer and wine

The mountains

Elephant Pass and St Mary’s Pass clinging to the side of the mountains range.

From the coast climbing the past Poatina

Up onto the high plains

Winding through Bothwell

The home of the worlds best merino wool

and the high plains lakes

Great Lake at Miena

The nature was not the only thing of beauty

In Hobart there we visited a magnificent collection of classic bikes

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Perfect for a Boys big bike bash

 

Melbourne can be a little different

As the rest of Australia Swelters

In Melbourne has a top to day of 19c

As the Lunar New Year Celebrations draw to the end

There was Chinese dancing at Victoria Market

With traditional music and movement

Then in a change of pace the music for the chicken dance came from the speaker.

Not very Chinese I think

As kids got up to dance to a familiar tune.

 

Doing the Chicken Dance

But, of course, this is the Year of the Rooster

So why not use a European Drinking song which has chicken in the title!

Only in Multicultural Melbourne

Where cultures and traditions blend happily.

 

Impressions of Spain 3 – Alhambra

Alhambra

Sitting below the Sierra Nevada and above the fertile plane of Granada

is The Red

Alhambra

The site chosen by the Romans for a fort

Bought to its glory by the Moors as Christian Europe languished in its Dark Ages

Magnificent architecture

 

Summer House at Alhambra

 

 

Mosaics

 

 

Gardens

Bought into flourish by the Nasrid Sultans over 700 years

Then occupied by Ferdinand and Isabella

Driving Islam out or Spain and establishing themselves as the Catholic Kings

In the Palace, Isabella signed the orders for Columbus to sail in search of the Americas

The dawn of the Golden Age

 

Alhambra Palace

The centre of old Granada

Overlooking the Albacain, the Arab quarter

 

The Albacain from Alhambra

 

 

Plaza Aliatar at night in the Albacain

 

 

Ransacked by Napoleon’s troops in 1882

Alhambra still stands magnificent even though losing its former glory.

Impressions of Spain 2 – Cadiz

Cadiz

Old City

3000 years old

Inhabited by

Phoenicians

Romans

Goths

Moors

Through to

the Spanish “Golden Years”

 

Walls of Old Cadiz
Castillo de San Sebastian

 

Flourishing

Gold and other trade from the Americas

Trading through its port

Building a flourishing city

Grand Cathedral

 

Cadiz Cathedral

 

 

Henry Moore’s Reclining Woman beside the Cadiz Cathedral

Filled with the silver and gold

flowing from the Americas

 

Silver alter in a Cathedral chapel

Now a coastal tourist city

Port of ferries, cruise and cargo ships

old town and new

new ways and old

The wonderful passion of spain

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Impressions of Spain 1 – the Spanish

I saw the Dutch as having a stoic inner strength as a result of the battle the with external forces.

The Spanish temperament is shaped by the battle with their own wild passion.

Separatists in the Basque country and Catalonia seeking their own expression.

Civil ways

Anarchists

Communists

Capitalists

Living in the shadow of Spain’s “Glory Years”.

 

Parade on Hispanic Day dressed as in the “Glory Days” in Plaza Del Sol

“Glory Years” that spread Spanish culture to the Americas, Africa and distant corner so the world.

Especially in the Americas where the Hispanic culture is still strong.

As it shows on the Hispanic Day parade from Plaza de Mayor of the Hispanic groups.

So the passionate Spaniards celebrate with parades of national days and saint days.

FIESTA DE LA VIRGEN DEL ROSARIO CORONADA

With a 100 or more buglers and drummers leading the parade of the patron saint of Cadiz

But in many ways the flamenco dance captures the raw passionate energy of Spain

The wild swing or the body

The rapid fire stamping of the feet

The dancer lost in the raw energy of the moment

The wild expression of the inner passion.

 

 

Flamenco dancer