Beloved Eleanor

For some reason at the beginning of this week, for at least three nights in a row I dreamt about Venice.  Why?  I just don’t know.  I haven’t watched, read, looked at or otherwise done anything remotely involving Venice.  Yet, here we are.

I should explain my relationship with Venice, such as it is.  Years ago, I think it was when I was in my mid to late teens my maternal Aunt bought me a book called Tregaron’s Daughter by Madeleine Brent.  My Aunt, it should be said was, and is, a fabulous book and trinket supplier

Tregaron’s Daughter is a mystery story set in Cornwall and Venice.  I don’t know what it was about it exactly, as the book isn’t about to set the world on fire, (though I still love it anyway) but it instilled in me a deep desire to visit Venice myself when I was older.  By the age of 20, I had fulfilled that dream.

I visited museums and galleries, including the Basilica San Marco and the Doge’s Palace, I took boat rides – including one on a gondola – and walked the length and breadth of Venice.  Sadly, I didn’t take very many pictures, and I think they are rubbish, so I won’t include them here!  The fact is, when I left all those years ago, I didn’t feel that I needed to return.

So why now?  No idea, not a clue.  I hunted out my photos (eek), found a couple of guidebooks, and most importantly – remembered my Venetian Palazzi book – which is gorgeous indeed.  Even while writing this I remembered my Venetian mask that I bought (I was enthralled by the mask and costume shops), but it doesn’t seem to be enough.

I suppose time will tell, but I cannot see myself getting to Venice any time soon, time permitting, never mind anything else!  So, I have ordered myself a second hand copy of Tregaron’s Daughter (no idea what I did with the last one) and a DVD of Francesco’s Venice which is supposed to be very good.  All I know is that for now, my subconscious mind will have to be content.

As I posted a week or so ago, in the second week of July, my family and I disappeared for nearly 3 weeks on holiday. We went to Kitzbuehel, Tyrol, Austria (staying just outside the town) in a rented traditional style house.

It was huge, entirely made from wood, with bedrooms for around 7/8 people, a kitchen, bathroom, huge lounge and own balcony. I think we felt very spoilt indeed when we arrived! As we travelled over to Europe by car, we were able to tour around to a few different places, and I’ll include a selection of photos here. We had mixed weather, unfortunately more rain than we would have liked, but we did have some very hot days too. I had a great time, but was very tired when I got home.

I nearly forgot to mention, my Mum and I also got awarded at a small champagne reception our certificates for 10 (bronze) and 20 (gold) visits to the town. We got presents and VIP passes too! Extra nice to be spoilt by the Tourist Board!

Here are some views, I will probably post a couple more once I’ve identified which ones in a few days. I also met an interesting character whilst shopping in St. Johann…watch this space.

The view looking out to the left of our balcony of the Kitzbueler Horn mountain with TV aerial on top.

The town of Zell am See, which as the name suggests is set next to a beautiful lake. The weather was gorgeous here, there were paragliders out on the lake as well as boaters. Some of the family went out on the lake, but I hate boats, so I ate my lunch and waved

There are also some fantastic old hotels from about 1903-1905 set at the side of the lake.

We also journeyed to the city of Salzburg, which has many interesting historical places and museums to visit, though I didn’t get to see too many! We had a long walk about the city, and stopped in at the Catherdral, from where I took this picture. The sell donut pretzels here too, you would have liked them

Achensee, also obviously, set around a huge lake, is very beautiful, but sadly the weather was absolutely terrible, and quite cold on the day we visited. I was able to capture the lovely colour of the lake here though.

The church of the town of Soell. This is a lovely, but reasonably remote place, which has some lovely walks to take around it.

Please note as always, these images are copyright 2008 belonging to me. Please do not use/re-produce without my permission.

This post title is aka I Heart Austria.

Does anyone else watch this show?  My dad used to watch this years ago, and I know they repeat it on travel channels all the time as I often catch the end of episodes.  I know I’m not the only one that watches this show, it so reminds me of Austria, and those among you that are regulars know how much I love this country.

If you don’t watch it, start now!  By the way, if anyone can find an online video or DVD of it, let me know…

P.S, not long now ’til I’m back there, yay!

I’d better get to this before the new year comes round! I’ve got an update of the Follow the Star weekend at Castle Fraser to follow too.

Well, last day in London and I always have time for copious amounts of shopping. It’s just a shame I always have too much to carry home in my bag.

We had a good look round, but I really miss my favourite book shops, so this is what I mainly went out for. Just for you people though, I took a few shots of London at night. It was colder in London than Scotland when I was there, so photography was a slight challenge.

So, it was dinner, packing and then the 3.30am coach to the airport for my flight. See you next year London, here’s Chelsea Bridge all lit up, with the beautiful crescent moon. I call this Moon Over the Water:

After a late night, plus snacks as I am always starving after concerts, we had a late start to the day preparing for the HIM concert. HIM are also Finnish and the lead singer has done some work with Apocalyptica before. This is probably the last HIM gig I will go to, so we got there pretty early as the fans always queue early for them and we wanted a good photography spot again!

I’m pleased to say we got an even better spot and we liked the support band Kill Hannah who are from the USA. They were pretty excited to be at the Astoria (I wonder if I get frequent attendance points?) and played an energetic set, so I will be looking into hearing more of their music, and you will find a video of their song ‘Lips Like Morphine’ below.

HIM came on quite early, and played a really long set, mixed with old and new songs which I was glad about as I’m not so fond of their new stuff, but their roadies took ages to set up and I was getting seriously bored waiting for them to tape down rugs to the stage!

All in all, it was a good night, and the fans certainly enjoyed it, but I think we all would have appreciated even just a quick encore.

Here’s Kill Hannah’s video and a few of my shots of the evening (HIM’s lighting was a bit crappy):

Hello visitors! This post is doubling as Wordless Wednesday this week…

After the exertions of the previous day, a little lie-in was in order as well as a general catch up with my friend and time to get organised for the night’s entertainment. Apocalyptica are a Finnish band made up of 3 cellists and a drummer (they very often have an extra cellist when performing live actually) who first became famous playing covers of Metallica songs. It sounds unconventional because it is! But their fan base tells all, from metal to classical, they are amazingly talented performers.

It was a lovely cold day(!) to be queueing outside the Astoria in Charing Cross Road in order to get a good position inside the venue for photography amongst other things. This we managed in the balcony area to the left of the stage. It was a great night, started with 2 guest bands, Stone Gods, who I think were English, and ok, then Lacrimas Profundere who I believe are German who were also quite entertaining, I like some of their songs so will try to hear some more of their work.

Apo came on just before 9pm I think, and were amazing, they have a lot of energy when they perform together, and the stage was set out really well for viewing (unlike some!), with great lighting for photography (also got some great video) too. With their encore, they finished just before curfew at 11pm and a great time was had by all. I cannot recommend this band enough if you have the chance to see them, this was my second time.

Here’s some of my shots from the evening:

I’d barely made it into town from the airport when it was time to stagger to the Tate Gallery (or Tate Britain if you prefer) for the John Everett Millais exhibition, which has been running since September.

Regular readers will know that I adore the Pre-Raphaelite artists and Millais is one of my favourites. The exhibition is gorgeous, much more than I thought it would be, many more rooms anyway. The works were split into different parts and you were able to wander in between. There were also some artifacts, such as the artist’s easel and brushes, chair etc. which were also quite interesting to see.

I saw my favourite painting ‘Ophelia’ and also looked out for ‘The Black Brunswicker’ and ‘Mrs Perugini’ as the latter are both modelled by Kate Dickens, later Collins and Perugini, daughter of Charles Dickens.

There were many drawings, which were beautifully done, but not my favourite things to see, I love the light, colour and life in Millais’ paintings which I can’t really see in these.

I’d forgotten that it was Millais who painted that famous image of the ‘Princes in the Tower’, and ‘Bubbles’ who is so well known from advertising these days (Pears). It was amazing to see that some family members had preserved the shoes and bonnet worn by one of the child sitters, and they are still in family hands today.

All in all, it is a wonderful exhibition and I recommend that you go and see it if you can. Even if you can’t Millais’ paintings live all over the world, and I’m sure there’s probably one near you that you can visit at a museum or art gallery. That’s the thing really, I fell in love with ‘Esther’ and soon she’ll leave the country of her birth to return home again, that’s one thing that makes me slightly sad about exhibitions…

Well, tomorrow anyway. I shall be away in London to attend the Millais exhibition and then HIM and Apocalyptica gigs. I shall also try to cram in lots of other nice things including shopping of course.

When I come back I shall be working the Follow the Star weekend at Castle Fraser, so you may not hear from me for a while, but I shall try to take lots of photographs and give a detailed update.

See you soon!