Hotel Art: the first batch

Remember the tulips in Den Haag?

  

 Such life, colour and above all, where else but the Netherlands?  Could there be anywhere else with better art than this, I wonder?

 In Weimar, of course, there's Goethe and Schiller above the bedhead.  I imagine every room had the same print which gave a fine sense of place but was a little dull.

Another print in Dresden, one of a pair, although the other, blue variation had so much reflection that it wasn't worth posting.  Imagine something along similar lines in blue and you've got it.

 

I rather liked these multi-layered images, even if they were rather too densely layered to be able to decipher.  But at the end of our corridor, there was the strangest, narrowest piece of art I've seen.

Though my photograph doesn't show the colours so well, this 5cm wide, metre long strip was a mixture of colour splatters and I could discern no particular design.  Imagine a yard of Jackson Pollock....

And finally for tonight, some of the Karlovy Vary collection.  At times, I felt that our room resembled something like a village art fair, with five unconnected pictures which appeared to be originals.

 

Mind you, the hotel lounge had a fair share too

Bearing in mind that only the Party Faithful could have stayed here in "the old days", when it was the Grand Hotel Moscow, perhaps it's unsurprising to find the place filled with all kinds of treasures? I wonder how many pictures are on their inventory?

Cute

Sorting through photos, I realised that I haven't shared this advertisement from the bratwurst man in the square in Weimar.  How could you refuse?

Shared enthusiasms

A delightful part of our trip was spent with friends though our very first day with Ilja and Marieke in The Hague seems so long ago now.  They were keen to share their favourite parts of the city with us, not least the Mesdag Panorama

Until now, I had no knowledge of these Panoramas but was fascinated to learn more from Marieke, whose enthusiasm for this medium was rather contagious.  She explained how the standard-size canvas would be rolled up and transported to different venues, as a kind of precursor to our cinema screens.  The dark passageway leading to the panorama itself was all part of the experience, as was the spiral staircase to the viewing platform; both of these devices a means of taking the visitor out of the real world and into the imaginary landscape depicted on the canvas.

The Mesdag panorama is special, for it was painted by talented artists who have created a true masterpiece, signing it by including themselves in their work.  The small platform in the centre of the viewing area showing the glass plate which was used to draft out the work - the artist could stand and look through the transparency to check perspectives and scale - the really impressive aspect of this piece.  The view of Scheveningen is enhanced by a sandy apron in between the viewer and the panorama itself and the illusion is completed by the daylight pouring through the clear skylight.  The shifting clouds and changing levels of sunshine affect the atmosphere with surprising effect and on this, a changeable day as far as the weather was concerned, we saw this to best effect.

Van Gogh loved it and so did we!

As usual, I had more than one camera in my bag and handing one of them to Marieke for the day meant that my collection of images from The Hague is especially fun.  How strange that the only two photographs we took before we realised that photography wasn't allowed in the museum are so similar

Neither of us had spoken about how we'd approach taking photographs of the day, we hadn't discussed details - and yet both of us zoomed in on these hands.  Spooky!

Marieke takes the honour of best shot of these rather curious sculptures which are around the city this summer.  The work of Mexican artist Javer Marin our opinions varied according to the time of day, the location and for me, the subject matter.

I found these two huge heads rather interesting and wanted to take a closer look at the detail immediately.  Quite captivating whether in sunlight or shade, the expressions on such a monumental scale are well placed in these large open spaces and quite in keeping with their surroundings.

Unlike dear Louis Couperus, standing there most apologetically in contrast.

But not all of Javer Marin's artwork hit the spot for me.  Right outside our hotel, this large piece invited me to take a closer look.

But having done so, I can't say I liked what I saw.

But such things give us plenty to talk about over a bottle of good prosecco and a plate of cheese...not to mention supper afterwards!

unpacking, so far

from top to bottom, left to right: 

• warm, felted slippers from Linz
• little lace stars for my Christmas branch, from the Erzgebirge
• a small windmill from the same place
• a cookbook with tasty ideas to serve in "Verrines"and a dozen of the smallest glasses.  Another cookbook with recipes for mini-madeleines - sadly, we ran out of time to find the baking tin
• a quarter yard remnant of embroidered "trachten" velvet and the matching silk lining to make a scarf, from the Salzburg Heimatwerk shop
• a few favourite pads and pochettes of art paper from Lille
• my friend's book ordered by and collected from a delightful independent bookshop in Salzburg
• delicious (and beautifully packaged) biscuits from Strasbourg
• three balls of Zauberwolle from a small woolshop in Linz whose name I failed to record

3100 miles later

One of the amazing aspects of our road trip is that we have not taken the same road twice, so the journey home has been totally different from the outbound route and that's made it all the more intereseting.  Setting off from Strasbourg to drive to Lille yesterday morning however, we felt that we were really very much ready for home.  Long empty roads made the drive a bit of a chore, although the excitement of a Luxembourgoise motorway service station was fun.  Cheap petrol, booze and cigarettes meant that every car on the road stopped there - and we only wanted to use the loo!

But Lille on a sunny Saturday afternoon was a fine place to be.  We had a slight hitch in that our planned hypermarche visit had to be rescheduled - we hadn't realised until now that the Cite Europe doesn't open on Sundays.  Sadly, Auchan Lille on a Saturday evening is not exactly the therapy we needed but having been there, done that, we took refuge in a great restaurant and a wonderful supper.

Today, it really was the last lap and tonight we are at home having dropped Edward off at his home in Finsbury Park.

It's been a great trip - ten countries, ten hotels, just over 3000 miles and about 1500 photographs!  Over the next few days, I'll share a few details which escaped the blog so far - a little hotel art maybe and a few other observations.  For now, though, my own bed is the most inviting thought!