Category: Photographs

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beer Photographs Travel

Ghent again

[Edit: Photos from Ghent available here.]

So we woke up the next morning feeling FAR better than we had any right to after the long day and night of drinking. Perhaps walking 40 minutes back to our B&B helped.

We decided to stay one more night in Ghent, but the B&B we were in had no rooms available. So we had breakfast and I did some phoning and found a very funky attic room in an artist’s house. He was a painter, sculptor and potter. A rather eclectic individual. Somehow, when I first examined the room I missed the TRAPEZE that was hanging from the ceiling over the bed. Just call me Mr Observant. [In my defense, it was all coiled up and you had to untie it let it down. Ahem.]

After schelpping our luggage there we set out for our day. I had wanted to go the the Ghent Design Museum. It contained 2 items of interest.

The first one that attracted my attention to the museum, was the Aprilia Moto 6.5 which was right in the lobby. That got me in the door and we wandered around and found the Charles Eames exhibit. It was a neat exhibit, including about 6 short videos that Eames himself had narrated. One was about the production of the fiberglass chairs, and others were odd stop motion vignettes of parades using papermache or clay figurines. Very odd.

We were then off to the Dulle Griet for a beer and some nibbles. We had a Westmalle Dubble on tap as the house Dulle Griet blonde on tap.

Then Kaddee said that she had read of a scotch bar in Ghent that is somewhat well regarded. So we went off to find it. It is a cellar bar in this alley. As we were about to go down, I heard the mournful wail of not one but TWO sets of bagpipes. Now, I am not a big fan of the bagpipes. In fact I will usually beat feet in the opposite direction of a set of bagpipes. Especially since they are usually played by amateurs with far too much enthusiasm. Anyway, I refused to go down into a cellar bar that was being serenaded by TWO bagpipers. So we waited a few minutes and discussed where we would go. Perhaps we could come back later. Then, blissfully, the bagpipes stopped. Ah, it was safe to enter.

So down we went.

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beer Photographs Travel

Brugge, Part Deux

[Edit: Photos from our time in Brugge available here.]

After a very comfortable nights sleep and a filling breakfast at the B&B, I repeated to Kaddee that the day was her’s till about 4pm or so and we would do whatever she would like to do.

She decided to do laundry :-). We spent an hour or so in a laundromat, and she hit up a couple of 2nd hand clothing stores that were near the laundromat for a sweater and a few other items. [We were really cold the entire time in Belgium]

After that exciting start to the day, we headed out for tourist-time, non-beer.

Kaddee had decided that she wanted to go to one of the canals that ring the city and visit one of the windmills that was there. Being the clever girl that she is, our meandering path took us by another great beer pub.

After wandering around the town a bit, we stopped at Terrastje Brugge.

A nice little place with a pleasant patio, just beyond the craziness of the central tourist area. Sitting there in the very warm sun, out of the wind, we were actually warm for our first time in “the low countries.”

Kaddee ordered a Kriek on tap. Sitting in the warm sun, drinking kriek finally made sense to her. “I get it now” were her words I believe. We had some nibblies and

  • Orval. More “lively” than I have had in the US.
  • the aforementioned kriek
  • St Bernadus triple. Good, maltier than most triples i thought.
  • Bruges triple. Tasty and much lighter than the St Bernadus.
  • Chimay blue. Commonly available beer in the states.

We then walked out to one of the outer canals and the windmills.

They are on grassy little hills. I don’t know if the hills were man made, but there are not a lot of other hills in Brugge, so I suspect so.

The grassy hills were popular with families picnicing and couples snuggling. It was a beautiful day.

We walked up to one of the windmills that is open to the public with explanations of how they worked and how they were built. We spent the 2EU to go up inside. It was a steep climb.

What I found interesting is that the entire windmill can be pivoted to put the blades into the optimum position. I don’t know if that is a common feature of windmills, but it was pretty neat engineering.

All the buttressing and post and beam construction were pretty neat to see as well.

What was not so neat was the amount of swaying and creaking going on inside. They should put a sign out that says

If this windmill’s a rockin’, don’t come knockin’.

Continue reading “Brugge, Part Deux”
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Photographs Travel

Ahh, the joys of tele-commutting.

The view from the deck as I work today.

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Photographs Travel

Wadi Rum

Wadi Rum is a desert area in Jordan. It is where Lawrence of Arabia lived/hid and built a following that he then led during the Arab Revolt. [The Arabs dispute many of Lawrence’s later writings and the degree to which he claims to have been responsible for their success. Anyway…]

It is a rather beautiful area. Full of sandstone carved by wind and flood waters. Some very early signs of civilization [rock carving] are readily visible almost anywhere you look.

I found the area interesting, but I was still awe-struck by Petra when we visited Wadi Rum. If I had to do it over, or if someone asked my opinion, I would go to Wadi Rum first, then Petra.

We stayed 2 nights in a camp in Wadi Rum and did a 4×4 drive and a camel trek.

MY CAMEL TRIED TO KILL ME. HE THREW ME 30 FEET AND THEN STOMPED ON ME. THEN HE BASHED ME INTO THE ROCKS.

Ok, so maybe that is stretching it a bit.

To get on a camel, the camel tender/herder gets the camel to lay down, you climb on, and the camel stands up.

My camel decided to stand up while I only had one leg over. I fell off, and then the camel rolled over on top of my leg. No big deal. Except that I landed on my camera and managed to COVER it in find red sand. It still makes a grating noise when I turn the manual focus ring. I have a feeling that this is going to turn out to be a very expensive camel ride.

So, I got back on the damn beast. [Honestly, if I had been alone I probably would have paid the camel driver and sent him on his way. But I had witnesses]

Got back on and went for a relatively pleasant stroll through the desert. It took me about an hour to get over the anger and embarrasment of being pitched off the beast.

I was starting to enjoy it and get into the rythym of it when we stopped to water the camels.

To get water, they had to walk up to this trough that was in the wedge of rock. We were still on the camels. My camel decided to bump with another camel and fight for space at the trough. He managed to bump me into the rocks several times during this. And I had to lean over sideways to avoid having my head BASHED INTO THE ROCKS.

A good friend of mine wants to cook and eat a llama, because one tried to push him off a cliff in Peru many years ago. He says “It’s personal!”.

I understand now. I plan to return and our guide says he will give me lessons on preparing camel…

Some photos

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Photographs Travel

Petra By Night

We took the evening walk at Petra. You are allowed to walk from the entrance, through the Siq to the clearing that holds “The Treasury”.

They lined the walk with hundres of luminaries.

At The Treasury they had hundreds more luminaries, some beduoin musicians and they served tea.

It was quite striking.

I took some photos. Most of these are at ISO800 with 4-to-6 second exposures at f4.0 (the largest aperature for this lens).

Big thanks to our traveling companion C.D. for loaning me his tripod.

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Photographs Travel

Petra by day

Putting up some shots I took at Petra over 2 days.

I will have another post with a couple of Petra by candlelight photos.

Text to follow. Insh’allah.

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Photographs

SAND!

Sandstorm blowing through Cairo.

The wind comes from the south and brings heat and sand. Lots of sand.

These photos were taken around noon. That isn’t morning or late afternoon glow..

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Out and about Photographs

The Citadel

The Citadel is a walled compound built on the hills on the outskirts of Cairo.

It started out as a small pavilion built in the early 800’s.

It was fortified and made into a fortress and royal city by Salah Al Din (aka “Saladin”) in the late 1700s 1100s [Thank you Kelley]
More details and history can be found here.

We visited with a group of the ALI (Arabic Learning Institute). The guide is a professor of Islamic Art. She has an astounding knowledge of the history of architecture and art in the Islamic world, and Cairo in particular.

We usually jump at the chance to go on one of her tours.

We toured all the mosques and other buildings, in chronological order, inside the Citadel. Some guide books play down the citadel as uninspiring and even a waste of time with all the other things to see in Cairo. I can see that if you were to go to the Citadel without a guide, or at least a good guide book.

Our guide greatly enriched our experience.

I took just a handful of shots. Flash is not allowed inside most of the buildings, so not alot of the shots came out. Here they are.

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Photographs Travel

Qatar MotoGP

Well, that was interesting.

It is a nice track for the racers. The traction is good, the track is wide with good passing areas. A rather long straightaway. No elevation changes to speak of. Wind can be a problem at times.

It is not a great track for spectators though. There are only 3 places to watch the track from

1. The main grandstands. This is the only place you can go if you have a regular ticket.

2. VIP Suites. Air-conditioned, glassed in suites above the pit garages. You have a view of pit lane and the start/finish/grid area. TVs in the suites for everything else.

3. VIP Grandstand. There is a grandstand in turn 10 with a shuttle bus for VIP occupents to get out there.

You can’t walk the track. There is a service road inside and one outside the track, but that is not open to spectators.

All in all, not a great spectator track.

The best reason to go to this race is that there is almost no one there. The paddock security is laughable. Pit security is tighter, but you can just walk right into the paddocks and look in the back of the garages.

Because of the lack of spectators, the riders and teams are really laid back. No one is rushing from the garage to the trailer to get away from the hordes. Very laid back. You will often see riders just stopping to chat to each other “out in the open”.

They stop for autographs and photos. They are very relaxed.

All in all a good trip. I am glad I went, but I probably wouldn’t go there again. There are other tracks I would rather visit.

About 60 photos here.

(many of the pit photos were taken through the glass of the VIP suites, so there are some odd reflections and refractions)

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Photographs Travel

Luxor Temple

We took the night train from Cairo to Luxor. I don’t really recommend the night train. It is more comfortable than the night train we once took from Barcelona to Madrid, but it is noisy and a little bit of a rough ride. We did not get a great nights sleep.

But the one big bonus of taking that train, at that time of year, with the unexpected one hour delay, is that we arrived in Luxor just after sunrise.

Which allowed me to get this photo:

Balloon over luxor

That alone made the train trip worthwhile.

A small collection of photos from Luxor Temple is available here.

Karnak photos here.