One of the worst flu's I had in decades and a very busy job made that my planned catching up postings were delayed a bit more than I planned short after the start of the New Year. This heavy flu kept me in bed for 8 days.
Anyway, here is the first real posting of the New Year.
First some left pictures from our Bavaria trip last year August. After this posting I think I'll have pics left for two or three more postings before I'm done with our Bavaria trip. Then I have pics from a daytrip to Maastricht and a daytrip to the zoo and some pics from some kind of art meets science exhibition that I visited last November, plus pics from our four day trip to Vienna, Austria. So there is plenty to post.
An update with a little more backgroundinformation about some of the pictures will be posted as soon as possible.
For now enjoy the pics.
(Update) As promised, a bit later again as planned, a little update on this post with some backgroundinformation about some of the pics.
The main entrancehall of the palace
A part of the ceilingpaintingsA few paintings from the Gallery of the Beauties and one of the highlights of the palace (IMHO). An interesting collection of women, although girls would be better, because all of them were under 21, which were considered beautiful by Ludwig I and painted by Joseph Stieler. Interesting was that some of the portrayed women were not of noble blood, which caused a lot of drama at that time. Some of the women were Ludwig's mistresses. I must admit that Ludwig I had good taste, because some of the portrayed women were very gorgeous. We were not the only one having a good time at the palace and it's park. You could make nice walks around the huge park and visit some of the pavilions which are spread around the park. The Pagodenburg , a pavilion with European and Chinese decorative elements as you can see on the picture below. A part of the interior of one of the rooms at the Badenburg. At the former royal stables there is a carriage and sleigh museum which contains an extended collection of historical state coaches, gala coupés, ceremonial sleighs and gala equipment from the Bavarian rulers including some of the over the top, extremely decorated coaches and sleighs from Ludwig II. A painting from Ludwig II during one of his nightly sleighrides, which he often seemed to do.
Uploading works again, so I better start posting some pics from our trip to Bavaria. I don't have time right now to provide some backgroundinformation and links to more detailed information about the locations/places, some of the buildings, etc. I'll will try to update this information later this week. I already can tell you that the pictures below were taken at Passau and Burghausen.
More detailed backgroundinformation will follow later. For now please enjoy the pictures.
(Update) Much later than intended but here is finally some more backgroundinformation about the pics in this post. As I wrote in the introduction of these post the pics were taken at Passau and Burghausen, two medium size cities in East and Southeast Bavaria, Germany. The first three pics were shot from a viewpoint in the hills just outside the old citycentre of Passau. Passau is also known as the City of Three Rivers, because the river Danube (Donau in German) comes together with the river Inn and the river Ilz.
The next 6 ictures were taken at the Stephansdom (St. Stephan's Cathedral) (picture above) at Passau. We went there and listened to a short (half an hour) organ concert which also included the famous Toccata and Fugue in D minor from J.S. Bach. The pictures were shot with the Tokina 12-24 F/4 Pro DX, a very nice and good lense and more than half of the price of it's Nikon equivalent. The pictures were shot short before the concert started. The organ you see on the pictures is one of the biggest cathedral organs in the world.
The next 8 pictures were taken at the city of Burghausen were our friend Frank lives. The city is known for it's longest castle of Europe (more than 1000 metres). It can be seen on the first picture. And the city is also known for it's annual International Jazz Festival. Through the years it brought many famous jazzmusicians to Burghausen. In the town they have a "Walk of Fame" with bronze paving stones with the names of the artists that performed at the festival the past 40 years. Names as: Ella Fitzgerald, Count Basie, Michel Petrucciani, Art Blakey, Barney Kessel, Buddy Rich, Chet Baker, Dave Brubeck, Dexter Gordon, Dizzy Gillespie, Freddie Hubbard, Gerry Mulligan, Lionel Hampton, Oscar Peterson, Stan Getz, Stephane Grappelli to name a few. From the artists I enclosed pictures from their "Walk of Fame" I added a link to their Wikipedia information.
Basically this is a photoweblog. So besides some short announcements most of the time I post pictures with some backgroundinformation. But occasionaly I'll make an exeption. Once I wrote about the Egyptian weblogger Alaa and several others who were detained by the police while demonstrating peacefully in support of the independence of the judiciary in Egypt (see here). And I wrote e few times about the International Film Festifal (IFFR) in Rotterdam (see here).
Tonight I want to write something about a show that a friend and I visited Sundayafternoon in our hometown Utrecht from Yamato, a Japanese percussion/drumgroup from Nara. Unfortunately my girlfriend couldn't join because she had to work.
Nara was one of the former capitals of Japan before Kyoto, Kamakura and current Tokyo, although stricly speaking Kamakura was officially not a capital city, but the chief city during the Heian period of one of the shogunates. BTW Heian in Japanese means peace or tranquility. But don't let's go to deep into that.
I was talking about Yamato. I've seen them twice before during a previous worldtour about 6 years ago. I was very much impressed then as I was again this Sundayafternoon. It's a combination of a visual spectacle, with good use of light and a very energetic and impressive performance of musical skills. They are now in the middle of their European Tour. You can check Yamato's schedule. If you have the chance to visit I would highly recommend to go.
Judging by the number of performances in Holland (41), I guess Yamato has a special relationship with Holland. Maybe it has to do with the long relationshp between Japan and Holland which started 407 years ago on 19 April 1600 with the Dutch ship "De Liefde" (Love) which was the first Dutch ship that reached Japan and marked a long intensive trade relationship. For more than 200 Years the Dutch were the only Westerners allowed in Japan. During that time they were staying at Dejima, a small artificial island in the bay of Nagasaki.
Anyway, enough history lessons. I have embedded a video I found on YouTube from Yamato where they are performing on German television. If you have a subwoofer connected to your PC, I would recommend to turn it on. Be prepared that you could end up in an argument with your neighbours. It gives you a bit of an impression. But nothing beats a live performance by Yamato. If you want to feel the air move and experience goose bumps as a chemical respond on the moving air I would suggest that you visit a concert of Yamato. Enjoy!
Last Saturday we went for the last time to our favorite pancake- and poffertjes (tiny pancakes) shop in our hometown Utrecht. The place was called Victor Consael and was a well known local place. Due to a new restructuring plan around their location and because they didn't want to fight (again) with the local authorities about a new location, they decided to quit. The stand and the household furniture have been sold. They will start a new place, but unfortunately it will be outside Utrecht. I wish them well and hope their new business will succeed.
This is too bad. Little by little the city is taken over by property developers turning characteristic city centres into the same looking boring shopping centres with the same store chains you find in lots of other cities.
I also feel disappointed because of nostalgic reasons. Victor Consael is already existing since 1850 (!!). They use to have a mobile stand traveling from fair to fair. Since 1974 they have a stationary stand in the city centre and I start visiting there as a kid of 8 years old, 33 years ago. It was a characteristic place in the city centre. It was the best pancakeplace of the Utrecht area and probably the best poffertjes place of the Netherlands.
Here are some pics taken by my girlfriend of what we ate through the years. The picture of the stand I got from internet.
Didn't made much pictures lately and after all this is a photo weblog, so I didn't had much to post about. The main reason is that I'm quite busy at the moment with some legal stuff. Don't need to go into all the details, but that's basically the reason why I didn't post much the past weeks.
Anyway, Thursdayafternoon I went together with Noriko to an opening of an exhibition in our hometown Utrecht of my friend, artist, sculptor and former roommate Gerard van den Berg. For those who can read Dutch you can find his resume here.
Of course I can keep a pretentious story about arts in general and Gerard's work in particular, but I'm not going to bother you with that. Also because I don't have much theoratical knowledge about arts, especially sculpture. I have some knowledge about art history, but I'm not an expert.
Art, regardless if it's the visual or the performing arts, is something you must see, read or listen to. That's why I prefer not too talk too much about it. For me art is good if it can make me look or listen to things differently or if it's simply beautiful in my humble opinion or just overwhelming.
Well, let's cut the crap! Here are some pics of some of Gerard van den Berg's sculptures. If you have any comment, you can let me know. I'll make sure Gerard will get it.
This was just one of the views from the building where the exhibition was.
The main entrancehall of the palace
A part of the ceilingpaintings
A few paintings from the Gallery of the Beauties and one of the highlights of the palace (IMHO). An interesting collection of women, although girls would be better, because all of them were under 21, which were considered beautiful by Ludwig I and painted by Joseph Stieler. Interesting was that some of the portrayed women were not of noble blood, which caused a lot of drama at that time. Some of the women were Ludwig's mistresses. I must admit that Ludwig I had good taste, because some of the portrayed women were very gorgeous.
We were not the only one having a good time at the palace and it's park. You could make nice walks around the huge park and visit some of the pavilions which are spread around the park.
The Pagodenburg , a pavilion with European and Chinese decorative elements as you can see on the picture below.
A part of the interior of one of the rooms at the Badenburg.
At the former royal stables there is a carriage and sleigh museum which contains an extended collection of historical state coaches, gala coupés, ceremonial sleighs and gala equipment from the Bavarian rulers including some of the over the top, extremely decorated coaches and sleighs from Ludwig II.
A painting from Ludwig II during one of his nightly sleighrides, which he often seemed to do.
