Red Rock Country

 

Chapel of the Holy Cross

Sedona Arizona

Lake Como

 

Varenna, Italy

A beautiful Lake Como village.

The Mining Camp Restaurant

 

The Mining Camp Restaurant permanently closed in 2017.  It was a tourist favorite for many years. This area is part of the "old west" structures that surrounded the restaurant.  

Apache Junction, Arizona

The Home of Polo

Polo Grounds

Buenos Aires, Argentina

 

Oregon Wine Country

 

Vineyard in Oregon

Dundee, Oregon

Santuaria de Chimayo

 The shrine of Santuaria de Chimayo

Chimayo, New Mexico

The Victoria and Albert Museum

 Inside the Victoria and Albert Museum

London, England

A Venice Canal

 Venice, Italy

The Guggenheim

 The Solomon R Guggenheim Museum, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright

New York, New York

Montezuma Castle

 Montezuma Castle National Monument

Yavapai County, Arizona

Rockefeller Center

 Rockefeller Center and the Atlas Sculpture

New York, New York

County Courthouse

 

Oklahoma County Courthouse

Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

Laguna Beach

 

The beach at Laguna Beach from Heisler Park

Laguna Beach California

Getty Villa

 

The Getty Villa Museum

Pacific Palisades California

Morgan Library

 

The Morgan Library & Museum, founded by J. Pierpont Morgan

New York City, New York

Spaceport America

 

Spaceport America

Near Truth or Consequences New Mexico

Urban Lights

 

Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), Urban Lights sculpture by Chris Burden

Wilshire Blvd. Los Angeles California

The British Museum

 

The Great court of the British Museum

London England

Castle on the Lake

 

Castello Scaligero di Sirmione

Lake Garda Italy

The Last Supper

 

Leonardo da Vinci's The Last Supper

Milan Italy

Kitt Peak

 

Kitt Peak National Observatory

Pima County, Arizona USA

Congressional Palace

 

Palace of Argentine National Congress built between 1898 and 1906

Buenos Aires Argentina

Venus, Goddess of Love

 Here is a beautiful statue of Venus, the goddess of love.  It resides at the British Museum in London and it caught my eye because it just seemed too perfect to be ancient.

The statue was discovered by an artist, Gavin Hamilton in 1775 in Ostia near Rome. The description says that at that time, buyers of ancient statues preferred them to be in tact so missing parts were carved by artists and added. On this statue, the arms were restored.  

16th century artists performed a little surgical correction on a 1st century piece of art.  Fascinating.

London's Clocks, part 2

 

Old world clocks can be found on many of London's buildings.  This one has a few modern things attached to it.  This looks like a good place to hang a few CCTV cameras.

This one has a very shiny owl sitting atop it.

This one appears to have some musical accompaniment when it strikes the hour.

This one sits in the courtyard of a London Hotel.  The ship at the top is nice touch.  

Clocks hang from all sorts of buildings. Some tell you the name of the building like in the photo above.

Others add a bit of color and style to the buildings they are attached to.  

I enjoy finding beauties like these.

London's Clocks

 

You can find clocks all over London.  They sit at the top of towers, on the sides of buildings and adorn public spaces.

Of course, the most famous of those clocks is Big Ben, the one that sits atop the Elizabeth Tower near the Houses of Parliament.  I think it's fair to stay that almost everyone in the world has heard of Big Ben.

However, did you know there was a Little Ben?  Little Ben is a cast iron miniature clock tower that can be found near Victoria Station on Vauxhall Bridge Road.

Another well known clock in London is The Queen of Time located above the entrance to Selfridges Department Store on Oxford Street.  The Queen of Time was created by Gilbert Bayes. It has proudly "stood at the prow of the Ship of Commerce"since 1931.  Isn't she lovely?  I'm willing to bet that 90% of the shoppers entering Selfridges never look up to admire her.

Next week I'll show you more wonderful London clocks. 

The World's Most Famous Bed

 

There was a great article in the New York Times this last week called "How to Navigate London's Wondrous (and very big) V & A Museum".  I enjoyed the article because the author (Andrew Ferren) mentioned all the things I love seeing when I visit the museum.  He touched on the Cast Room which I posted about here and he mentioned the Medieval and Renaissance Gallery that I featured here.  He also mentioned the The Great Bed of Ware and that's when I remembered that I had a photo of that huge bed.

As you can see from the description above, this bed has been famous for a very, very long time.  It was even mentioned in Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night": "....as many lies as will lie in thy sheet of paper, although the sheet were big enough for the bed of Ware." Reading that article inspired this post.

The article suggest that one should make a day of a visit to the Victoria & Albert Museum and be sure to stop for a lunch break in the Refreshments Room which was the world's first museum cafe.  While you are resting your legs, take in the original 19th century decor.  It is well worth the stop.  

Seeing the Moon Differently

 

On October 22, 2023, while I was spending a week in London, I went out for an evening walk when I noticed the moon looking very different than I was used to seeing it.  It looked like it was sliced straight in half.  I snapped this photo with my iPhone.

A few seconds later, I grabbed my Nikon camera and took another photo.  I was mesmerized by this moon in its first quarter phase because I couldn't recall ever seeing it with such a defined, straight up and down slice.  From where I live in Arizona, the first and last quarter moon is always at a slight angle.

So I braced my camera against a sign post, extended the telephoto lens to the max and snapped a few more photos.

I did some research and discovered that the same moon does look different depending on where it is observed on our planet.  

There is more information on moon phases here and here.

It's funny how something so common to all of us can look so different.  It inspired me to do some research.

A Piece of Scotland in the Heart of London

 

On one of my walks around London, I was intrigued by this grand looking building and decided to take a closer look.  I found that it is a very elegant hotel.

I walked through an open entrance to discover a large courtyard and this ancient looking stone wall.  For a moment I thought it was an ancient structure being preserved but I learned that it was a temporary installation promoting The Macallan, a single malt whiskey made in Scotland and known around the globe.  The stone walls surrounded a Macallan Amber Meadow.  The stone is called Angus Sandstone, a material used around the world.

The temporary meadow was full of trees and ferns and lots of beautiful Scottish heather.  

It was a tiny bit of Scotland hidden in the heart of London.