Hand Luggage.

Fabulous Fira

Our first excursion of the holiday is to the gorgeous capital of the island – Fira. A jumble of white houses tumbling down the cliff face to the azure sea.
Firá derives its name from an alternative pronunciation of “Thíra”, the ancient name of the island itself. The city of white-washed houses is built on the edge of the 400 metres (1,312 feet) high caldera on the western edge of the semi-circular island.

It is here that we start to see some of the iconic architecture of this tiny, barren island. Gleaming white buildings with flashes of blue and cream.

Ornate churches with blue domes, colourful tiles and piles of pumice and volcanic rocks are reminders of the island’s tempestuous past.

To escape the glaring heat in the narrow streets we duck into a back street church to reflect on some of the serene, timeless iconography.

We’re treated to the almost angelic sound of a chorus of nuns practising their hymns. Hidden from our prying eyes by an ornate screen their disembodied voices rose to the heavens.

Religion in Greece, is dominated by Greek Orthodox Church and it still forms a staple in most people’s daily lives.

The prevalence of churches is such that you can’t help but stumble across a variety of places of worship. Whether huge cathedrals or tiny, road side chapels.

All containing a glorious wealth of history and relics. After enjoying a little peace we are heading back out into the sun baked, hectic streets of Fira.

Santorini, black sand and weddings

Ticking destinations off my bucket list right, left and centre this year with a fantastic week in the glorious Greek island of Santorini just completed!

It was a truly family affair as we were all there for the wedding of my younger cousin who chose the clifftop overlooking the caldera for her nuptials.

We decided to do the island via a package holiday (gasp) with Thomas Cook. Purely as we couldn’t do it any cheaper independently as there were three of us to cater for.

We were stationed in the petite beach resort of Perissa, a small yet perfectly formed town with a beach front strip of bars, cafes and restaurants that face onto the black volcanic sands.

The dark sands provided a change from the tropical white beaches that we’re usually on. Although mum wasn’t too keen on them (and they do burn your feet something awful!)

In the background the dramatic brooding Mount Profitis Illias looms large.

There’s plenty of beach loungers and umbrellas along the scorching strip of beach. Many of which are free for use if you frequent one of the many establishments along the beach front road.

We stayed at the wonderful Hotel Gardenia. A mere five minutes walk to the beach in one direction and the main road and bus stop in the other.

With its relaxing pool area, spotless rooms and lovely staff I can heartily recommend it. Neil also recommends the self serve 1 euro wine from the local supermarket!

Next up we’re heading to the pretty capital town of Fira, the stunning cliff top village of Oia and we hit the roads with a quad bike for the day. Plus a stunning wedding to boot! All in all a fantastic time had by all 🙂

Seaside tat

Moving onto Llandudno itself now, it started off as a typical dismal grey day in North Wales!!

Apparently the town’s name is derived from its patron saint, Saint Tudno and has had the title of “Queen of the Welsh Resorts”, from around 1864.

As we sauntered along the North shore pier we admired the views out to sea and towards the Great Orme. Built in 1878, at 2,295 feet (700 m) the pier is the longest in Wales and is a Grade II listed building.

As with most British seaside resorts, the pier was chock a block with a wide variety of colourful plastic tat. From crab nets to tropical shells, pinwheels to buckets and spades.

I have a not so secret love for all things cheap and cheerful, and all grouped together they make a psychedelic photo opp!

Here the ornate pier balustrades show the ravages of the sea.

But back to snaps of the more modern face of this seaside favourite.

Little did these tropical sea dwellers know that they were destined for baskets on a Welsh pier!

The town of Llandudno developed from Stone Age, Bronze Age and Iron Age settlements over many hundreds of years on the slopes of the limestone headland, known to seafarers as the Great Orme and to landsmen as the Creuddyn Peninsula.

According to the Wikipedia page, by 1847 the town had grown to a thousand people, served by the new church of St George, built in 1840.

The great majority of the men worked in the copper mines with others employed in fishing and subsistence agriculture.

Now however it is tourism that enables the town to thrive. So viva La Tat! Viva La Plastic buckets and Viva Le Tourists!

Marble church and Llandudno

It’s another grey drizzly summer day, so where better to go than North Wales! After sitting in traffic and arriving two and a half hours later than planned we were all a bit tetchy . .

But first stop was the marble church of St.Margaret’s in Bodelwyddan. The church was erected by Lady Willoughby de Broke in memory of her husband, Henry Peyto-Verney,

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The church contains pillars made of Belgian Red marble, and the nave entrance is made from “Anglesey marble”.

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It also contains elaborate woodwork, and in the tower can be found stained glass windows featuring Saint Margaret and Saint Kentigern.

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Close to the church is Kinmel Camp, which was a military camp located in the grounds of Kinmel Hall.

The camp was used by Canadian troops during the First World War.

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In total there are 112 Commonwealth service personnel commemorated here from World War I. More than 80 of the graves are Canadian.

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The churchyard contains the graves of numerous victims of the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918-19 in the camp.

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Next up we head to the seaside resort of Llandudno. Still grey but the colourful plastic tat on the pier makes up for the dismal weather. . .

Trees from an alternate landscape

As we continued to explore the 500 acres that Yorkshire Sculpture Park has to offer we came across this Dennis Oppenheim installation “Trees from alternative landscape components”

YSP says: “Formed of florescent trees, fake hedgerows, seemingly genetically modified flowers, the Trees have branches laden with a range of curious domestic artifacts including, baths, toilets, sinks, dog kennels, dustbins, plastic chairs and parts of fences.”

It’s a deliberately incongruous piece, setting the natural beauty of the rolling landscape with a harshly man made interpretation of nature.

It makes us consider the relationship between natural and artificial environments and perhaps makes us think a little about our intrusion and destruction of the planet we live on.

More to my liking are these joyful, colourful mosaics by Marialuisa Tadei. The huge double sided medallion is Night and Day.

And here is her take on the sea creature of my nightmares – the octopus! *shivers*

Below is Tom Price’s Network – a huge man engrossed in his phone (plus a little Neil too) and Eduardo Paolozzi’s Collage City.

Finally is Julian Opie’s Galloping Horse. An LED display that shows exactly that. Opie looks at the idea of representation and how we perceive and understand images.

He takes photos of his subject matter then digitally manipulates the photographs and creates his final images by a process of elimination.

YSP says: “He reduces the features that characterise a person or object to the bare minimum, so that with just a few lines he is able to identify what makes something unique and recognisable.”

What do you think? Is less more? . . .

Ghost trees and creeping rabbits

Some sculptures in the park have an ethereal, ghostly feel about them such as this white, skeletal tree. I think it’s called “air gets into everything even nothing,” (2006) by Ugo Rondinone.

Meanwhile Sophie Ryder’s Crawling is an unsettling, gigantic sculpture of a rabbit / human on all fours. It’s a tactile, creepy thing to behold.

Made from bronze the sculpture incorporates lots of little details including toys, car parts, pistons and cast hands.

Yorkshire Sculpture Parks’s website explains: “Her work is an exploration of the female psyche and sexuality and frequently references the artist’ s own body as it morphs with the powerful energy and form of the hare.”

YSP’s explanation of the work goes onto say: “Ryder’s work includes human, animal and mythological figures, frequently melding forms to combine the attitudes and instincts of each. Anthropomorphic characters are used both to explore the human condition and as a metaphor for Ryder’s own feelings.

“Over several years she has evolved an ongoing narrative around the female / mother figure of the Lady-Hare; a hybrid with the head of a hare, and its body modelled on Ryder’s own.”

The overall effect is unsettling but strangely alluring. You can’t help but put your hands on it, trace the half hidden tokens set within the roughly hewn surface and marvel at the sheer scale of the piece.

Above is another of Ryder’s work – Sitting. A huge hare 18ft x 14ft, cleaved in two and made out of shaped wire. Another imposing edifice. Plus another view of the dead, white ghost tree . .

Molecules, mosaics and mercenaries

More art in the wilds of Yorkshire!

Below is an immensely sized sculpture by Jonathan Borofsky. Molecule man 1+1+1. I enjoy being able to glimpse the greenery through the little holes in the metal men.

Disturbing figures linger under the trees.

Below are Riace – works by Elizabeth Frink. Frink was a leading figure in British sculpture and was part of the post-war group of British sculptors known as the Geometry of Fear school.

The four Riace sculptures were inspired by the discovery of two fifth-century BC Greek bronze sculptures in the sea off Southern Italy in the 1970s.

Frink saw them on display in Florence and described how ‘the original figures are very beautiful, but also very sinister’. The bronzes depict ancient Greek mercenaries: warriors who would fight in exchange for sacrificial offerings in their benefit

On a lighter note here is Niki de Saint Phalle’s, Buddha 2000. I love all the colourful mosaic detail on this one.

Even more sculpturey goodness to come!!

Yorkshire, sculpture and grey days

On a grey bank holiday we headed off to Yorkshire Sculpture Park for a dose of culture and some fresh air. There’s around 60 sculptures set in 500 acres of park land on the Bretton Estate as well as five indoor galleries.

Below is one of Marc Quinn’s huge, sexualised orchids. At first glance it’s a beautiful flower but it also bears a rather close resemblance to lady bits as well!!

It might have been a bit of a grey day but we still managed to whizz around acres of park land and enjoy some art.

There’s plenty of Henry Moore’s imposing sculptures dotted around the place, sometimes placed in formal gardens and other times they’re marooned in fields,surrounded by sheep!

The sculptures sometimes almost blend into their surroundings, seeming as if they have always graced the grounds of the 18th century Bretton Estate.

Below are several sculptures by Masayuki Koorida. According to YSP’s info the sculpture specialises in “highly finished sculptures in granite. Incredibly smooth and beautifully curved, the sculptures remind the viewer of amoebas, molecules and the aesthetic of Japanese anime.”

Brian Fell’s Ha Ha bridge spans an empty cutting. Its rusty, metallic industrial feel provides a foil to the lush greenery of nature.

YSP says: “By incorporating the word itself into the sides of the bridge he not only refers directly to the ha-ha beneath but also provides an amusing reminder of the original coining of the term derived from the cry of surprise at discovering a boundary.”

Next up we see colourful tiled sculptures, LED horses and contemporary trees made of toilets and sheds!

Altes

On route to our next photogenic village we stop off briefly to take a closer look at one of the many traditional water wheels that are still dotted around the region.

They are protected monuments so if you buy land with one on it, it has to stay there forever!!

They still function as well as ever, even if they’ve been left to rust for decades.

Next on the photo tour we head to a pretty little village called Altes.

It’s a typical, Algarve village of whitewashed houses with lattice work, handcrafted chimneys and narrow, cobbled streets nestling in the foothills of the Serra do Caldeirão.

There are so many pretty windows that I became virtually delirious with snappy delight!

Dotted about the whitewashed alley ways are delightful terracotta pots full of fleshy succulents and geraniums.

Some of which I have absolutely no idea of what they’re called!

Sunlight bounces off the blindingly white buildings, contrasting with the solid blue of the sky.

Here’s a few more colourful snaps of plants and paintwork.

Plus a local feline stares me down as I capture them in my view finder.

At the eastern end of Alte, past the school, are the springs (fontes) for which Alte is well known. The area around Fonte Pequena (little spring) is very pretty with a bridge across the stream, the start of a series of waterfalls and a picnic site.

There’s also a paved garden area dedicated to Alte’s famous poet, Cândido Guerreiro..there are tiled plaques on the wall with some of the poet’s works on.