Stockholm Sunsets

If you're lucky enough to be in Stockholm on a clear day, head for somewhere to see amazing sunsets like these.

Two places I recommend are Monteliusvägen and Norra Riddarholmshamnen.

Sights in Brazil

My final post about Brazil - here are some of the other things I saw!

• A mouse scuttles out of a shop onto the footpath. Some girls shriek. A young man rushes out behind the mouse, chases it, stamps on it, and kicks it out into the road. "Ooh, couragi," coo the girls.
• A woman on the gay beach at Ipanema, determinedly chatting up every man she could find, with raucous laughter, coy glances and a huge bottle of wine.
• Muscle milk muscle growth supplement on the menu in a cafe. The Brazilians do take their muscles seriously...
• A bar playing only the hits of Toni Braxton.

Love in Brazil

In Brazil, passengers get on buses, say hello to the drivers and pay attendants before passing through little turnstiles.

At one stop in Rio de Janeiro, an older woman boarded. Most likely in her late 60s, she wore chunky jewellery and a long tight black dress - very Shirley Bassey in warm weather. She caused quite a kerfuffle at the turnstile, holding up other passengers while she searched amongst her many handbags for money.

Eventually, exasperated, she tossed several of the bags across the turnstile, hurtling them into an empty seat.

Gesticulating wildly, she seemed to be berating a younger, burly black man who was hovering behind her.

Once she'd paid - with a flurry of hands and dramatic utterances - and was through the turnstile, she turned to the man, embraced him, kissed him full on the mouth and then took her seat.

The man jumped off the bus, waving goodbye to the woman. She blew him a kiss through the window, as he made the "call me" hand-sign to her from the street.

Travel moments

I've just finished reading two books on the theme of travel and how you write about places you have visited and people you have met or seen: Paul Theroux's Tao of Travel and Jan Morris's Contact.

Both are full of short scenes from long travelling lives, particularly Jan Morris (some of which are also on this tumblr account).

Each scene or moment feels like it could be saying something profound, some kind of a metaphor for the city, country or people. But sometimes it just describes a moment or place in time, something random that happened, a one-off chance encounter.

I write about these sometimes (like in Istanbul, Monaco and Gibraltar - my favourite being my 'what I saw in New York' blog post) - and I'm going to share more.

Favela Rio

When in Rio, I decided to visit a favela. I wrestled with this - going to a favela felt a bit like going to point and stare. I decided not to go on a favela tour but instead go on a new cable car to Complexo do Alemão favela in the north of the city.

The cable car connects Complexo do Alemão wih Bonsucesso station, which is a short trip from Rio's Central Station.



The overall trip in the cable car is about 16 minutes, though longer if you get off at every stop along the way like I did.

It soars above a jumble of houses, electricity wires, satellite dishes, corrugated iron roofs and patched up streets.



I went on a Wednesday morning. All below the cable car was quiet, calm, hardly anyone to be seen. I had expected to see busy bustling streets, but these were mainly quiet residential areas. The only sound I heard was Britney Spears' I wanna go blasting out from a stereo.



At the top station, I got out and went for a small wander. A few small kiosks and shops were clustered near the cable car station, but no other amenities were to be seen.

I bought a drink from one shop-kiosk, freshly painted and seemingly newly installed.

The friendly guys behind the counter urged me to follow them on facebook. They seemed delighted to see visitors from other places, and with the long, complicated history of their neighbourhood hopefully now behind them, I wish them well with their new business.

Beautiful Brazil

I've recently been to Brazil, visiting Iguaçu Falls and Rio de Janeiro. It was a trip of superb landscapes and vistas.

Iguaçu Falls are vast, a huge grouping if massive waterfalls straddling the Brazil-Argentina border.

 

The view from Brazil is vast, showing their huge extent, their overall force and revealing rainbows. On the Argentina side, you can get closer, sensing their overwhelming power and speed.

In Rio, vistas are equally beautiful, showing all the  city's famous places: the beautiful beaches at Copacabana and Ipanema, Sugarloaf Mountain and everything in between.

 

Rio seems studded with forested hills, as though they recently sprouted up within the city (of course it was the other way round).

The Christ the Redeemer statue looks down on the city, not looming over it, more neatly perched like a parakeet.

Tasos' map of Cyprus

While I was in Budapest a few months ago, I started chatting to a guy who turned out to be from Cyprus.

I quickly asked Tasos to draw his map of Cyprus.

And so now I have collected maps of all but two European countries: Bosnia & Herzegovina and Moldova.

Impressive Istiklal, Istanbul

Istanbul is a vibrant, busy, buzzing city. This can be seen most of all on İstiklâl Caddesi (Independence Avenue), its three kilometre long main shopping street.

With more than 3 million people visit the street on a weekend day, it's never quiet. Even on weekdays, late into the evening, people were walking the street, visiting the shops and taking in the sights.

And what sights - İstiklâl Caddesi is full of amazing, wonderful sights, sounds and smells that make Istanbul a great city, such as:

• A man walking along with monkey on a leash.
• Ladies wearing full burqas, wearing headscarves slowly sauntering while other woman in bikini tops sashayed by.
• A man dressed as an Ottoman soldier, with nobody paying any notice
• Men walking down the street, holding hands, embracing, laughing, touching, all completely platonic.
• Men selling roasted chestnuts, with nutty smoke arising from each cart.
• Men selling mussels, with lemons strewn among the shells
• A tram clanging its way up and down the street; one time with a band blasting out funky rock music from an open air carriage.
• Busking men playing traditional Turkish instruments, the music from which mixed with the modern beats coming from he nightclubs on the upper floors of the buildings.

What's in Monaco

Monaco - a tiny country on the French Riviera - is more like a city state. Here's what I saw when I was there.

Monaco is a rich land; the glamour architecture buildings are either replete with gilt, flourishes, style and flair or sleek and smoothly modern.

Most of all, Monaco is a playground for the rich and gaudy, ideal for people watching. I saw:

• A young man with big, blonde hair and golden sunglasses clutching an older woman as they sashayed through the streets.
• A man accompanied by five woman complaining about where to get his shirts made.
• A young wife emerging from a designer store saying, "thank you, it was wonderful".
• A larger man wearing a bright purple polo shirt whilst driving a bright orange sports car.
• A young man wearing white shirt and khaki shorts fuming about "ultra-conservative countries that have no bearing on reality".
• A young woman sporting bright pink lipstick alongside bright green sunglasses.
• A glamorous Shirley Bassey-esque woman arguing with hot-headed taxi driver, then walking a few metres away and laughing "ha ha ha" whilst haughtily tossing one hand in the air.

Below, my favourite photograph I took in Monaco shows a woman wearing sunglasses, relaxing by a swimming pool, and not a single other person to be seen.

Filtered train photography.

Taking photos on a train can be tricky. First, you need to be fast, then you must avoid the trees and powerlines by the track which could obscure your view. And then the lights in the carriage might reflect on the window.

So instead of trying to avoid these things, I played up to them and used phone filter apps to make the most of them.

Take a look at these photos taken on trains in Germany, Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia.

My fave photo apps, by the way, are Cymera and Pixlr-o-matic.

Rarely Seen Hungarian Photographs

When I was in Budapest last month, I went to the Hungarian House of Photography which hosted an exhibition of rarely seen photographs by famous Hungarian photographers.

I love Hungarian photography, so it was a real treat to see these photographs.

László Moholy-Nagy, 1927, Roofs in Helsinki / Finland

Kálmán Kata - Am Wasser (Víznél)

Ernõ Vadas - Tree line with church

Laszlo Maholy-Nagy - Parking Lot

Martin Munkácsi - Rain in Sicily, 1929

Angelo - Panel, Croatia

The photographs in the exhibitions were taken from the many collections in Hungary's regional museums. Most of those I liked came from the Hungarian Museum of Photography (which is in Kecskemét, not Budapest). Their website has lots more photography to explore: http://fotomuzeum.hu/en/photography

Beautiful Budapest

When in Budapest, look up.

Budapest's buildings are beautiful and ugly, a fascinating mixture of all kinds.of architectural styles: gothic, classic, art nouveau, brutalist.

 

The beautiful buildings radiate, adorned with symbols and alive with detail.

 

 The uglier buildings are monumentally so, and tell of a dark history.

I went on a communist tour to discover some of the sights. The guide Andrew mentioned that during the communist times, the city was grey. Buidlings were neglected, allowed to accumulate layers of pollution and urban grime.

 

When the 1990s came and the ending of the communist era, the sense of optimism for the future must have been matched by a sense of joy at seeing buildings like these shine again.

What's in Andorra

Andorra is a little landlocked country high in the Pyrenees between France and Spain. I went there, and here's what I saw.

Mountains

Andorra is predominantly made of mountains. If you like mountains, Andorra is the place for you.

Futuristic buildings

The guidebooks are pretty scathing about Andorra's dull buildings. But there are some interesting buildings including the small-Shard-esque spa building.

Shops
Like many microstates, Andorra is a tax-free duty-free shopping haven. I had expected that the town would be empty in the evening as day-trip shoppers went home (like in San Marino).

But there was a buzy atmosphere well in to the evening, which was nice.