La Graciosa in summer

Shallow lagoon Bahia de Salino filling with water in high tide

Ok, with all the excitement of the wildfire over, the academic year has started for real, and I feasted my (and, hopefully, your) eyes on the rare sight of freshwater stream on Gran Canaria, I would like to return to our short stay on Lanzarote.

Lanzarote in summer, Playa de Papagayo

Beautiful water. Playa Mujeres

This year’s summer holidays were a bit scrambled for us, due to this and that. To punctuate the month of August we decided to go to Lanzarote, just for three days. We’ve already been to Lanzarote a few times of course. This time, the aim was to check out Playa de Papagayo, Parrot’s Beach, a small cove beach not far from Playa Blanca, and La Graciosa, the smallest inhabited Canary Island, “the eighth one”.

Gran Canaria, Temisas — Aguimes, with a visit to Barranco de Las Vacas

Horizontal panorama

Some time ago I wrote that we would repeat the visit to the Barranco de Las Vacas following a linear route Temisas — Aguimes. Since then we have visited the area twice. First we did the linear route (find the map below), with a visit to the cave complex Cuevas de la Audiencia very close to Temisas. I don’t have any photos of the caves, partially because they are VERY dark (it’s almost like being blind!), but mainly because they were chock-full of people. To be fair, we went on a bank holiday, so the hikers were out in force, more on that later.

Second time we went from Aguimes (and back) with a specific purpose in mind — that is, to make a photosession with Timur playing his guitar there.

Las Fallas 2018

First published 27 March 2018 @ Listen, Learn, Read

According to my old Rough Guide to Spain (this book served me well but I left it to my flatmates three years ago), Las Fallas are one of the Spanish “Big Four”, together with Semana Santa, Feria de Abril and San Fermín. Strangely enough, the Carnival is not among them.

Now it so happened that I, quite intentionally, stopped in Valencia en route to Boston and back, being able to see some of the festival and even take some pictures of it. For the benefit of those who never heard of ​Las Fallas, I allow myself to explain what’s going on here.

La Falla Convent de Jerusalem-Matemàtic Marzal

Inagua in winter and spring

View inland from Degollada de las Brujas

Reserva natural integral de Inagua (strict nature reserve Inagua) is a protected pine forest in the southwest part of Gran Canaria. Technically, it consists of three different forests - Inagua (confusing, innit?), Ojeda and Pajonales, but they are merged together anyway. The whole reserve is shared between three municipalities (Tejeda, La Aldea and Mogan). Almost all of the trees that grow there are Canarian Pines (Pinus canariensis). Canarian pine is interesting - it has such a thick bark that trees can survive forest fires, that is why it is now planted elsewhere in the wildfire-prone places. 

It reminds me that I have seen new shoots coming directly out of burnt trunks where the last forest fire happened. Maybe the next blog entry will be dedicated to how the site recovers).

Coming down from Montana de Inagua. We look like The Company from the Lord of the Rings.

Brussels and around

Grand Place, Brussels

What, exactly, is Belgium famous for, apart from unelected bureaucrats and Brussels sprouts (which are not featured that much in Belgian cuisine)? OK, beer. Fine, chocolate. French fries. Mussels. More beer. But, apart from the bureaucrats, sprouts, beer, chocs, fries and mussels, what have the Belgians ever gave us? Here's my short list.

wide angle mirador, spirit of the stones etc

Today I went around with friends who are here on holidays in their rented car. While fully understanding the benefits of not having a car (we all are a lot healthier after those six months for a start), sometimes I really miss driving. It gets you there a lot faster than public transport, biking or walking, and sometimes it just gets you there, full stop. I am not about to bike to Betancuria, for instance, while I am still sane.

On the other hand, once the car is there, you feel tempted to drive it even for small errands, and that's not that great.

Anyway. The view above is taken from Mirador de Morro Velosa with Sigma 12-24 borrowed off one of my friends. I know what to add to my (suddenly almost-empty) wishlist now (benevolent universe: hint hint?)

Grassington

First time (and the only one until a week ago) we visited Grassignton with our friend, on almost the first drive around in the UK ever, fifteen years ago. I don't remember much from the first visit, apart from some bunting across the streets.

This time there was no bunting, but the village (or town if you insist on being correct) is almost too pretty. We went for an extremely short walk to the Linton Falls, then a little way along the river Wharfe and then turned back into the village (yeah, town, I know) in search of a cafe

I saw some activity on the river and couldn't figure out what it was - and now wikipedia tells me they are restoring hydroelectric plant there. Well done, I say.

Somerset, old cottage - bit of brekky

Cottage we stayed in was full of old things. Some of them were just old, like the frying pan below - it had uneven bottom, so all the eggs tended to congregate in one spot. They are not all for me, btw, in case you are wondering





Some of the stuff though were real retro-antique-what-have-you. Don't know if old books that we saw there have any monetary value, but they definitely had bags of charm



Illustrator who drew this probably never had a chance to look at a real shark, or even a good picture of a real one, but aaaah! - transparent paper covering the next illustration and the blue of the sea when it's lifted

Madeira fireworks

it's just a cover picture, not really taken in Funchal.

I want to write something about amazing NY fireworks which we saw three years ago. I didn't write anything back then, want to fill the gap now.

We did know that NY fireworks were going to be spectacular, and we also heard that the best way to enjoy them is from the water - booking a ticket with one of the tourist boats. But by the time we arrived, most of the larger boats were fully booked, and the ones that were still available failed to impress. So we made plan B - to go down to the harbor in the evening and stay there till midnight. And then _somehow_ get back to the place where we lived - self-catering cottage inside a large quinta (estate), far-ish from the harbor and, more importantly, long way up from it.

Luckily for us, the quinta owner turned up on the 31st and invited us to watch fireworks from the grounds of his house. I think he invited pretty much everybody who stayed on the estate, and about fifteen people turned up.

In the evening I tried to get kids to have a little sleep. Didn't work really, for two reasons: a. it seems that locals had private supplies of fireworks comparable in volume to official ones, which they were exploding with increasing frequency as the midnight approached, and b. the place was full of extremely nervous and loud dogs. Deafening combination.

So. I don't know what it looks like from the boat, but I think we got a better deal. From the terrace we could see all of Funchal, illuminated and decorated. We could see the cruise ships that came there and formed a big semicircle in front of the harbor - illuminated and decorated, or course. We could see most if not all the firing points for Funchal, and we could see a big burning year sign quite clear - so clear in fact that Yuri was worried that it will start a forest fire. Fireworks were incredible. They only last about 15 minutes, but there was never a pause and they keep changing and they are color-coordinated, etc, etc.

For other photo maniacs out there - tripod and remote release essential, and set your camera beforehand. Don't try to zoom in and out and search for blasts with hand-held camera, you will not enjoy the show and won't get many good pics either, there is no time.

And my personal recommendation is _not_ to book a ticket on a boat. We were simply lucky, granted, but I think if you do some homework you can find a place which is well up from the water and has unobstructed view towards the town.

fireworks at shutterstock

New Year Cardiff

Last Year we went to Edinburgh for New Year. It was nice, but this year, what with all the travel disruption, we decided to go closer and less to the north. London fireworks would be a great option, but everywhere you look you see warning of how crowded those are, and after being in large crowd last year at Hogmanay we didn't really want a repetition of the experience. So we went to Cardiff.

I was a good choice. We stayed at the Cardiff Bay area, which is full of restaurants and have a particular attraction for Timur (and Yuri, although he won't admit it, what with being in his teens) - Techniquest. It was open till 5pm on New Years eve, so we had just about enough time to press the buttons, pull the levers and bash things with other things.

There were two firework displays - one in the evening at about 6, I think, close to the Castle, where you had to pay. didn't go to that one, went for an enormous meal instead. Another one was to bring in the NY, at the Civic Center, or "by winter wonderland" as locals, including person I spoke to in the tourist info, referred to the location. I tried to find out where exactly it was, but I shouldn't have bothered since taxi drivers know anyway (well, they have The knowledge).

Said winter wonderland is a big funfair, with ice-skating, some live music and "John Lewis Wheel" - tall-ish ferris wheel. We had a spin on that.

Fireworks themselves were short - I didn't time, but I think about ten minutes maximum. I liked it, but I must say that nothing I've seen so far beats Madeira New Year celebration which we've seen a few years ago. That was also just about 15 mins or so, but the amount of fireworks exploded was enormous. But then, it's perhaps an unfair comparison, Madeira's fireworks being in guinness book.

Maybe we'll write to the council and suggest they do fireworks in the bay next year though. It'd look a lot better and there seem to be plenty of space.



I didn't take my camera with me, so don't have anything new to show. This picture was taken on Cardiff Castle grounds, and it's three-years younger Timur who's walking the paved road.

at shutterstock

on snow, disrupted travel and isolation on white

along with thousands of other travelers in Europe we didn't travel anywhere. So we are probably not really qualify to be called travelers at all.

We were supposed to fly to Fuerteventura on Sunday morning (very early morning, so favoured by cheap airlines). We didn't, because the evening before a lot (I mean A LOT) or snow fallen and settled on the ground. It was very respectable amount of snow for single snowfall, even if I apply russian standard to it.

Anyways. On Sunday, while the snow was still fresh, I went out with my camera, and got pictures of a few trees, isolated on white background, small twigs and all. And just wanted to stress again how easy it is if the original lighting is right - be it natural milky-white sky or studio setup.

I am pretty sure I first saw a variant of this technique described by Laurin Rinder on shutterstock forum. He wrote something like "just call up Levels dialogue in photoshop, take a white pipette and click on background". And it works perfectly well if background was white and uniformly lit.

A goodish while ago wrote up a slight variation on this here - that works nicely even is there are dirty patches on the background.

I continue to use more or less the same technique now when conditions are right. I call up Levels dialogue, and start dragging the white point (upwards arrow on the right of the diagram), while holding Alt key (for PC) visually controlling the results. Sometimes it works just like that, sometimes I need to play with a few layers, but it works very nicely. Hope it helps if someone is still struggling with isolation.

Healing mud of Nin

I was hesitating somewhat before placing this picture, since I don't know those guys, but decided that their privacy is protected enough by their poses and mud layer. Plus, I turned lady's head away. Plus it is a public beach, of course, it's just I am always very hesitant with photos of strangers.

Anyway, what you see in front of you is one of the beaches of Nin. On the map below is the one to the left from the Nin bay entrance (upper left corner). The dark blue shallow lagoon below it on the map is filled with this black sticky stuff, and as you come to the beach, you see plenty of people smeared with it. It's relatively quiet place at the moment, but I strongly suspect that once this large-ish project I just found about is underway, it'll be lot less accessible and a lot busier.

I don't quite understand what the mud is supposed to be healing, but well. Looks like good fun anyway.

Beaches of Nin are nice, though, mud or not. Visually, they not as striking as ones on Fuerteventura, and not at all as clean, but they have shallow sand access to calm water, and that' a definite plus on most beaches in Croatia I've seen so far.



View Larger Map


photos from Croatia for sale at shutterstock

last day of holidays

Timur is sitting by the sea organ, looking completely and utterly bored with sun, sea and everything around him

I am not sure whether this is something many people feel, but for us, a lazy week by seaside seems to be some sort of cut-off. After that it gets boring and all everybody wants is to get back home. We stayed for nine nights - two too many, it seems.

From my student (long-gone) days, however, I remember that if you stay by seaside for about two weeks, some sort of "second wind" arrives and it feels like you can stay there forever.

Alas, I didn't have hols that lasted over two weeks for a long time, so I didn't have the opportunity to test whether it feels the same now as it did all those years ago.

photos from Croatia for sale at shutterstock

olives in the middle of nowhere

this old olive garden is along one of the roads that lead from village called Kozino (I can't put the right accent on "z", so probably the most appropriate spelling is Kozhino) to the sea.

Village itself is not far from Zadar - about 5 km, on the main road to Nin. Looks like the original village didn't came down to the sea, but now there is a strip of new developments next to the seaside and it is joined to the old village by at least two steep-ish short roads. Once you get to the sea it's a bit disappointing - the seabottom is stony, with inevitable sea urchins. There is just one cove where bottom is sandy, but it is still fringed with stones, so you have to negotiate those before you can feel the sand under your feet.

Having said that, the apartment that we rented there via one of tourist agencies in Zadar was the most comfortable of four places we stayed in over those nine nights. Another plus side was that Nin, with its truly sandy beaches, was not very far and local buses did take us where we want to go - not always quite on time, granted, but we were never in a hurry anyways.


View Larger Map

photos from Croatia for sale at shutterstock

Pottery in Haria

We drove to Haria, which I think the guide described as "the prettiest village on Lanzarote", via road from Teguise. That experience (driving that is) I don't recommend to anybody - there are a few hairpin bends on the way down to the village, with very very limited visibility, and the road is narrow. Fortunately, there is another, much gentler road, coming from eastern side of the island, so you do have a choice.
The village is quite pretty and relatively green, but it's not as pretty as I somehow expected. What I really liked there was the pottery workshop, belonging to Aquilino A. Rodríguez Santana - would be cool to find him on facebook, but he's not there, apparently.




Those little pots are rather charming. We bought a couple of small ones (keeping in mind the luggage restrictions). I would like a bigger one, but maybe I will have a chance to buy when we move to the Canaries.




That's the owner of the workshop. The black inclusions in the clay he uses are particles of volcanic sand, as far as I understood (between his not very fluent english and my extremely limited spanish)





some of his sculptural work. I like the female figure the best.




While we were there, a young woman, his friend and colleague, walked in. She was not from Lanzarote, but from mainland Spain, on holidays, and she was also very curious to look around, pick things up and examine them

This ant helmet-mask she is wearing is made of papier-mache. It's quite scary. He tried to explain to us what it is for, and as far as I understood (see note of language barrier above) it goes as follows : he wears it when he stage protests against their beautiful island being taken over by hotels, which encroach on the land as ants.



Lanzarote pics on shutterstock

sunset at world's end

Verdens Ende

I just read that it has panoramic views of the Skagerrak - a geographical name that I though was fictional up to last year, when we went to Denmark. Now it follows me around, or so it feels.

here

white ones

Norway this w/e

sentinel

originally, we booked Parque tropical apartment for a week. There was no problem at all with the apartment itself and ground/pool maintenance, and staff was perfectly friendly and very understanding when ash cloud closed the airspace and we couldn't fly back home when we were supposed to (so we stayed one more night there). But, if you are used to relatively quiet place, this could pose a bit of a problem - the apartments really *are* in the center of Puerto del Carmen, which means that if one of your windows is facing the street, there is going to be cars and people going past well into small hours. It's quite noisy. If you are from town somewhere, no problem, but for us, village dwellers, it is.

So, for the rest of our unexpected second week at Lanzarote, we went back where we were over Christmas - Hyde Park Lane. It is a bit out of the way (which means quiet nights and fine if your are renting a car). The only real drawback there is that the little bungalows are semi-detached (duplexes), and the sound insulation between two parts is practically non-existent. We didn't notice that over Christmas, because the second half was empty. This time somebody lived next door. Luckily for us, they were really really quiet not so young couple, so we had nice relaxing second week.

When we walked up to the reception to find out if we can just turn up or need to book ahead (turn up is fine), this beautiful cat appeared from somewhere and sat on the low stone wall surrounding the apartments. We admired it, and I am pretty sure kids were looking forward to getting to know him better. Sadly, he never shown up again

Teguise market

Every Sunday, there is a market in Teguise, in approximate center of Lanzarote. The is quite a variety of stuff for sale - from foods, via inevitable aloe vera products and lava jewelry to clothes and musical instruments. You won't necessarily want to buy something there, but it's a pretty village, and very lively on Sundays, well worth a visit just to look around.

The girl in the picture above was a very friendly jewelry-seller there. She was happy for her display to be photographed and posed herself. I asked if she had a facebook or email account to pass the pictures (if any f them were good). Unfortunately, she didn't have either. I am thinking - won't it be great if one of the people who see this picture know her of somebody who knows her? I know the chances are slim, but still - if there is anybody on Lanzarote you know, show them this pic. I will be very happy to send her a file in good resolution

Below are guys who entertained shoppers at some point, they were great too