The weather in UK has been like spinning a roulette whell the last few days. Arriving back to a snow storm at Heathrow has been followed by sun,wind and rain. A few photographs to try and catch this variable weather.
Snowstorm over Heathrow
The contrast of cloud shapes and colours and some shaped like spaceships makes looking up at the sky interesting.
Mixed Weather in Merton
New Malden
Spaceship Cloud
My little reading flock of this blog would have read my salient words and viewed my photos last night on exactly why Sonnenallee is not a first choice holiday destination despite its label of “Berlin” and in fact one of the large conference centres in Berlin. If Stieg Larsson can write a trilogy then maybe I can try a trilogy of posts from Sonnenallee.
Trilogy of Sonnenallee. Part 1 . Sonnenallee District of Berlin. A Very Contradictory Area
If you have nothing seriously important to do, like deal with death/marriage/criminal justice system or are detained under the Mental Health Act, then maybe go read that post first before continuing.
I had held some degree of excitement over visiting Berlin, but Sonnenallee is to Berlin what Tooting and Croydon are to London. Today I find things are worse than I had imagined. Immediately outside and within maybe 100 metres of the Estrel Hotel entrance lies the splendour that is a recycling plant complete with odours to match.
A little further brings one to a huge very industrial site that seemed to be making piles of sand and other aggregates. The road is dirty, dusty and has the usual affliction round here of vandalism style graffiti.
With one notable exception. And that is the curious thing about graffiti here, it is a complete admixture of some of the nicest graffiti I have seen anywhere in the world and some of the least pleasant graffiti, looking like it was painted by a hooligan undertaking a degree course in how to obtain an ASBO ( Antisocial Behaviour Order, a UK thing we do, where we send those who commit antisocial acts somewhere else to commit more, rather than lock them up. Don’t ask me to explain). A block had been painted on two sides with quotations from the literature including Oscar Wilde. So I can now truly say I have read Oscar Wilde, but have no idea what he is saying as it was written in I presume German.
Decorating the road further were some huge industrial cranes and to complete the package there was evidence of a homeless tent camp on the top of essentially a pile of rubbish near the river. In this era how can we as humans allow people to live in this environment? In the frankly excellent Estrel Hotel maybe 300 metres away people spend £30 on a bottle of wine which could be more than my tent dwellers spend in a month. Not reasonable, not ethical and not right.
This rapidly became a far more unpleasant area than I had presumed yesterday. Some halfway decent graffiti art on the side of the bridge next to Tent City was the only redeeming feature.
Daring to venture a few hundred yards in the opposite direction there were some nice smelling trees in blossom that gave the air a pleasant smell, and a single track railway line on which a tree had fallen and was blocking the line.
Big leaves on the line
Tree blocking railway line in Sonnenallee
Estrel Hotel Stands Guard Like A Jurassic Monster Over Sonnenallee
So my three highlights of Sonnenallee are in order:
Neuss is the other side of the Rhine to Dusseldorf. It it takes your fancy you could swim across in 10 minutes. You may meet a few Rhine cruise boats coming your way, or the sight of industrial plants there may equally deter you. Nonetheless a walk along the Rhine banks on an early summer late afternoon in the sun cannot be a difficult task.
Over the Rhine there are many bridges, some carrying trains and others cars, but all decorated with fairly amazing graffiti art and a little graffiti too. It is a curious observation that those who choose graffiti as their communication tool rarely choose to deface the graffiti art. Even a burnt out mattress was to some extent “decorated” with graffiti art.
Graffiti art is a real skill and there are too few websites devoted to the art of this.
For more of the best street artists and urban street photography visit ondulee.com
Imagine a stinking tunnel under a bridge with rubbish all around. For some reason posters advertising concerts are pasted under this bridge that no-one in their right mind would walk under, especially for the foul smells if not the absence of view. Anyone following my Sonnenallee trilogy of posts will know my thoughts on this place. Somehow this single photo captures the place well.
On a recent short trip to Zurich my two main reflections were that so many people still smoked in Switzerland and how expensive airport shopping is at Zurich Airport.
Lets start with the airport. The shops are fairly good except if you want to buy anything at normal prices. Let me suggest a few items that one could have bought there. A nice side of salmon for £132. A nice bottle of champagne £192. A nice selection of cheese £35. And I will not begin to tell you about the cost of Mont Blanc watches and pens. My main grouse is not that these were for sale, clearly people can and will afford to buy these, but that there were no normal priced items available. Bottle of wine for a mere £197. If you want Mont Blanc, Lindtt, Porsche, etc and so on, you are fine. Try looking for the Swiss equivalent of Poundland, and goodness that will take a while!
Switzerland reeks not only of cigarette smoke but also money. Nothing looks average and no-one I saw looked poor. The streets were clean and the bars looked nice. But one has to have the money to compete in living there. The streets looked however also relatively empty and certainly no evidence of traffic problems nor traffic jams.
Switzerland Pedestrian Crossing
But normality is seen also in Switzerland with the type of graffiti normally seen in most European countries. Especially on the sides of trains or as here wagons. But a kind of functional graffiti and not in my top ten graffiti images for 2016.
One of the many curious things you notice about Stockholm is the absence of lots of things that I have seen a lot of recently in other cities. People look healthy and generally contented. They talk more quietly and are more polite and respectful of personal space. There is little evidence of many people furtively smoking, and little evidence in the central part of the city of graffiti art.Not many homeless people are to be seen either, although as dusk was falling a few were trundling their trolleys with their worldly posessions into what will be their home for the night. So Stockholm contrasts very strongly with Madrid, Amsterdam and Gothenburg. There also was not the sometimes slightly threatening and certainly disconcerting sights of beggars ( often immigrants to that country) aggressively trying to obtain money or sell unwanted goods to passers by. A huge contrast to Madrid where it seemed every 50 yards or less someone was thrusting, often literally, cups or containers into your face in an attempt to get donations of money.
Stockholm Railway Bridge
It is very difficult to base a realistic appraisal of a city on a mere few hours walking around but it has a calm aura. I saw signs for places that I recognise from Stieg Larssons books such as Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. In fact a thin girl, very thin, walked past me, short blonde hair, looked like she had cut it herself, and I glanced at her and she at me, and I thought, blonde Elisabeth Salander. She had many of the real features of the character, unlike the incorrectly cast Rooney Mara. Signs pointed to Gamla Stan, Aftonbladet, Sodermalm and Kungsholmen, all names that sounded so familiar from the books. A man scurried past who also might have been Mikael Blomquist.
Aftonbladet
Vasagatan
An air of affluence pervades the city, with few walkers by looking poor. Clothes are generally smart and people walk with their heads held high. In the whole 2 hours of walking the only exception to this rule was a group of three dubious characters drinking beer and other poisons on one of the walkways by the river. There was little evidence of the prominence of the graffiti art that so adorned Amsterdam and Madrid. In the city centre one had to look hard to find any and the little there was decorated bridges over the railway less favoured with pedestrians.
Stockholm Graffiti Art
Central Station is a hub for the city with many trains going in all directions, over bridges and people walking in a thousand different directions at once. Everywhere you look there are important looking monuments and statues. The station somehow comes to life even more when it snows.
Snowing in Central Station
Trains escape Stockholm Station
In the world famous Karolinska Hospital and Institute a huge painted mural is the focus of the entrance and outside buses advertise the ABBA museum where we can all become instant dancing queens.
Who wants to be a Dancing Queen?
Karolinska Hospital Mural
A walk along the river provides a back drop to the city with steeples and important looking buildings rising out of the dusk. The daffodil bulbs have been slow to wake up and grow.
Slow Waking Daffodils
At dusk many of the buildings look formal and a little grand and loom up out of what is left of the little fading light. There was an air of grandeur emanating from many of them without even knowing their purpose with an imposing look.
Central Stockholm
The air was cold, two degrees Celsius in fact, with snow forecast for two days time and one could almost smell that in the air. The coffee shops do a brisk trade. They serve you quickly and are many hierarchies above Starbucks and Costa Coffee in both their friendliness and ability to serve customers quickly. Not cheap though, with a coffee poured from an urn, some Colombian special coffee 39 SK, so to me 5 euros. The shops were warm and inviting and many of those inside were similar to me, single people in there for a reason, using their computer or talking on the phone to escape transiently the cold.
Central Stockholm
Generically though there is a massive difference to the UK in that anyone serving be it coffee, food or hotel workers, are unfailingly polite and respectful and provide a clear service, instead of the sometimes angry and often indifferent service that one gets in UK. And I think I am right. Contrasting similar workers in similar shops in both countries.
Central Stockholm
Central Stockholm
Sweden is not a cheap country though. A salami pizza, maybe 50% larger than needed or usual, cost 180 SK, so around 20 euros. A return ticket on the Arlanda Express, which takes you directly from Arlanda airport to central Stockholm is 520 SK.
Central Stockholm
The highlight of the short walk around was smelling then finding a small stall on the edge of the water selling crepes and waffles decorated with the most gorgeous and calorific toppings. I can recommend paying 60 SK for a waffle covered with Nutella and white chocolate, that was less rich then it sounded but a perfect antidote and therapy to the cold that was making hunger come to life.
Waffle
Anyone who follows my blog, and why would you not, will know my latest interest is photographing around Europe Graffiti Art. I will be posting a lot about Hunter and The Bear in the next few days, but this graffiti art shot from a couple of months ago in Glasgow caught my eye tonight. Could it just be Hunter and The Bear graffiti art?
Hunter and The Bear Graffiti art?
Any followers of my blog will know I value graffiti and graffiti art where it is used sensibly and sensitively. In general terms Europe has seemed superior in their graffiti ability until recently. Some superb graffiti in an alley way in Merton was published a little while ago, and here are some simple photographs of graffiti on walls outside The Barfly in Camden, seen as the crowds of teen girls excited from a Charley Marley gig in Chalk Farm Road. Please enjoy and feel free to share this and the blog.
More paintings by the British artist Vincent Van B. Bergen sits on the Norwegian coast and I struggled to be captivated by it, in contrast to cities like Stavanger that have something special. Here are a few paintings designed to try and bring Bergen to life and light.
Few interesting turrets floating around. 
Amsterdam is in my opinion the most photogenic city in Europe and maybe the world. Despite having been there with cameras numerous times there are always things to photograph and see. With only my I Phone this time the weather changes were immense ranging from snowing to sun in 15 minutes and cloud formations to match.
This time however I took more than a passing interest in the amsterdam graffiti, or graffiti art depending upon how one visualises this option. Graffiti was everywhere including in the urinals that adorn the canals. One knows they are urinals before entering them from the odour de latrine that they ooze for many yards. The question that resonated in my head was who painted the graffiti in them, why did they do it and even how did they do it?
The Graffiti on the walls was far more eloquent and spoke to a lot of thought before painting. I have posted many blogs already on Amsterdam and the risk is repetition, so I have attempted to minimise anything previously photographed and take views or views from angles that are new. Like Penguin graffiti. A real new experience for me.
The place was wet and this was easily determined by how much rain fell on one’s head but if that judgement felt unsound then the standing water on the tram tracks gave a better explanation.
Wet Tram Tracks Amsterdam
Vondelpark is always beautiful but less so on a grey day, however with a little sun it begins to show its charm. However the muddy paths showed again how wet the last few days had been.
Gates of Vondelpark Amsterdam
Vondelpark Amsterdam
Even Central Station joined in the fun looking grand in the warm light with the clouds looking like they were dancing in the sky.
Amsterdam is truly a beautiful city and just an hour walking along the canals it does not matter so much which direction one walks, just remembering that the canals are best thought of as onion rings outside each other and eventually leading to Central Station.
And if you cycle there which has its positives and negatives in terms of enjoyment and death risk, it might not be so easy to remember where you left your bicycle.Unless you left it next to the penguin graffiti in which case it might still be there. Maybe
Paradiso is a world famous music venue but one would never know that from the outside. An old church converted into a music venue in which many famous names have played. Including Lady Gaga, Duran Duran, Joy Division, David Bowie, Suede and Rolling Stones, amongst hundreds.
Paradiso Amsterdam
chris1957
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