Day 27, Sunday September 24, 2023
Bob was up early to see the start of the Loire Valley Marathon. There are thousands of participants. And they are off…
…except for these two, who are 5 1/2 and 9 1/2 minutes late for the start of the race. it took 2 minutes and 45 seconds for the main group to clear the starting gate. That is a lot of participants!
We watched the runners as they pass near our apartment. There are serious runners, and some not so serious runners.
There were bands playing along the route. This Irish band was playing “Whisky in the Jar”.
A whole lot of noise was made by this one man band who created his music on a bike, equipped with a keyboard, guitar strings and several other musical devices.
After lunch we go for a walk to the Loire River.
The City Hall…
…has interesting sculptures holding up the balcony. They look like they find it hard work.
We visit the Compagnonnage Museum, the Museum of the Trade Guilds. Bob likes this model of a 1926 Hispano and..
…thinks I should have my picture taken with the Eiffel Tower.
There are a lot of interesting models which portray the skills of the various trades.
These wooden models were particularly impressive.
There are wooden shoes that look almost like leather ones, an interesting wooden model in a bottle, a curiosity chest shaped like a women’s torso, and a selection of stone carving tools.
This model is made from pasta noodles!
And the sugar sculptures range from this fairy tale castle…
…to this highly realistic chess set and globe.
On the way home we pass an exhibition for the France Design Week. It is in an empty building that is as interesting as the exhibition.
The next room has trees and birdsong!
I liked these woven birdhouses. 
How is this for an idea with what to do with all those extra stuffies? A stuffy chair!
It is a small museum but there are lots of interesting items.
We can see Hohensalzburg Fortress high on the hill above Salzburg. Tour guide Bob informs me we will visit there on Tuesday.
We can see beautiful green alpine meadows in the hills above Salzburg.
We pass dairy cows right in town just a couple blocks from the train and bus station. The advertisement above the cows gave me a chuckle. 
We pop into a downtown church when we get off the bus. It looks like a community church from the outside, with big cheery murals on either side of the door. The inside is much less ornate than many of the churches we have visited and there is lots of information on community programs and events. Nice to see.
We stop at some food stands selling wine and beer, and have a bit to eat. These giant doughnuts look interesting but we pass. They are as big as small plates!
The gardens around the Mirabell Palace are beautiful. In the movie ‘The Sound of Music’ Maria and the children dance around this Pegasus fountain and sing ‘Do Re Mi’.
The grass contains elaborate knot patterns decorated with flowers. These are freshly planted pansies, hundred of dozens of them!
The Zwergerigarten is a surprise. It is the oldest ‘Dwarf Garden’ in Europe and was built in 1695. Yes, a Dwarf Garden! We had no idea there was such a thing. 
This fellow insisted on trying on Bob’s baseball cap!
The collection of 28 marble dwarf sculptures was sold at auction in 1811. 17 of the sculptures have been recovered and put back into the park in their original positions. Here are some of these curious sculptures.
We have tea and cookies in the garden and then I draw for a while.
I used a new brush pen that I got just before we left for holidays. I think it is going to take a while to get used to. I used a water brush to create value with the water based ink in the pen.
Walking through the garden there are some more knot designs created with flowers in the grass.
There is a small Orangerie…
with some goldfish, a turtle and a few birds.
Looking back towards the Mirabelle Palace.
The two towers in the background belong to the church we visited earlier.
These young girls were enjoying the Pegasus Fountain, and I enjoyed watching them.
There seems to be several unicorns here in Salzburg.
I have time for a quick sketch of a beautiful enormous tree while waiting for Bob.
There are a lot of big trees here.
We have never seen a giraffe quite like this before!
We walk along the river heading towards the Old Town.
The Old Town and the Castle on the hill make a striking view.
People are out enjoying the warm weather.
This is the house that Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart lived in with his family until he moved to Vienna in 1781. His family occupied the entire top floor. We were looking for a free film and somehow ended up in the museum instead, so we had a quick look around.
This street was the inspiration for the song ‘Silent Night’. It is a long street so no idea exactly where this inspiration transpired.
This door had interesting marks scratched on it that looks very old.
Here is the entrance to the “Silent Night’ street.
As we explore some of the side streets, we pass this ‘House of Pleasure’, and yes, it seems to be that kind of pleasure!
We also see some graffiti that I quite like. Note how the little ledge is incorporated into the image. Very clever!
This little sidewalk fountain had red roses stuck in small holes in the paving. I wonder why?
We check out the Marionette Theatre, but unfortunately there are no performances while we are here.
While we wait for the bus home I notice an empty store front where someone has written on the glass windows with a black felt pen. It is an interesting different sort of graffiti.
In the evening, Bob leaves me at Wenscelas Square where I join a Prague Urban Sketcher group. There are about ten of us, and after introductions we head our separate ways to draw for 1 1/4 hours, before we meet up again. It takes me a bit to get going so I start with what I am familiar with…people.
It started to rain so I found a sidewalk table with an umbrella and drew two of the sculptures on the huge St. Wenscelas Statue at the top of the square.
I tried to draw a part of the National History Museum, but wasn’t too successful, the perspective was way off and the dome lop-sided. People seem easier to draw than buildings, so in the last few minutes before we gather I sketch some of the people walking by on the sidewalk. Wenscelas Square is an awesome people watching place.
At the end of their set, the band members ‘mooned’ the audience to great applause and laughter. There was also a tall, big fellow dressed in a long curly blonde wig and a nightie with a cape! No idea what that was about…maybe a stag party?
While waiting for everyone to gather back for our last ‘show and tell’ I had time to draw these three. This is only the second Urban Sketcher Meet-Up that I have attended and it was fun. The other sketchers were very welcoming and there were some fantastic drawings. I wish I would have taken a few photos of their work. I just checked and there is a 
As I was leaving, the National Museum looked beautiful lit up against the night sky.
Here is the very, very long, steep escalator I go down to catch the metro home.
Do you remember the TV tower from near our very first bnb when we arrived in Prague a month ago? We are in the same neighbourhood. It looks quite spectacular at night. It is only a ten minute walk from the metro to our apartment.
The Prague Astronomical Clock, or Prague Orloj, is a medieval astronomical clock. The clock was first installed in 1410, making it the third-oldest astronomical clock in the world and the oldest clock still operating. Crowds gather here to watch it strike the hour.
We enjoy this street performer and the poor lady volunteer who is terrified by pretty much everything he does, including pouring lighter fluid in a circle on the ground around her! He never does light it but her reactions made the crowd laugh.
We find the Senat, where there is a free concert. We were expecting classical music but a group of students perform and sing more modern songs, including Hey Jude, These Boots are Made For Walking, Can’t Buy Me Love and Cabaret. Some of the songs are in Czech and some are sung in English, with a heavy Czech accent! It started to rain during the performance but we had brought our umbrella so we stayed dry.
I tried to draw but didn’t manage much. 
No photos are allowed inside the factory but it is OK if I sketch. It was tough to draw on the tour as we never stayed in one area very long. Our guide Gabriela gave us directions, as we drove our car from one enormous factory building to another.
After our two hour tour of the factory we have another hour tour of the museum where Gabriela talks about all the cars. I am not a car enthusiast but I found it all quite interesting. Here are a few of the Škoda cars from the museum. 
One area has cars four levels deep. We also went into a special area with Škoda race cars, but we didn’t have the camera with us then.
The museum used to be an old factory building. You can still see some of the cranes and other machinery high above us.
This was fun! We put on virtual reality goggles and earphones and got to ‘drive’ one of the vehicles through early 19th century Prague. Soon it was time to drive our rental Škoda to Prague and find our next Airbnb.
I like to use a Bic Fine Ballpoint pen for these subway drawings. A pen forces me to commit to what I put down, no erasing makes it challenging.
We saw these Trabants on the way to the DDR museum. While there Bob discovered that the cars’ bodies were made from a material called Duroplast. This was a composite material made from cotton fleece and granulated phenol, which was heated under pressure and formed into a rigid component for use on the exteriors of the cars.
While walking to a nearby park to draw I passed this store dedicated to the Ampelmann, the little character that lets pedestrians know when it is safe to walk.
While I sat drawing the church I watched these young ladies walk out onto the nearby fountain for some photos. I quickly got my camera out because I knew what was going to happen next.
Surprise!! I laughed so hard, as did all their friends!
We had a picnic lunch and then headed to the Stasi Museum. This museum is located on the former grounds of the headquarters of the GDR State Security. We had a two hour tour that talked about how the lives of the East Germans were controlled, manipulated and repressed by the political police system of the former East Germany. Seems like everyone was spying and informing on everyone else, and almost every aspect of people’s lives was controlled by the state. It must have been impossible to trust anyone. Most of the exhibits were like this office room below, not very interesting I thought, but our guide’s talk was very interesting. He told us anecdotes about his life as well as his parents and grandparents lives during this time.
I hung out at the back of our tour group and did some sketching of people in the tour while I listened.
We were here before but I wanted to get a photo of Bob with one foot in what used to be East Berlin and one foot in West Berlin. The cobble stone line marks where the Berlin Wall used to stand.
Another view of the very unique Sony Centre. We catch the 100 Bus to the zoo near here.
First stop at the Berlin Zoo is the Panda enclosure. Unfortunately we don’t get to see any real pandas but there is a video of Meng Meng and her new babies.
We have our picnic lunch on a bench near this fountain. It reminds me of the famous Manneken Pis fountain in Brussels.
I love blue flowers and these are gorgeous, but no idea what they are called. Does anyone know?
The Berlin Zoo is Germany’s oldest zoological garden and home to the world’s largest variety of species. Almost 20,000 animals of around 1,300 species live in the 33 hectare zoo. For some reason at least 19,000 of them were in hiding today!! Here are some of the animals who were kind of enough to stay in view for us. This large male Mandrill monkey has formidable teeth.
The Emperor Tamarin has to be one of the cutest monkeys I have ever seen.
The baboons were tucked far away in the rocks but I zoomed in for a photo.
This young man was engrossed in his book, and not interested in the animals at all. I tried to see what he was reading but the title was small and in German.
Bob found a friend.
This African porcupine was up nice and close, finishing off his lunch.
Luckily the elephants were out and about. This is Victor, a 26 year old bull, and a female from his harem.
She came over to say hi, extending her trunk out towards me!
I took lots of reference photos of the elephants and spent a bit of time sketching them live.
These are the other two females in Victor’s harem. Each day he chooses who to hang out with in a separate enclosure. The young elephant is Victor’s daughter.
I love giraffes too, but they were a bit too far away to easily see and draw.
Look carefully. How many Asiatic Ibex can you spot in this photo? Can you find all nine of them?
When our oldest daughter was about three years old she kissed on of these Marmots on the nose! He was standing up on a stone retaining wall and she just walked up to it and gave it a peck. Kind of scared us though!
In the hippo exhibit this big fellow opened his mouth wide and made a huge splash before sinking out of sight. Perhaps his way of letting all the visitors know what he thought of them?
The Nyalas are interesting with their distinctive white stripes.
There were several sloth bears but they were all in separate enclosures. Perhaps they aren’t very sociable. This fellow was pacing back and forth continuously. We saw several animals exhibiting repetitive behaviours which we know is a sign of stress from being in captivity. That is hard to see but this zoo, like many others we have visited, is building bigger more natural habitats for their animals. We also see attempts to keep animals engaged with different ways of offering them their food and ‘toys’ for them in their enclosures. It is a trade off. Without the protection and breeding programs of zoos some of these animals would perhaps be extinct.
We saw lots of Gemsbok when we were in South Africa. It was amazing to see them in their natural habitat.
I have soft spot in my heart for zebras. Just love their stripes!
This was a new species for us, the Mountain Bongo. Their legs seemed too small for the bulk of their bodies, but they were very striking, with their white stripes agains their reddish hides. There are only 100 of these animals left in the wild! Interesting fact…the red pigment in their hides can bleed in the rain!
I forgot to take a photo of the main gate when we arrived but took one of the side gate where we exited the zoo.
trudymason.com 