The Dolomites are a mountain range located in northeastern Italy. They form part of the Southern Limestone Alps and extend from the River Adige in the west to the Piave Valley in the east. The northern and southern borders are defined by the Puster Valley and the Sugana Valley.
Monthly Archives: December 2020
Walking Tours: ‘Playa de Las Teresitas’ in Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain
The Playa de Las Teresitas is an artificial, white sand, tourist beach located north of the village of San Andrés, Santa Cruz de Tenerife in Tenerife, Spain.
Tenerife is the largest of Spain’s Canary Islands, off West Africa. It’s dominated by Mt. Teide, a dormant volcano that is Spain’s tallest peak. Tenerife may be best known for its Carnaval de Santa Cruz, a huge pre-Lent festival with parades, music, dancing and colorful costumes. The island has many beaches (with sands from yellow to black) and resort areas, including Los Cristianos and Playa de las Américas.
Aerial Travel: Scotland’s Top Six Castles (Video)
This is – Scotland cinematic travel video, tourism documentary film, drone 4k. Top 6 Scottish Castles.
Scotland’s turbulent history made its lairds and kings alike seek safety in the stone walls of impregnable fortresses. Today, its castles are one of its top attractions; more than five hundred remain, though it’s estimated there may originally have been more than 2,000. They vary in character from ruins in the rocky wilderness, to well-appointed stately homes, and from extensive royal palaces to small tower houses.
Edinburgh Castle benefits from a magnificent situation, atop an extinct volcano overlooking the Scottish lowlands and the Firth of Forth. Its attractions include the delightful St Margaret’s Chapel, Edinburgh’s oldest building, as well as the Honours of Scotland (the Scottish crown jewels), and the famous ancient siege gun Mons Meg. If you visit, make sure you’re there for the firing of the one o’clock gun, intended as a time signal for ships in the firth.
Stirling Castle was the chief residence of the Stewart kings. It was defensive, on a hill surrounded by steep cliffs on three sides, but under James IV and James V, it became a Renaissance palace borrowing influences from France and Germany, as well as England. The royal apartments have been recently restored to their original splendor, with fine tapestries and painted ceilings.
Tantallon is very different from either of the royal castles; it’s a semi-ruined fourteenth-century building, on a headland with dramatic plunging sea cliffs. It’s only thirty miles or so from Edinburgh, but it’s a completely different world, particularly when the weather is stormy.
Drumlanrig shows the genteel type of Scottish castle to perfection. Its gentle pink sandstone and Renaissance style give it an elegance few other castles can match, and its interiors are equally splendid. It’s still home to the Duke of Buccleuch and Queensberry, whose art collection includes works by Rembrandt and Leonardo; fortunately, the Duke opens the castle to the public on a regular basis.
Dunrobin is a French style turreted castle and quite a recent building as castles go; it was designed by Sir Charles Barry, the Victorian architect better known for his work on the Houses of Parliament in London. The interior is luxurious, and the extensive gardens are planned on the French style, with parterres set around circular pools and fountains.
Dunnottar, near Stonehaven, is one of Scotland’s wildest castles. The ruined castle walls surmount a grass-covered rock in the North Sea, linked to the coast only by a thin strip of land. It’s an adventure even getting there.
Profile Video: French-English Textile Artist ‘Valerie Wartelle’
My main fascination lies within the manipulation of fibres and textiles as an expressive art form. Taking the rural environment as my inspiration,I explore long-term interests of texture, colour, layering and process to create contemplative and ethereal artworks.
My primary technique is wet felting; a traditional craft technique using wool tops, hot water, soapsuds and friction to interlock the fibres together. The making is muscular and rhythmic as I lay, pour, roll and squeeze again and again. It seems repetition nudges me into a semi-meditative space – it invites me to trust myself, and let the haptic connections sinuously paint a new space for the viewer to contemplate.
The compositions are built in layers, hinting at what may lie beneath, and use translucency and light to create absorbing moods. These are highly textured felt pieces in which cloth is embedded, prints disguised, and threads unravelled as a painter with her brush. The analogy with painting is significant throughout, making the viewing inquisitive, and challenging people’s perception.
Brought up in France and French Polynesia, I originally came to the UK to study textile design and am now a widely exhibited artist working and living in West Yorkshire. In 2015, I was awarded the Embroidery Magazine’s Best Emerging Textile Artist at SIT Select Showcase, as well as Best Picture in Show at theGreat North Art Show.
Sunday Morning Podcast: World News From Zurich, London & Iceland (2020)
Monocle’s editor in chief Tyler Brûlé is joined by guests Christoph Lenz, Rob Cox and Chandra Kurt to discuss the weekend’s top stories. Plus: we check in with the newsroom of Iceland’s morgunblaðið newspaper.
Travel Videos: ‘Yosemite’ In The Autumn Of 2020
Yosemite National Park is in California’s Sierra Nevada mountains. It’s famed for its giant, ancient sequoia trees, and for Tunnel View, the iconic vista of towering Bridalveil Fall and the granite cliffs of El Capitan and Half Dome. In Yosemite Village are shops, restaurants, lodging, the Yosemite Museum and the Ansel Adams Gallery, with prints of the photographer’s renowned black-and-white landscapes of the area.
Travel & Food: Christmas Market In Berlin, Germany
Christmas is unfortunately different this year. Annual tradition of Christmas Market is officially not taking place. However, in Berlin, there are some food stands selling typical christmas street foods. It is called Christmas Market “to-go” where you can get the foods/drinks to go. Nevertheless, it gives us opportunity to taste Christmas Street Foods. And by the way, the foods are great!
Video timeline: 0:00 Overview 1:03 Hygiene Precautions 1:39 Churro 2:51 Half a meter Sausage 4:12 Warm Glühwein and Eggnog 6:07 Bulette im Brötchen 7:15 Germknödel with Cherry and Vanilla Sauce
Travel: Sequoia National Park In California (Video)
Sequoia National Park is adjacent to Kings Canyon National Park in California’s southern Sierra Nevada mountains. It’s known for its huge sequoia trees, notably the General Sherman Tree dominating the Giant Forest. The underground Crystal Cave features streams and striking rock formations. Moro Rock is a granite dome offering sweeping park views. Nearby is the Tunnel Tree, a toppled tree cut to accommodate the road.
A film by Eric Minh Swenson. EMS Legacy Films is a continuing series of short films produced by EMS on artists and exhibitions.
Art: Pablo Picasso’s ‘Girl Before A Mirror’ (Video)
This image of a young woman and her mirror reflection is riotous in color and chockablock with pattern. It is one of the last in a major series of canvases that Picasso created between 1931 and 1932. According to The Museum of Modern Art’s founding director, Alfred H. Barr, Jr., Picasso said he “preferred this painting to any of the others,” which speaks to the painting’s dazzling visual and thematic complexity. Its primary subject is the time-honored artistic theme of a woman before her mirror, reinvented in strikingly modern terms. The girl’s smoothly painted profile, in a delicately blushing pink-lavender, abuts a heavily built-up and garishly colored frontal view in yellow and red. Allusions to youth and old age, sun and moon, light and shadow are compressed into a single multivalent face.
History: ‘Charge Of The Light Brigade, 1854’ (Video)
The true story of the suicidal mission of British forces to overrun the Imperial Russian fortifications with a courageous but foolhardy mass charge.
The Charge of the Light Brigade was a failed military action involving the British light cavalry led by Lord Cardigan against Russian forces during the Battle of Balaclava on 25 October 1854 in the Crimean War.
Boomers Daily 