Tag Archives: Videos

Travel & Culture: Route 66 America’s Heartland Road

The historic ‘Mother Road’ of America is Route 66. It has connected Chicago and Los Angeles across eight states and four time zones since it was opened almost 80 years ago. It now provides a nostalgic and entertaining journey through a dramatic and exciting period of American history.

From Chicago in the east to Los Angeles in the west, there is only one direction in songs, novels, and for Route 66 lovers. This fabled route snakes its way through the gorges of the city at Lake Michigan before becoming a rural road for about 4000 kilometres across “Small-town America.” In many parts, Route 66 still looks like a museum from the 1930s and 1950s. This three-part series delves into the rich and historic route that has come to resemble a piece of American history, geography, and faded American ambitions from the past.

City Walks: Al Sabkha District In Dubai, UAE (4K)

Historic Al Sabkha is a labyrinthine district around the glitzy jewelry stores of Deira Gold Souk, with stalls piled high with oud and frankincense in the neighboring Perfume Souk. The Women’s Museum – Bait Al Banat examines the role of women in the UAE, and there are rare photos of Dubai’s development since the 1960s in Dubai Municipality Museum. Along with hostels, Arabic cafes and tea shops line narrow alleys. 

Design & Style: Fornasetti ‘Sun Star’ Tapestries (2022)

Fornasetti presents a series of 12 hand-knotted tapestries named ‘twelve months and twelve suns’ as well as a previously unseen 13th tapestry.

Fornasetti: precious porcelain, refined furniture and home accessorize illustrate the Atelier’s creativity. The decorations play with shapes and turn everyday objects into multiples of art. The world of Fornasetti floats between imagination and reality, enriched by cultural references and artistic allusions. This is why a Fornasetti object is not simply something to possess, it is something to live and be inspired by.

Wilderness: Yellowstone National Park Celebrates 150 Year Anniversary

Yellowstone National Park is a nearly 3,500-sq.-mile wilderness recreation area atop a volcanic hot spot. Mostly in Wyoming, the park spreads into parts of Montana and Idaho too. Yellowstone features dramatic canyons, alpine rivers, lush forests, hot springs and gushing geysers, including its most famous, Old Faithful. It’s also home to hundreds of animal species, including bears, wolves, bison, elk and antelope. 

Museum Exhibit Tours: Jacques Louis David – ‘Radical Draftsman’

Join Perrin Stein, Curator, in the Department of Drawings and Prints, for a virtual tour of Jacques Louis David: Radical Draftsman, the first exhibition devoted to works on paper by the celebrated French artist.

David navigated vast artistic and political divides throughout his life—from his birth in Paris in 1748 to his death in exile in Brussels in 1825—and his iconic works captured the aspirations and suffering of a nation, while addressing timeless themes that continue to resonate today. Through the lens of his preparatory studies, the exhibition looks beyond his public successes to chart the moments of inspiration and the progress of ideas.

Visitors will follow the artist’s process as he gave form to the neoclassical style and created major canvases that shaped the public’s perceptions of historical events in the years before, during, and after the French Revolution. Organized chronologically, the exhibition will feature more than eighty drawings and oil sketches—including rarely loaned or newly discovered works—drawn from the collections of The Met and dozens of institutional and private lenders.

Learn more about the exhibition: https://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions…

Tours: Venice Carnival 2022 In Piazza San Marco

Venice Carnival is one of the most famous carnival celebrations in the world. Every year 3 million people descend upon this floating city to soak up the iconic scenery, admire the extravagant costumes and masks, and be part of an electric atmosphere.

There is no other place in the world that celebrates carnival like Venice, and everyone must experience it at least once in their lifetime!

The 2022 Venice Carnival dates will run Saturday, 12th February 2022 – Tuesday 1st March 2022. 

Venice Carnival always finishes on Shrove Tuesday, the day before Ash Wednesday which is the last allowed day when one can indulge in gluttony, excess and debauchery, before the 40 days of Lent will begin.

The final weekend of Venice Carnival is said to be the best time to attend. So, from Fat Thursday (Giovedì Grasso) until Shrove Tuesday (Martedì Grasso), is when the best events occur. It is also the busiest time to be in Venice for Carnival.

Views: The Mail Carriers Of Réunion Island, France

Cyril Maillot is a mail carrier in Réunion – in the most literal sense. On the tropical island in the Indian Ocean, some villages can’t be reached by road. So Maillot hikes to remote areas with a backpack full of mail. He travels by foot to places not accessible by car, deep into the mountainous region of Mafate.

A hike of several days over narrow paths and steep ascents – and in all kinds of weather. When it rains, the streams sometimes swell into a raging river. But Cyril Maillot loves his job. It’s his personal yoga: “You switch off completely and leave city life behind.” And for many of the local people in the mountains, the weekly visit by Cyril the mail carrier is their only regular contact with the outside world. A report by Lisa Louis.

Réunion Island, a French department in the Indian Ocean, is known for its volcanic, rainforested interior, coral reefs and beaches. Its most iconic landmark is Piton de la Fournaise, a climbable active volcano standing 2,632m (8,635 ft.). Piton des Neiges, a massive extinct volcano, and Réunion’s 3 calderas (natural amphitheaters formed by collapsed volcanoes), are also climbing destinations.

Aerial Views: Landscapes & Coastlines Of Norway (4K)

Norway is a Scandinavian country encompassing mountains, glaciers and deep coastal fjords. Oslo, the capital, is a city of green spaces and museums. Preserved 9th-century Viking ships are displayed at Oslo’s Viking Ship Museum. Bergen, with colorful wooden houses, is the starting point for cruises to the dramatic Sognefjord. Norway is also known for fishing, hiking and skiing, notably at Lillehammer’s Olympic resort. 

Art Exhibits: Australian Painter Jeffrey Smart

‘Suddenly I will see something that seizes me – a shape, a combination of shapes, a play of light or shadows, and I send up a prayer because I know I have seen a picture.’

JEFFREY SMART The year 2021 marks one hundred years since the birth of acclaimed Australian artist Jeffrey Smart. This major exhibition celebrates and commemorates this significant centenary. One of Australia’s most celebrated artists, Smart sought inspiration from the world around him – looking to the environment of urban and industrial modernity – which he transformed through his imaginative sense of theatre and intimate understanding of geometry and composition.

These potent and intriguing images have become emblematic of 20th and 21st century urban experience. Building on the foundational work already undertaken on Smart, this exhibition will bring fresh perspectives to his artistic contribution so that his remarkable legacy will be kept alive in the present. Curators: Dr Deborah Hart, Henry Dalrymple Head of Australian Art and Dr Rebecca Edwards, Sid & Fiona Myer Curator of Ceramics and Design

Massachusetts Views: Seals At The Parker River National Wildlife Refuge

“Sunday Morning” leaves you today with seals sunning at the Parker River National Wildlife Refuge in Newburyport, Massachusetts (with some snowy owls looking on). Videographer: Michael Clark.

Parker River National Wildlife Refuge is a wildlife sanctuary encompassing the majority of Plum Island in northeastern Essex County, Massachusetts, 5 miles southeast of Newburyport. It was established in 1942 primarily to provide feeding, resting, and nesting habitats for migratory birds.

The harbour seal, also known as the common seal, is a true seal found along temperate and Arctic marine coastlines of the Northern Hemisphere. The most widely distributed species of pinniped, they are found in coastal waters of the northern Atlantic, Pacific Oceans, Baltic and North Seas.