Tue 13.Aug.2013
Bratislava, Slovakia
Art: a friend of mine in Kansas. A lot of phonies seem to use his name
these days.
(- Lazarus Long?)
I'm a short timer in Bratislava. By this time next week I'll have been in and out
of Switzerland for a couple of nights, and checked in to Paris for two more nights, before
flying to Calif that Thursday from Orly airport, of all places. I thought they discontinued
trans-Atlantic flights from Orly around the turn of the century.
So, time to get this page o' pix out that I've been sitting on the last few days.
Never mind that I've had nothing to say.
I'll say it anyway, and what the hey!
The Willow Mead
Full tilt willow mead would be an overstatement, but there is a nice soggy meadow
with some willows at the bottom end of Horski Park, on the back side of the hill
behind the castle. The park is small, as forests go in Bratislava, perhaps a mile and a half
from top to bottom. Lots of trails, very few signs or posted maps. In fact, you have to know
where to look to find your way in. Go figure. It is a beautiful forested canyon with
residential areas on all sides. I've been using it for my exercise walks lately, because
the soft forest floor is easy on my spine, and because the steep canyon gives me uphill
and downhill walking, rather than flat concrete.
Good for the soul and the soles.
My window faces the sunrise, or at least the buildings between me and it. When the
rising sun clears the Palace of Justice, I get sun stripes on the curtains inside my
shutter.
I looked it up - apparently H. C. Andersen the writer did have a rather sad life.
The statue of him in Hviezdoslav Square, being comforted by his non-human friends, is
almost heart-breaking if you look at it too closely.
Bratislava, a city with almost no money, has a huge and exuberant amount of public
art around town. I wonder whether that reflects that a meager buck buys more reward for
your citizens with art than with just about any other "non-essential".
Less essential
is a better expression. People need art too. And, sad to say, you can buy a lot more
artists on a small budget than... well, you see where that is going.
More outdoor art, near the CD horse, by the Danube at Riverpark.
Furrin Parts
Public art of a different sort in a different country. This one hangs in a big
indoor mall over a major metro junction in Vienna, an hour and a bit west, and worlds
away in some ways.
No stay in Bratislava is complete without a visit to Vienna, and vice-versa.
We are there for the rest of this page, and we'll be there again before I am done
with this season's Bratislava photos.
St Stephen's Cathedral, an iconic Vienna landmark, in a view that you will not
find on any postcard in any souvenir shop in the neighborhood.
Try as I might, I have never made a photo that does justice to Vienna's exuberant
plague column. I have gotten a few interesting pictures of it though. Here are a couple.
As long as the sun is out, the Burggarten, a former imperial palace garden,
is always good for a picture or two.