Postcards – Page 9 – TRAVEL WORDS

Postcards from Around the World

Sausalito is a city in Marin County, California, across the Golden Gate Strait from San Francisco. Whilst in San Francisco it is fun to take a ferry over to Sausalito or Tiburon where you can get great views back across the bay and enjoy brunch overlooking the water.

As in the previous post this photo also refers back to that famous 1915 Expo. Close to the ferry port in downtown Sausalito is Viña del Mar Park, a small triangle-shaped park offering benches & grassy areas, and known for its elephant statues & fountain that were commissioned by William B. Faville for his ‘Court of the Universe’ complex in the 1915 Expo. He couldn’t bear to see them destroyed after the expo so had two of the elephants and a fountain shipped over to his Sausalito home. Obviously since they were made of Papier-mâché the ones you see now are replicas.

Sausalito is a good place from which to rent bikes (including electric) to ride over the Golden Gate bridge and on to the ferry terminal to return.

Postcards from Around the World

Leaving Europe behind for now let’s go to San Francisco. A city I have visited on several occasions, but there are still bits and pieces that haven’t been on the blog.

When I visited the iconic Palace of Fine Arts back in 2010 it was about to undergo a renovation. With its Greco-Roman rotunda and colonnades it is an impressive building and I am glad that it is now used for corporate events, private parties and weddings. With improved landscaped gardens and the pretty lagoon, it is a perfect place for a celebration.

The Romanesque structure was designed by architect Bernard R. Maybeck for the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition, a world’s fair that celebrated the Panama Canal’s opening—and gave San Francisco a chance to shine after its devastating 1906 earthquake.

Today’s Palace duplicates the original, with a soaring colonnade and bas-relief urns, domed ceiling with allegorical paintings, and Corinthian columns topped with female figures draped in togas, their weeping faces turned away to symbolize “the melancholy of life without art.”

If you want to know more about San Francisco then please visit my older (and much longer) post about the city here.

Postcards from Around the World

Prague is an architect’s text book: Romanesque chapels and cellars, Gothic cathedrals, Baroque palaces and gardens, worldly Art Nouveau buildings, and unique Cubist architecture make it a place with no parallel in the world.

For my last look at Prague I want to share some of the magnificent doors and windows found in this city.

(Please click on an image to scroll through the gallery)

Hopefully you will have been blown away by what this city has to offer you. And I shall leave you with one last glimpse from across the River Vltava.

Postcards from Around the World

Prague is a photographer’s dream. Apart from the amazing architecture – Baroque, Gothic, Rococo, Renaissance, Art Nouveau – there are shops full of treasures from wooden puppets, Bohemia glassware, decorated eggs, jewellery – even the metro stations are among the most photogenic in Europe.

(Please click on an image to scroll through the gallery)

Inspired by pop art, artist Jiří Rathouský came up with the distinguishing colours for each of the individual stations. Colours are used to represent significant historical locations found on different lines.

Postcards from Around the World

Prague is a fascinating city with a myriad of architectural styles from Romanesque to the more recent Gehry building ‘The Dancing House’. Art Nouveau, Renaissance, Gothic, Baroque and Rococo coexist – all I can say is better bring a good camera and don’t forget to look up.