Saurbær Church, Saurbæjarkirkja, Iceland, ca. 1900, by Frederick W. W. Howell, Cornell University Library, via Cornell University Library Commons on flickr.
This now rare turf church still exists. You can see it in 2015 here.
Category: European gardens
Cannes, France
“At Cannes. In a villa where the little orphans of the war are raised. Recreational dance,” ca. 1914 – ca. 1918, photographer unknown, via the Université de Caen Basse-Normandie Commons on flickr.
The photo is one of over 1,800 donated to the archives of Seine-Maritime in Rouen and the Université de Caen by the founder of Lafond Printing in Rouen. The sepia photographs have been digitized in their original condition: glued on bristol board with handwritten captions identifying places and scenes. Most of the pictures concern World War I.
You can click on the image to enlarge it.
CdV, Cyprus
“The magic carpet,” ca. 1860s, via pellethepoet on flickr (under CC license).
The picture was a carte de visite (CdV or visiting card), a type of small photograph patented in Paris in 1854. Exchanging them among family and friends became extremely popular worldwide in the 1860s. Their use was displaced in the 1880s by the larger “cabinet cards” (and later by the home snapshot). Pelle’s notes say this one was purchased from an eBay seller in Paralimni, Cyprus.
The Sunday porch: Barri Gòtic
Balconies in the Gothic Quarter of Barcelona, Spain, earlier this week.
The Quarter is the oldest part of Barcelona, with foundations in the Roman and medieval periods. However, many of its current structures were built or significantly reconstructed in late 19th and early 20th centuries. Its streets, however, remain narrow and winding, sometimes opening up to small squares.
We spent five days in the city, after almost two weeks in Toulouse, France. Toulouse is all about the 13th to 15th centuries, while Barcelona glories in the late 19th and the 20th, so it was an interesting shift after a three hour train ride. As tourists, our energy levels were winding down, however. We rode the hop-on hop-off bus (without hopping off) and toured Gaudi’s Basilica Sagrada Familia (reserve tickets in advance; it’s remarkable) and Casa Amatller (they give you good hot chocolate and bread at the end), and watched the red rose and book selling of Sant Jordi’s Day on April 23. But mainly we just walked around and soaked up the perfect spring weather.
We stayed at Hotel AC Irla (a Marriott affiliate) in an upscale section of the Eixample district with easy public bus connection to and from (the V11 and V13, respectively) the waterfront and the Gothic Quarter (buy a T10 ticket from a magazine/newspaper stand; it will give you 10 rides* for about one euro each).
My only food tip: if you tour Sagrada Familia on a Wednesday to Sunday, book the 11:30 a.m. time slot and then have lunch at Arepamundi, a small Venezuelan arepa place a couple blocks south of the basilica. Order the small size arepas so you can enjoy more than one filling (get the Venezulana and the one with shredded meat, beans, fresh cheese, and fried bananas). Barcelona brought back some memories of living in Caracas in the 80s.
*Validate it each time you enter a bus, subway, or tram. If two people are using the same card, punch it twice each time. If transferring within an hour and a half from subway to bus (or bus to bus), punch it, but it won’t count as a new trip.
Spring arrangement
“Still life with motifs of tulips,” by John Hertzbert, an autochrome made between 1904 and 1935, via Tekniska Museet (Sweden) on flickr (used under CC license).
This lantern slide was used in photography class lectures at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm.
enclos*ure 