Day Trips from Sydney: Bondi to Coogee Beaches

Another rewarding easy walk leads along the southern beaches of Sydney, from Bondi beach, famous for its surfers, over Tamarama to Bronte and Clovelly beaches to Coogee in a wide open bay. 

at Bondi beach

Graffiti on the seawall at Bondi

Coastal sandstone formations

one beach after the next, each one more beautiful than the one before, on a perfect day ...

 Tamarama bay

Bronte

 Not only the beaches are photogenic attractions

Waverley Cemetery seems like a good place to rest - a perfect view for eternity or for the bodily resurrection - just in case ...

 Watching and being watched ...

 Clovelly Beach

a common Mynah

Between Bronte and Clovelly Beach we saw humpback whales passing by and frolicking in the water

 The last bay before you reach Coogee is Gordons Bay, very secluded with mesmerizing colours.

a fairy wren

Coogee Beach

Have fun! 

Prager Spaziergänge - Mala Strana

Prague is a very pretty town, very historic, very European. It looks like a small Vienna or Paris, just everything a little quainter, prettier and less stately, with a southern touch and squares surrounded by arcades like in northern Italy. The large historic city center of Prague on both banks of the river Moldau is a Unesco World Cultural Heritage Site. 

Mala Strana (also: Lesser Town or Kleinseite) is the area between the castle hill and the river Moldau. Visitors walk through this pretty area when coming down from the castle heading towards the old town and Charles Bridge across the Moldau. 

St Nicholas Church 

Continuing the walk, below the Castle in Mala Strana is Palais Waldstein (also called: Wallenstein Palace), which I visited because I wanted to know who Beethoven's energetic lively "Waldstein"-Sonata, one of my favourites, was dedicated to. Count Ferdinand Ernst Gabriel von Waldstein lived in Bonn for some time when Beethoven lived there, but that was nearly two hundred years after this baroque palace was built, by Count Albrecht Wenzel Eusebius von Waldstein. This Count was actually Wallenstein - very confusing -, the famous commander of the Habsburg army during the Thirty-year-War. The Waldsteins (or Wallensteins) are an old Bohemian aristocratic family and owned the palace until 1945. 

The park is very well kept and has an artifical dripstone wall and a birds' volière with a group of eagle owls and freely strutting peacocks. 

eagle owls (Bubo bubo)

The artificial dripstone wall was created as part of the original garden in 1623 to 1629. Artifical grottos must have been en vogue as a garden design feature for a very long time. I remember the beautiful gardens of Villa Melzi on Lake Como, where the albeit much smaller grotto was built between 1808 and 1810. 

Today the castle holds the meeting halls of the Senate of the Czech Republic.

Senate Hall 

Bohemian crystal chandeliers

Albrecht Graf Waldstein or "Wallenstein"

The park in Waldstein's Palais with a view to the Castle

(... to be cont'd ...)