Spring break in Madrid

A very quick midweek-trip to spring in Madrid and back: we spent three days at the Art Fair ARCO Madrid to look for inspiration and collect ideas for a few empty walls back home with the added bonus of catching some warm breeze.

Plaza Mayor

Iberico Ham and Tapas

In Parque del Buen Retiro  or "El Retiro" in the centre of the city  people were enjoying the first sun.

The Crystal Palace

Thuja topiary

no dogs, please!

 Prado

 Hieronymus Bosch's ("El Bosco") "Garden of Earthly Delights" from the early 1500s, which looks like a prophetic science fiction work. 

Schattenspiele

Museum Sorolla in Sorolla's Andalusian style villa in the old banking quarter of Madrid : 

Evening at the Royal Palace. We met old acquaintances - cranes with their characteristic talking noise flew over in thousands in  V-formation on their way back north to Scandinavia. Will we see them over Berlin next week?  

Angkor : Bakong, Preah Koh and Lolei

A few kilometers to the east of Siem Reap, three temples, Preah Ko, Bakong and Lolei are leftovers from the first Khmer capital of the 9th century. 

 Preah Koh

Shiva's bull

Bakong

tired tourists

Lolei, built in 893 AD, has an active modern wat associated. 

with a school

what are these? the local ossuary? 

on the road back to Siem Reap

chicken transport ...

The Cambodian version of a "food truck" - 

Snacks on the way through the countryside: fried grasshoppers , crispy crickets, crunchy maggots, chili beetles  ... 

Enjoy!

Plant of the Month : Galanthus - Schneeglöckchen

This month the first green shoots of our Schneeglöckchen ("snow-bells") start peeking out of the ground.  Eagerly awaited their flowers join the pink and white Cyclamen coum already in bloom since the end of January. 

The ordinary snowdrop Galanthus nivalis has been growing in every garden and park in our climates for centuries, multiplying and thriving if undisturbed. In recent years it has had a renaissance - a true Galantho-mania has set in especially in the UK. Every garden journal seems to feature snowdrops in their February editions. 
Even in Germany people have started collecting different species and cultivars. There are about twenty species and hundreds of different cultivars bred from them with imaginative names. Specialist breeders' catalogues are listing Galanthus spec. with filled or unfilled flowers, with green dots of different shapes and sizes, no dots at all or even yellow dots and sprinkles. 
Some cultivars are extremely expensive, which makes us wonder whether this is a small-scale return of the tulipmania from the 17th century. A single bulb of a rare kind may be had for 12 €, which does not sound like much - however considering the risk that it might just add to the garden buffet for stray mice and might never come out of the ground ...usually one would have to plant a hundred bulbs or so for a display that makes any impression. 
A beautiful pure white type "Galanthus plicatus EA Bowles" has been bought for 350 £ by a collector but this was topped recently by a fine example with a yellow ovary christened "Galanthus woronowii Elizabeth Harrison". The seed company Thompson and Morgan turned out to be the buyer of this new mutation for 725 £.  At least we can be sure that they will know how to multiply the stock professionally with tissue culture without the risk of losing the thing or accidentally splitting the bulb by digging it up with a ruthless spade in autumn ....   

Galanthus nivalis

As I have many litte mice living in my garden that I like to observe and sometimes tease with a water hose in summer as they feel quite at home between the borders and dry walls, I must admit we have had little success in establishing many different snow drops. 

We have some examples of the filled flower Galanthus nivalis "Flore pleno" that is able to survive without extra care.

Galanthus nivalis "flore pleno"

I have also tried Galanthus reginae-olgae, the autumn-flowering snow drop. What a disappointment! 
Its flowers appeared dutifully in autumn, but I hated it then! It looked totally out of place between the other autumn colours. It gave me an unwelcome surprise with its untimeliness like having asparagus and strawberries in winter or looking at a christmas wreath in summer. The tiny pale-white flower reminded me in the midst of full autumn splendour of winter and the frugal spring awakening when I wanted to indulge in colourful interwoven moving shapes of fruit and flower and the scents of the abundance of autumn.
It is still holding out in some corner of the garden, still looking out of place, and has not multiplied. 

To every thing there is a season. 

Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme ...

Whatever version you prefer: Simon & Garfunkel's or the original English medieval song:  
These healthy "krauts" are for all people, who find themselves in unpalatable relationships - or more complex and complicated than they ever wanted or thought possible. 

Happy munching! 

Around wintery Potsdam

At the end of January  a wintery trip around Potsdam took us to Lake Sacrow in Brandenburg and the beautiful chapel "Heilandskirche". 

frozen Lake Sacrow - in the distance you can just make out a lonely ice skater

Heilandskirche was built in 1844 in Italian style with a campanile and arcades collecting warmth in the sun. Here the river Havel is half frozen.

On the following picture from 1981 presented in a documentation inside the chapel, you can see the situation from 1961 until 1989. The Heilandskirche  was then in No-Man's-Land between the river Havel, which separated West- from East Germany, and the "Todesstreifen" (death strip) behind. The church has been rescued from its sorry state and was restored from 1991 to 1993.

View from Sacrow park towards Glienicker Brücke and Potsdam across the Havel.

... and looking over from the Berlin side.... 

the other direction : Glienicker Bridge ("Bridge of Spies") in the distance

Further upstream another island gem in the Havel is Pfaueninsel (peacock-island). Like Sacrow and the many Prussian Castles of Potsdam it has been classified as UNESCO Cultural World Heritage Site.  

Ferry "Luise" takes you over. 

This romantic small Castle was built by the Prussian king Friedrich Wilhelm II. for his mistress on this idyllic island. It is made from wood and nowadays rather looks like a theatre stage decoration (these pictures are from a summer visit).

 a keyhole view of the castle

The Kavaliershaus for staff and guests

Peacocks roam freely and are of the less-aggressive kind, at least when we visited. 

To top off a perfect day, one might visit the new superb museum Palazzo Barberini in Potsdam. Hasso Plattner, the co-founder of SAP company, has created a private museum and rebuilt a palace in the historic centre of Potsdam with modern museum technology to house his huge art collection. Monets, Sisleys, Munchs, Picassos, Richters ... a visit is very highly recommended! 

Potsdam's Alter Markt with St. Nikolai, the Obelisk, Altes Rathaus,  Museum Barberini and Stadtschloss. 

For the moment they have curated a very fitting "winter" exhibition.