The Barbican is one of those buildings / complexes / estates even, that divide people into the LOVE IT / HATE IT camps. It’s not for everyone that’s for sure, but it certainly is for those of us (yes, I’m in the LOVE IT camp) who like strong, well thought out architecture that fits into…
Author: paulandanthony
We're recently early retired from long and exhausting careers in Brand Design Strategy and TV Producing / Writing. After two long years of being trapped by COVID in our home town of Sydney Australia, we're ready to unfurl our wings and fly off on new adventures that will take us first up to Far North Queensland then the UK and Mexico - revisiting favourite places we haven't been to in over 30 years. Now living in Far North Queensland, Australia.
Greenwich Means Time
Greenwich is the home of time, where eastern and western hemispheres meet, and this place doesn’t just ooze history, it sets time for the whole planet. Unbelievably (as a Londoner no less) I’ve never been here! Don’t know why, no school trips that I can remember and I guess I must have been otherwise occupied…
The Three Wise Monkeys
Best not to raise the shenanigans that are BREXIT! Hawarden Park, part of the Gladstone Estate, Flintshire, Wales. April 2019.
Off the Wall
Another treasured medieval survivor is the gorgeously imposing but at the same time surprisingly intimate Chester Cathedral, Norman in origin but the present building dating from the 13thCentury. It has a magnificent interior, gloriously massive stained-glass windows with three modern windows replacing WW2 damage, celebrating the 900thanniversary of the cathedral’s origins. Just off the wall…
Deva Victrix
Imagine Deva (modern-day Chester), circa AD 79, some 2,000 years ago. A legendary fortress town in the far-flung province of Britannia, the newly minted member of a European Union, albeit the Roman Empire… though without the freedom of movement, the benefits of a common marketplace and the generous cultural grants and handouts. Britannia is overrun…
Missão Abortada
Buoyed by Sunday’s free and easy promenade along Avenida Paulista we thought we’d stray further afield and explore some of the other sights of São Paulo. So, mid-morning on Monday we plunged headfirst into the subway system, thinking first to the Metropolitan Cathedral and the Sé district and then a stroll through downtown and over…
Missão Possível
Ok, so perhaps I was being a tad hard on this city at first glance. It’s still a ginormous sprawling urban jungle, but clearly a city like no other. Today it’s Sunday and São Paulo is out on the streets and letting its hair down in the tropical sunshine. It’s quite enjoyable actually! Every Sunday,…
Missão Impossível
Perhaps I’m being a tad harsh, but Sāo Paulo is not the most attractive of places I’ve been to, with so far only a scattering of architectural standouts, not that many noteable landmarks and not yet any sense of centre. But certainly endless (and I mean endless) streets of concrete and glass sameness….
República de La Boca
La Boca, the working-class barrio south of San Telmo is of course home to La Bombonera and the infamous Boca Juniors soccer team. You may have read previous posts from our time here in November when La Boca played (or tried to play) its arch-rival River, in the Copa Libertadores final that never was. Well,…
Across the wide brown Rio Plata
We nipped across the wide brown Rio Plata on Tuesday for lunch in Colonia in Uruguay – a day return, as it’s just 1 hour and 141ks on the Colonia Express ‘wave piercer’. I just read that the Plata is incredibly shallow, barely 4 metres in depth at the point of crossing and 25…
Travels With My Ant 