The Travel Cooler » Europe

The Roman Empire in Sand

Anni Poulsen — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 17:42:10 +0000

I went to the Sand Sculpture Festival 2011 during my visit to Denmark last month.

The annual festival has been running in Søndervig for a few years now, I believe, and the theme this year is “The Roman Empire and its Rulers”.

The artists are from all over the world and I was very impressed by the sculptures! The details are amazing, as should be evident from the photos below by Asta Poulsen.

The festival runs till 25 October, and you can get all the details including entrance fees and opening times from http://www.sandskulptur.dk/frontpage.aspx

The Northern Lights Camera

Anni Poulsen — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 20:06:36 +0000

The northern lights (Aurora Borealis) have put on a magnificent show over the past couple of days, judging from the images from the (almost) live camera at the Aurora Sky Station.

Naturally, we would rather experience the northern lights live, but for those of us who are located too far south to see the lights live, the Aurora Sky Station camera takes a snap of the night sky at the Abisko Mountain Station every 5 minutes.

There is of course no guarantee that the camera will catch the northern lights, but the Aurora Sky Station website displays the latest 700+ photos captured, and they often include brilliant shots of the lights.

As I write this, (4 January 2011 at 20:48), the northern lights is putting on the most magnificent display you could wish for, so hurry over to the Aurora Sky Station website to see for yourself.

Fungi Fascination

Anni Poulsen — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 20:13:09 +0000

I’m developing an unnatural fascination with fungi. It started with a photo challenge last year and now I’m just amazed at how many weird looking species you can find in England alone.

I’m not ruling out a fungi-spotting world tour one day, but for now I’ll just share a couple of photos from a beautiful day in the forest at Bury Hill last Friday. I’ve included the Latin names of the few that I think, I recognise. Please do correct me, if I’m wrong and if you know the names of the others, feel free to leave a comment.

OK, so I might be the only one who bursts out laughing at the sight of some of these beauties, but if their shapes don’t tickle you, their common names might: Above, amongst others, we have a Stinkhorn, a White False Deathcap, a Magpie Inkcap, a Yellow Stagshorn and a Collared Earthstar.

To help me identify the fungi, I used the Wild About Britain web site, which has thousands of photos of weird and wonderful fungi.

Bullfighting banned in Cataluña (Catalonia)

Anni Poulsen — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 12:35:00 +0000

By a narrow 13-votes margin, the Catalan parlament banned bullfighting in Catalonia from 1 January 2012 in a vote earlier today.

The ban is highly likely to stir emotions on both sides of the argument!

Personally, I’m not in to bullfighting, but I do hope Barcelona keeps its one remaining bullring, La Monumental.

Maybe, it could be used for outdoor theatre, if it isn’t already?

Source: El País