We are still in Bordeaux, cycling today to the market in s pretty town about 30 miles from here along a very pleasant route we rode last year. This year, we’ll remember the sun screen And bring a market basket . . .
Yesterday afternoon, we discovered the amazing ruins of a Roman amphitheatre less than 10 minutes’ away, so I’ll post some photos of those soon. But I did want to share these new additions to my street art collection, even if it means backtracking to London, out of sequence.
I’m trying out Blogger’s iPad app. If there are instructions anywhere, I haven’t found them yet, and it’s not at all clear to me how one might adjust size and placement of photos. Please bear with me though, would you, as I experiment a bit?
Less than a foot tall, this haunting, delicate spray-painted stencil, spotted on a peeling white exterior wall in Primrose Hill, London. . . Detail enlargement below . . .
Not too far away, probably by the same artist?
Completely different in scale, materials, tone. . . The gentle pastels made an archway tunnel rather magical on a sunny day.
Worlds away in tone, this compelling and disturbing mural arrested us as we strolled home from Primrose Hill via London’s Regent’s Canal.
Not far away, this odd and diminutive figure peered up at as from a post.
And lowering our gaze further to the ground beneath our feet . . .
And that pavement is what my bike tires should be hitting soon, as we’re off and away. As we pedal, I will be mulling over a film we saw last night,Deux Jours et un Nuit, with the marvellous Marion Cotillard. It would have been even more affecting had I been able to understand more than a third of the French, but as it was, I’m still carrying some weight from it. Some people’s lives are so hard. . .
Not mine at the moment, though. Off cycling in vacation-land, very lucky. Et vous, what are you up to today? And how are you doing? Spotted any street art worth noting lately?
Walking in the streets of Europe is like walking in a huge art gallery. I always wonder when the artists do their work. Moi, je vais rencontrer une amie au centre culturel pour discuter en français. Je dois trouver un passage intéressant pour discuter. I will look for Canadian street art today.
Bordeaux sounds wonderful. Did you bring your own bikes or are you renting?
BTW your "pavement" shot reminds me how confused my husband are I were by references (in books and by our hosts when we were in England) to "pavement." We kept thinking of the road/street/where the cars go …when people were clearly talking about the "sidewalk." Made for lots of confusion. Interesting how these different meanings evolve.
Enjoy the rest of your trip.
I just looked up that film – sounds heartwrenching.
That first image is so ethereal, it's beautiful. Such a lot of variation in the street art – very interesting. One of my favourite pieces of street art is in my home town of Dundee, Scotland – a sculpture of Desperate Dan, a popular comic character (Dundee being the home of D.C. Thomson, the publishing company).
Hope you enjoyed your bike trip!
Fascinating: local, idiosyncratic and also political. Wonderful shots.