theres always another gallery somewhere...

''There is no blue without yellow and without orange'' Vincent Van Gogh

Talking of galleries I went to Amsterdam last September for a birthday break... I've been to the city many times but my partner had never visited so alongside lots of pavement cafes and brown bars we did the usual interesting rounds of sights and galleries. We caught the Van Gogh Museum just at the wrong time. The day before they had celebrated opening a new wing with a walkway of sunflowers which were given away at the end of the day - an explanation why so many people had been walking about clutching bunches of glorious giant blooms as we staggered down cobbled streets looking for our hotel, and the next week they were opening an exhibition of Edvard Munch paintings which I would have loved to have seen. However, the museum itself is still really pleasant - the famous painting of sunflowers being central to the exhibition and the space has a light airy feel allowing the paintings to glow.

birthday girl with poster of famous sunflowers

The other excellent gallery not to be missed in Amsterdam is the Stedelijk Museum of Contemporary Art. This wonderfully spacious gallery is beautifully curated with an extensive eclectic collection of diverse art.

Lichtenstein - not a particular favourite but still impressive to see real size...

we gave the Rijks Museum a miss on this trip as after a while we got ''museum leg''.. to say nothing of the sore feet from doing about 22 miles wandering along scenic canals and various markets.

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Scotland part 2

The second half of the week continued in much the same vein. We had one rainy afternoon which was actually quite nice to be holed up in the house with the rain lashing the windows. It probably wasn't quite so nice for the two visitors that came on their bikes but they're tough cookies - and its only water- but I did feel sorry for them having to cycle six miles back down the track in the wind and rain, but given Scotland, it wasn't as bad as it could be. The big quest for the 2nd half of the week was to find some deer antiers! The chap that owned the house dropped in to visit - he was a very friendly fella and was chatting about how this was the time of year when all the Stags lost their antlers (he collected them and sold them) so after that we were on the serious lookout. It's always been Fred's mission to find some dropped antlers.... The Monro baggers continued with the mission to bag the remaining three Monros... there is discussion as whet...

Vigo

We left the ship to explore Vigo. Its a much larger place then we expected... although tbh I hadn't given ut a lot of thought. Its a real mish mash of old and new and having got a map from tourist info we decided to follow the walking trail to the Monte Castro... the highest point of the town. Most of the town was pretty much as everywhere else... lots of traffic... lots of people... one or two interesting buildings and a lot of shopping. We headed to the art gallery - this has been a year of gallery visits so we we seen o reason to change now. The Museo de Marco is housed in the towns ex prison building and its very grand. In fact, I think that on this occaision the building might have been more interesting than the art.... Although the visiting exhibition by Susanne S D Themlitz was strangely compelling. It was a huge varied collection of eclectic items... found, salavaged, manipulated and arranged in lots of ways - weirdly inspiring - and mostly enjoyable to look at...

Funchal

So after three days at sea we finally hit Funchal in Madeira. An escape from the ship, and I have to say it was very pleasant indeed. First of all the weather is really splendid. Especially when you know that everybody else in the UK is suffering grim storms and vile winds.. Over here it is between 22 and 25 degrees is really quite warm. Funchal is a pretty city. It's built on a hill it with lots of lovely white houses with stunning red roofs. In order to get the best of it we walked along the sea front until we got to the cable car and we took it up the hill. It was a really good ride much longer than we imagined and it's quite weird because it goes right through the town - completely over everybody's house... So not only do you get a lovely vista of the bay but you can view the beautiful rooftops and get to look in everybody's gardens and to look at their picnic sets.. clean washing nice plants... scratty b...

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