Tag Archives: museum

What’s that whooshing sound? Ah, it’s me rushing from Cancún to Venice, to attend a business event the next day :)

I got to thinking about my previous visits to Venice and how I usually arrived by car. In fact, I hadn’t flown into Venice airport for about 15 years! This time, they told me I shouldn’t be too surprised about their unusual new arrivals terminal. And it really was unusual – or, at least the parking lot:

That’s right! You can take a boat from Venice airport (which is on the mainland) straight to the islands on which Venice lies.

Read on…

We’ve already had a few ‘B-sides’ – Aniva and Tyuleny – on our Kurils adventure. Now it was time for a bonus track – a previously unreleased rarity, as it were: the Commander Islands!

Read on…

Hi folks!

After Hannover – we were headed southeast – over to Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, for a conference for our partners from the Middle East, Africa and Southern Asia. Quick report: everything was just great (as usual). Everyone went home with new knowledge, better motivated, fully sated, content and happy. The event took place in one of the three swish Flame Towers, and the views therefrom were very impressive, as could be expected:

Now for some touristy stuff, since we’d scheduled several hours free in the city. We opted for the Heydar Aliyev Center, which fairly amazed us with its design and exhibitions.

First – the shape: Oh my Guggenheim! And what’s best is that its shape changes as you look at it from different angles ).

Read on…

I tend to travel a lot: all around the world (including its more exotic locations), often, and mostly at a fast pace. I’m very lucky in that respect as I love traveling (surprisingly, not everyone does after doing it years!). I’ve been to most of the must-sees of this world, and taken plenty of pics while doing so and uploaded them to this here blog for well over a decade already. That includes both the North and South Poles, the Himalayas, the Sahara, Greenland, and a great many volcanoes. However, it turns out that some places not all that far away from home for some odd reason haven’t ever been investigated by Yours Truly. Indeed, I keep a short list of these special-yet-unvisited destinations with the hope of whittling it down to – hopefully – nothing sooner or later. Well, said list has just been shortened by one place: for I’ve finally, after so many years wanting to get there, been to… Florence!

Yep, though I’d been to Italy sooooo many times before, I never made it here! I’d been to Rome a zillion times since our first office was opened there (in 2008); also Milan, Naples, Venice, Bologna, Maranello, Syracuse and even Palermo. In short – everywhere but Florence! Well, I had briefly stopped at Florence on a train en route to somewhere else, I’d driven around part of its outer ring road, and I’d flown over it plenty of times, but never visited it properly. Until now…

So what can I say? I’ll say Florence is a magical city. Briefly, here’s why:

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Ongietorri here means ‘welcome’. While eskerrik asko means ‘thank you’. “But, isn’t Bilbao a Spanish city, where they speak, like, Spanish?”, I can hear some of you wondering. Yes, it is Spanish (on the northern coast of Spain, on the shore of the Bay of Biscay), but it’s also the capital of the Basque Country.

I’d long wanted to visit Bilbao, and finally, on a free weekend while in Europe on business, I was able to…

Read on…

Hallo folks!

Munich has lots of excellent museums. But when’s the best time of year to go check them out? Turns out: late September/early October. Why? Because that’s when Oktoberfest takes place! Yes, while practically the whole population of the city and surrounding areas, plus millions of tourists from around the world are at the city’s famous Volkfest (the largest Volkfest in the world, no less), the museums are practically empty! Yeh! It’s like having a whole museum to yourself. Weh!

The first museum we checked out was the Pinakothek der Moderne. And just look at all the crowds we had to elbow our way through:

Read on: A lengthy line for entry tickets…

Hi folks!

How time flies?

We’re nearing the end of the first half of 2018 already (which will end, like every other year, with our company’s mega b–day bash). Just about six weeks left – and just a few more business trips – and that will be it: time for downing tools and having some well-earned rest and relaxation.

Well here I am on one of the above-mentioned business trips – in sunny Paris. Can’t complain, generally, of course. Paris is Paris, after all. But I can complain that it’s 95% business on this trip: just a few hours left for some sightseeing. Oh well, at least we were installed right in the center of the capital, which meant only one thing, in my book: a trip to my fave Paris museum – in the Pompidou Centre.

Coming to this place is always such a pleasure. I’ve been several times since my first visit in the early 2000s, and am never let down. This time though, I have to say, the exhibitions weren’t quite up to their usual high standard; at least that’s how it seemed to me. But that’s only subjective: I was on a roll of negativity, which started back in Morocco ). I’m sure objectively [sic], all was merveilleux.

Read on…

Ferrari and F-1, all-women skiing expeditions to the South Pole, snooker, archaeological digs of ancient Minoan ruins, chess, and a lot of other stuff. I think the word is eclectic for all that lot. And for those at the back not listening – this eclectic selection is what we sponsor, support, help, assist, admire, and are proud of! But something was missing. Something that would make it even more diversified. We needed to add an ingredient of a perfectly… perpendicular nature – perpendicular to that lot (is that even possible?). So that’s just what we did: we added… modern art to the mix!

Drum roll……………………….. crash cymbal! We have another announcement!

We’re taking part in a project of the most unusual and original kind (drum roll still going, getting louder – just like pulses and breathing!). Like I say, it’s about modern art. But not simply ‘modern’, and not simply ‘art’; add to it the following, and that’s what we got!: a ship (research-vessel), the ocean, and Antarctica! It all adds up to the must uniquely uncommon project in the world in the field of modern art – the Antarctic Biennale!

The essence of the project is as follows: artists from all around the world take long flights to Ushuaia in southern Argentina. There they’ll board a ship and sail to Antarctica, all the while intensively gaining inspiration and creating. The floating creative laboratory, exhibition deck, and ocean-faring platform for dialog will be the Akademik Sergey Vavilov research vessel. And it’s going to happen in the second half of March of this year!

And the project was officially announced last Saturday evening in Room 15 (the Italian Courtyard) of the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow.

Read on: Why?…

Phew. Another regional partner conference done and dusted. We have quite a few every year: North American (this year in Cancun); Latin America (recently in Bolivia, but this year I sadly couldn’t make it); and APAC (just the other week in Vietnam). There’s also an ‘Emerging Markets’ conference – the one that we’ve just done and dusted, in Barcelona – which covers Latin America (yep, they’re lucky – they get two conferences a year), Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

As always it was as always: meetings, presentations, discussion, negotiations and so on: the serious bit. Then there was the fun bit: a gala dinner, this time in Barcelona’s Maritime Museum. Super place for a super supper :).

There are different kinds of museums.

There are real museums (in the classic understanding of the word), there are expositions, exhibitions, installations… What other words are there for describing such events? Graffiti! Btw, good quality graffiti done in good taste – is it an exposition or installation or hooliganism? The latter I cross out since good graffiti (IMHO) is real art. Oops. Off piste before even getting on piste. I do keep doing that…

So. Museums…

St. Petersburg is ram packed full of them. It’s like the museum capital of the world.

Now, I understand that if St. P’s museums were to be compared with, say, the Louvre or the British Museum, St. P’s may lag behind somewhat. However, considering the very difficult past St. Petersburg has had, its museums are a bit of a miracle. Museums weren’t all that well supported in post-imperial times; the same goes for during the 70+ years under Communism; obviously WWII was a major setback; and of late, post-CCCP, the city’s museums have continued to be somewhat neglected with no generous state or philanthropic sponsors coming forward as they do in the West. Maybe I’m wrong. But that’s how it seems to me. Do correct me if I’m mistaken.

There I go again… OK. Back to the main topic…

In Saint Pete there are the usual suspects: the museums children visit on school trips – the typical, the bland, the traditional, the obvious. So we, naturally, decided to shake things up a bit and go alternative, rebel, renegade! We went to… the Railroad Museum!

Read on: let the pix do the talking…