Some of the more eye-catching sculptures were fashioned by Sophie Ryder.

In addition to a number of school classes exploring the park at the same time the other noticeable group of lifeforms were the sheep. We were acutely aware of where we were standing and did a pretty decent job of not treading in too many sheep droppings as I recall.

While it was still early in the year there was a little bit of nature on show to catch my attention as well.

Our trip included a visit to a spy museum (I’d show you the pictures but then I’d have to kill you) and a meal before a little bit of a wander around the streets on the way to the main area of galleries and Smithsonian museums.

We like art and I’m drawn to more of the cubist, modernist trends rather than classical as a general rule so we weren’t disappointed with what Washington had to offer.

The science and aeronautical museums, though, were a great draw for us and a good number of visitors too. We tried to hit as many museums as we could, getting a feel for them rather than exclusively fixing on one or two but we still didn’t have time to visit every museum we wanted. Still, plenty more chances to hit America again.

Photos of some of the Sacred and Profane art pieces:

Grayson Perry Art Exhbition

Properly titled Grayson Perry: The Most Popular Art Exhibition Ever! and taking place in the Arnolfini, this free exhibition showcased a huge amount of Grayson’s vases, sculptures, tapestries, and other art across three floors. It was wonderful to see so many objects in the flesh that we’d previously admired in some of his TV shows, knowing the meaning behind a lot of them. I was so engrossed I only took a few photos on my phone. If you get a chance to go then you definitely should.

Bristol

Outside the art gallery we were in time for the end of a protest taking place which was a shame as I like to photograph protests, especially for causes I believe in. We crossed over the pedestrian bridge and took a look at the nearby Millenium Square with it’s interesting sculptures and huge, open space.

Bristol Aquarium

From the square we then headed into the Bristol Aquarium past a sculpture with a sign requesting that people not climb on it. Why on earth would I be mentioning a sculpture with a sign requesting people not climb on it? Could it be because of the kids climbing on it while their parents sat facing them and the plainly visible sign from a few metres away smoking cigarettes? Possibly. In the aquarium my camera was spotted and I was told that photographs were permitted but no flash photography was allowed; fortunately, I’m well aware of this restriction and I rarely carry a flash on my camera body anyway. Why am I mentioning this? Could it be because there was an announcement while we were looking around reminding people not to use flash because someone clearly was? Possibly.

Anyway, a very large, well laid-out aquarium with a couple of star exhibits, those being the multitude of pregnant seahorses we saw in a number of tanks and the very active, surprisingly fast-moving (and difficult to photograph in low light) octopus. I took some video on my phone too with limited success but it does get across just how the tentacles move and roll over one another as the creature moves.

Our review of the cruise as a whole would be that the ports of call were superb and the Royal Princess itself was a beautiful ship inside and out but there were some design and feature choices on the ship we didn’t particularly like (personal preference so your views may differ) and, far more importantly, we were treated to some incredibly un-Princess-like levels of service during the trip that left us vowing to never set foot on the ship again during and just after the cruise. Time has a way of smoothing out those peaks and troughs and looking back through the pictures I’m reminded of some of the better parts of the ship and holiday so… the right price, the right itinerary might change my mind. But the Royal Princess would not be my first choice of ship in the Princess Cruises line.

Embarkation

We’d arranged flights to Italy and transfers to the port and ship with Princess for convenience (and they’re very well-priced, we’ve found) so a 4 a.m. start, drive to Heathrow, and check-in resulted in the holiday starting in traditional British fashion with drinks in the airport before we’d normally even be awake.

The weather was perfect across Europe for our holiday (which always helps) and obligatory phone photos of the landscape and lakes we flew over swiftly followed.

Luggage was retrieved, we found the Princess representatives easily, and with only a little bit of hanging around until everyone from a couple of flights had gathered together we made our way to the coach (quite a walk as I recall) to then take the fairly quick drive to Civitavecchia where the ship was waiting. Unlike everyone else, it seemed, we’d filled in all our paperwork early and walked straight through to pick up our ship card, boarding the ship itself within about three minutes of arriving at the port. Outstanding work.

State Room E102

Our late deal gave us the most forward balcony on the Royal Princess, low down on the port side of the ship. The room was decorated in much the same way as any other Princess ship we’d been on but everything was newer and a little brighter as you’d expect from a more modern ship. The Royal Princess was the first (and at time of writing, only) Royal-class ship we’d been on, with all our previous cruises taking place on Grand-class vessels. The only major layout change in the room we could see was a large, wall-mounted TV opposite the bed rather than the smaller, corner-set ones we’d seen elsewhere. In the bathroom there was a minor change in positioning of the toilet which is usually at 45 degrees to the vanity unit.

We like balconies on our cruises and if you like balconies too then you probably really need to think about any of the Royal-class of ships (Royal, Regal, Majestic from Princess, or Britannia from P&O) as balcony depth is appalling unless you’re willing to really splash out on some of the higher priced rooms. As it was, though, our room was at the flaring point of the ship near the front which gave us an angled, deeper balcony than typical; the three or four cabins further back from us had deeper cabins again; the only “downside” was that our balconies were described as partially obstructed which in this instance meant that the barrier portion of the balcony was metal instead of glass. This was no obstruction at all and it even meant there was a metal shelf that was handy for putting drinks on when we were sitting out there. The balcony was partially covered and partially exposed and the ship’s bridge was above and just behind. If you’re concerned about privacy it’s worth thinking about but it didn’t concern us. We’d read that when the bridge windscreen was cleaned some of the cleaning fluid could drip onto the balconies where we were but for E102 this didn’t seem to be possible as we were set ahead of the bridge.

In Civitavecchia we were docked alongside the Celebrity Eclipse. As we unpacked and enjoyed a drink in our room a sudden thunderstorm hit the area; lightning was flashing across the suddenly dark afternoon sky and the rain came tipping down. With only a half-covered balcony we couldn’t step out to really take in the splendour of nature but we did sit for a while with our bodies sheltered and our legs exposed to the elements; the warm rain coming down was nice but the subsequent drips from the metal overhead were decidedly cooler. The storm passed quickly in time for a pleasing sunset before muster and departure.

So, Royal Princess state room E102 was perfectly adequate (and arguably better than the majority of balcony cabins on board) and it was conveniently located just one deck above the promenade deck making it easy to walk to between them rather than rely on elevators (although it’s a big ship so it’s still a fair distance). One thing I must point out, though, is that if you’re a fan of sleeping in then best find another room. Proximity to the anchor meant an alarm clock was rarely required. This didn’t bother us, but it might bother you.

Piazza

The piazza was huge, light, and a very attractive space with some very familiar bars and shops hanging off it as we’d come to expect from Princess Cruises along with a few new places too. But looks aren’t everything. We came to realise very quickly that one of favourite things to do when we’re on a Princess ship – enjoy a cocktail from Crooners at the top of the piazza in the early evening before (and sometimes after) dinner – was completely ruined on Royal Princess because of new functionality for the atrium area; namely, activities. Specifically, noisy activities. It seemed there was almost always something happening in the piazza with the subsequent noise rising up to fill the space. At times it was difficult to hear yourself think because of a band or dance class taking place. This was a real disappointment for us.

Art Gallery

We’re fond of art, always make a point of attending at least one auction on board, usually buy something, and Princess (or, rather, Park West, who manage art sales on numerous cruise lines) knows this so we were invited to private events during our week on the ship. Yes, we bought again; one of the pieces is shown below but I won’t say which (other than it’s not the sculpture because we’re not made of money). The location of the gallery on deck 7 was a shock to us and we didn’t really like that it was along a main walking area on this class of ship but I understand the reasoning in trying to capture a bit of passing traffic (more on this in a bit). Our experience says that people who like art already know they like art and it’s unlikely you’re going to entice someone in for a sale on the off chance but I suppose it’s possible. The art gallery was by a stairwell above the casino and we did notice the smell of smoke every now and then which was unpleasant. The gallery staff were superb, friendly, and we enjoyed many chats with them both on and off the ship in ports when we bumped into some on occasion (more on friendliness of staff in a bit too).

Club 6

Our favourite venue on the Grand-class ships operated by Princess Cruises is Skywalkers Nightclub; nothing beats some late nights dancing and drinking. So it was an immense disappointment to discover that not only did the Royal Princess not have this club but the club it did have instead, Club 6, had no views out to sea in the evening and was both adjacent to the casino (smoking smell would creep in from time to time) and formed a corridor between the theatre and the piazza. The reasoning – we suspect – is again to capture passing traffic to the club, something that’s not possible for Skywalkers as it’s at the aft and up top of ships. The reality – we found – was that a crowd of people would just suddenly walk through the place a few times each evening talking loudly while you were trying to enjoy the music, blocking most of the routes to and from the dancefloor until they’d cleared. Baffling design decision. We’ve subsequently talked to a DJ who has worked on Princess ships and who made all the same complaints about Club 6 that I’ve done here.

One interesting thing about Club 6 on the Royal Princess, though, was that the resident DJ was Pedro who had also been on our South American cruise aboard the Star Princess. To date we think he’s the only crew member we’ve encountered twice on a trip. If he wasn’t so fixated on playing latin music all the bloody time then this would have been a good thing.

Other Interior Spaces

The food locations were (mostly) all excellent and none more so than the buffet; huge, open, well laid out, fantastic choices; this was one area that was substantially improved over other Princess ships. Quality and range were all excellent. With our recent experiences on P&O, for example, it’s incredible just how good and varied the breakfast is on Princess with regular choices, local dishes, changing dishes sensibly making use of food not eaten the night before, etc. With P&O it will typically be the same five things every day. Wonderful cake choices too.

The blot on the food landscape was the specialty dining in the Crown Grill, something we always like to do on a Princess cruise but… the location was attached to the Wheelhouse Bar which transformed it from a specialty location to a side room in a pub, and a noisy one at that; it was too bright so intimate dining was gone; the waiter didn’t listen to me at all (more on service in a bit). Anyway, awful.

A TV studio replaces one of the lounges on the Royal Princess and it’s a complete waste of space. That’s all I have to say on that. Another lounge had an odd layout of seating that made talking to other people difficult. Pleasant enough artwork was dotted around the ship and the namer of the ship, the Duchess of Cambridge, had her photograph in one of the corridors.

Promenade Deck

We like a nice walk around the promenade deck on other ships. Sadly, this was impossible on Royal Princess with just a few small areas of decking you could step out on and no walking circuit except for up on top of the ship. The deck areas on the promenade deck were pleasant enough but the views were a little limited by the presence of lifeboats. A nice view to the SeaWalk above could be had but that’s little compensation.

SeaWalk

One of the big features of the Royal Princess cruise ship is its SeaWalk, a glass platform jutting out from the side of the ship and allowing views down to the sea. Sort of. It’s mostly over the promenade deck below so there’s no worry about falling through into the water as the wooden decking below would probably cushion any fall. It’s a nice enough gimmick and looks attractive from the ship’s exterior. Except with the lights on in the evening you can’t really see through the glass because of the reflections. What you can see, though, is onto the balconies and into some of the state rooms nearby. And as for what those rooms can see out to? If you like to gaze out at the stars at night (we do) then you’re only going to see a glowing glass obstruction I imagine.

Sports

The sports and gym options seemed to be improved from what we’ve seen on other ships with plenty of equipment and walking and jogging lanes. Not that we tried any; we’re not insane.

One piece of equipment looked like it was installed backwards from the accompanying explanation of how to use it and its proximity to the ship.

Swimming Pools

Swimming pools were generally very good with lots of lounges around. A water fountain area seemed to be a little bit of a waste of space but it was fairly entertaining on a few evenings when a sound and light show was performed. The best discovery, though, was the Retreat pool; adults only, sheltered, large enough to do plenty of laps in, and pretty much ignored by most of the passengers on board which suited us perfectly. We were very pleased to get in plenty of swims on our week on the Royal Princess.

Service

The biggest, biggest, biggest problem we had with our week on board Royal Princess was that the level of service was nothing close to what we had come to expect from Princess Cruises. We were met with indifference from bar staff who would take orders with barely a glance, no chat, no smile, then head off without a word until they’d return to hand over drinks in silence, and this happened in every bar we visited on board; at the Retreat pool we couldn’t even catch the eye of a bar steward when we were the only ones there who went out of his way to wander around looking out to sea and ignoring us.

While the food was good in general the level of service was perfunctory at best in the main dining room, and in the Crown Grill it was atrocious with the waiter getting my order wrong and sighing loudly when it was pointed out. By far the worst service we had was when we had to go to the customer services desk to re-register a credit card that had stopped working because two digits had somehow transposed themselves between us booking the cruise and it being entered in their system somewhere; during a puzzled query as to how this could have happened since the card numbers had only been entered once and had obviously initially worked to get us on board we were met with an eye roll from the customer service person and an accusation that it had to be our fault. It was all I could do to hold my wife in check who was livid at being treated in such a way. We’ve never been treated that badly before or since and it just seemed to be pervasive among all the crew we encountered in some manner or another, again with the exception of the art gallery people who couldn’t have been nicer.

I know that sometimes something isn’t quite right or an encounter might not be perfect but it happened to us throughout the week and we weren’t the only people to experience this; during our disembarkation tour in Athens we were talking to some elite-level passengers who had all the same complaints to raise that we did.

Anyway, to finish: a few more photos and a couple of videos of the Royal Princess cruise ship top deck because despite problems on this cruise she was a pretty ship. It just might be a while before we’re tempted back on her or any of her class though.

The main entrance to the Hermitage was in the Winter Palace building, a sight we’d seen throughout our day in Saint Petersburg up to this point, whether from across the Neva or from behind it in the Palace Square. There was a fair queue of people waiting to enter and we had a few minutes gathered outside the building before our group was ushered in.

Inside the museum there was a general hum of conversations. Our group, like many others, was using in-ear audio systems so we could hear our guide; these had a limited range so as we tried to stick together and as I got distracted wandering off to take pictures the sound would often cut out and I’d have to walk around until the audio kicked back in so that I knew I was nearing the group once more.

The Hermitage Museum is the second largest art museum in the world but it’s not just its contents that attract the eye; the buildings that form the museum are as much part of the collection and their stunning ceiling decorations or room designs are often the first thing you notice as you move from room to room.

The Peacock Clock was a very popular attraction making it difficult to get close to and photograph. Quite why so many people were simply standing in front of it wasn’t clear as it obviously wasn’t in action at the time. A TV screen off to one side showed looping footage of the clock operating.

Thrones on display provided a source of entertainment for me as several tourists tried to get as close to the seats as possible for selfies or to pose for friends; a rather stern, local woman acting as guardian was kept busy shouting at anyone who so much as touched the rope barrier designed to ensure everyone kept their distance. I imagine that was a very tiring job for her.

The organisation of the paintings in the galleries was excellent with the artwork being arranged both by nationality and by time so you could hit, for example, the Dutch artists area and progress forward from 15th century to 16th century and so on.

While there were a lot of pieces by artists we’d never heard of there were others that were very well-known indeed. The Madonna And Child by Leonardo Da Vinci was particularly nice to see up close.

Also great to see, even if it was only roughly-finished, was a sculpture by Michelangelo called Crouching Boy.

A very attractive corridor in the Hermitage was called The Raphael Loggias, apparently a copy of a gallery in the Papal Palace in the Vatican commissioned by Empress Catherine II in the 1780s.

We had around two hours or so in total in the State Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg which of necessity really only touched the surface of what was there; the same could be said of any large museum or art gallery, of course. In truth, though, for a short visit to the city a couple of hours is about all I’d recommend in the museum in order to avoid art fatigue. Towards the end we could feel our attention wandering a little bit and were finding it harder to absorb what was being said to us by our guide.

We had about fifteen minutes of free time at the end of our tour to either go back and look at anything we’d whizzed past or to take a look at the shops; we elected to do the latter in order to find a suitable souvenir of our time there, this ending up being just a bookmark. After this we met the rest of our group at the predetermined gathering spot then headed outside to board our coach for the trip back to the ship and I snapped a few photos across the water.

This visit to the Hermitage Museum concluded the first excursion of the day in Saint Petersburg. We would still have an evening trip to the ballet to come and a half-day excursion planned for the day after that would see us take a wonderful river cruise around the city.

From a distance the most obvious sight of new development is the Iberdrolar Tower (architect: César Pelli) but the place we’d come to see – indeed, probably, most tourists come to see – was the Frank Gehry-designed Guggenheim Museum. It really was designed that way and isn’t the result of a too-proud architect refusing to acknowledge he shouldn’t have built his prototype model from chocolate and left it on the parcel shelf in the back of his car on a sunny day.

Our tour group was met by a second guide and split into two outside the entrance to make it easier to take us through the museum. The actual process of getting into the museum was very easy and although we’d been warned about not taking in large bags the checking of these did not look too stringent to me; indeed, the space in the museum is so vast it’s arguable that any large bags would really get in the way at all but you should be prepared to surrender them just to be on the safe side, especially if the museum is very busy or if you want to chance your arm and wheel a suitcase in. Single adult tickets bought online at time of writing this are €16. We gathered in the inner atrium (after another long wait for people to use the toilet, naturally), a space Gehry nicknamed “The Flower” due to its shape and the only interior location of the museum that permits photography.

The angles and sweeping curves of the interior reflected a lot of the design of the exterior of the Guggenheim Museum though with understandably different materials in play. The prominence of white and huge windows in the atrium that looked down to the river and allowed in light also brought in some of that external material – the titanium sheets – allowing us to touch them. The titanium was chosen so that it would change appearance as it aged – “Yo, Gehry, what’s with the weird colouring?” “Er, yeah, no, er, I meant that” – and the overall shape of the building was generally just random although many critics see waves and ships or fishes or melted chocolate in the back of cars in the design.

A criticism of this point in the cruise excursion, though, is that we spent an awful lot of time in the atrium hearing the history of the area and the building, the materials, the design choices, the critics’ views, etc. While a lovely place and a very informative talk from a very knowledgeable guide the things we’d really come to see were the exhibits. Revisiting my argument from the walking tour of Bilbao portion of this organised trip, had the two elements been reversed in the order in which they were undertaken we could have heard this history on the coach on the approach to the Guggenheim Museum giving us extra time to see what it was housing.

Stepping through a doorway off the atrium opposite the entrance we emerged out onto a concrete balcony in the outside air where we could get up close to Tulips by Jeff Koons. From the official website description:

Tulips, a bouquet of multicolor balloon flowers blown up to gargantuan proportions (more than 2 meters tall and 5 meters across), belongs to the ambitious Celebration series, initiated by Koons in 1994. […] With its immaculate, reflective stainless-steel surfaces, Tulips recalls earlier works by the artist such as Rabbit (1986), which similarly transformed a banal inflatable object into something hard, gleaming, and iconic. In Tulips and in the balloon animals that populate the Celebration series, as in his towering Puppy (1992), Koons has manipulated scale, as well as materials, to uncanny ends. While Tulips might evoke the large industrial forms of certain Minimalist sculptures, the buoyant, colorful sculpture equally brings to mind a jaunty parade float.

One of Koons’s other creations, Puppy, referenced in the quote above was present near the entrance to the Guggenheim but was covered in scaffolding for repairs and subsequently not photographed.

Back inside we next went into the largest space on the ground floor, the Arcelor Gallery (formerly the Fish Gallery), housing the permanent exhibition piece The Matter of Time by the sculptor Richard Serra. This was a strangely compelling, fun, if arguably disturbing place and I wish we’d had more time (ironically) here. The cavernous space is host to several, weathered steel constructions arranged in spirals or waving lines or numerous other configurations that you can wander through. Our guide took us through one which simply spiralled in on itself but the distance between the walls of the spiralled steel varied and the inward- or outward-leaning angles of the walls of the free-standing structure varied too as you moved into the sculpture’s interior; the effect was disconcerting with feelings that perhaps you were walking at an angle or that the space was confining or expanding and, overall, a loss of sense of just how far or even how long you’d walked before reaching the central space. It’s not just a must-see exhibit, it’s a must-experience one.

The following photo comes from The Matter of Time works page on the Guggenheim’s website just to show you the sculptures from above.

After an all-too-brief visit to the permanent exhibition we were taken through the other rooms of the Guggenheim Museum to see what they were showcasing. One Hundred and Fifty Multicolored Marilyns by Andy Warhol was a very obvious eye-catching piece but there were some works by Jean-Michel Basquiat I quite liked too. Museum employees were kept busy stepping up to remind people not to take photographs (it’s funny how often museum and gallery visitors seem to forget rules) but you can see many of the works at the museum’s site here: Works in the Collection.

With the rooms quickly gone through we were then given some free time before we’d need to meet back at the coach for the return to the cruise ship. We decided that rather than see some of the artwork in more detail we would head outside as the time left didn’t really leave a lot to meaningfully look at anything and we fancied some photographs of the building from a number of angles as it is such an attractive design. It was at this point that we overhead a group of Americans in our tour group grumbling that they hadn’t seen “any real art” and that they didn’t realise it was going to be full of “that modern rubbish.” People, eh? It’s always advisable to do a little bit of research before booking an excursion.

There were two prominent sculpture pieces outside the Guggenheim Museum. The first of these was Anish Kapoor‘s Tall Tree & The Eye consisting of 73 highly-reflective, stainless steel balls. This proved to be popular with people posing in front of it and I happily grabbed someone doing just that.

The second work was the almost 9-metre high, disturbing, spider creation, Maman by Louise Bourgeois. The name of the piece comes from its creation as a tribute to the sculptor’s mother who was herself a weaver. It’s a beautifully eerie work and my only regret is that the weather wasn’t ideal for capturing nice pictures of it.

But, of course, the majority of photos taken were of the Guggenheim Museum itself. Under clear skies and sunshine I imagine the change in colour tones as the light reflects off the undulating titanium exterior would be absolutely enchanting and I’d love to return for an early evening in summer at some point just to see how the tone would warm. A fabulous bit of architecture that barely looked like melted chocolate at all now I think about it.

We would have preferred a lot more time at the Guggenheim in retrospect so I’m not sure that this particular excursion is one that I can recommend if you’re keen on architecture and art. If we were to return to Bilbao at some point then we’d consider simply coming to the museum and spending a lot more time on just it rather than try to cram too much into a short trip as we unfortunately did this time around. That’s the gamble, though, and we always look at these excursions – and, indeed, cruises in general – as taster trips to whet our appetites for a return visit.

We decided to head towards the northern point of Reykjavík, Effersey, as a look at the map indicated that it would take us past a grouping of museums and we’re fond of a museum or two when we’re out and about travelling. Even though it was mid-morning the sky was dark with the sun barely creeping above the horizon. It was also windy and, of course, this was Iceland in December so it was extremely cold. The walk took us through some fairly industrial landscape but you’ll never find a terribly pleasing architectural style in this part of the world as practicality has to come first. Nevertheless, the views of the harbour area of the city and across the water to the snow-peaked mountains north were gorgeous.

One thing you will see a lot of in Iceland’s capital is street art. We’d had a good look at the street art in Reykjavík on our previous trip to the country and were pleased to see that even in the less tourist-inhabited areas of the city there was still plenty of really good quality work to see.

Reykjavík Maritime Museum

As we headed back from Effersey into the main area of Reykjavík we stopped in at the first of the museums we would visit during the day, the Maritime Museum. The museum has a coast guard vessel moored alongside it which can be visited at set times on guided tours during the day but we wouldn’t be around for those so just explored the museum on our own. The main features of the maritime museum were focused on the local fishing industry; indeed, the building in which the museum was located was formerly a fish factory. Following the main exhibition through the museum from room to room took us through artefacts from Iceland’s fishing history with explorations of the ocean, fishing vessels, and the fishing communities. There were a number of interactive elements too – we quite liked putting our hands in boxes to try to guess what was in them and taking broken plates and reconstructing them jigsaw-like – and the museum was a nice enough diversion (plus it was warm and dry) although it might not be that interesting if fishing isn’t something that particularly excites you.

Aurora Reykjavík

A very short walk from the maritime museum brought us to Aurora Reykjavík, an exhibition centre dedicated to the Northern Lights as you’ve probably been able to guess. It’s not the hugest exhibition in the world and you could probably walk through it all in five minutes but there are plenty of pretty photos of aurorae and there are some really interesting facts relating to the colours and patterns of aurora that you might be able to see in Iceland. With us having a nighttime boat trip out to see these for ourselves we found this very interesting indeed and we learnt a few things we hadn’t realised before. For example, we did know that when there’s suitably highly energtic particles flowing from the sun then aurorae happen all the time, day and night but, obviously, you can only see them at night because it’s dark. What we hadn’t realised was that the ones you see at night are from particle streams that have flowed past the Earth, curved around the magnetic fields, rebounded, then flowed back down the magnetic lines into the higher latitudes. That was fascinating to realise.

If you’re unsure how to take photos of aurorae then there are guides to how to do this and there’s even a dark booth where you can test your camera settings to see if you can take a picture of what’s inside. Finally, the centre also has a high definition cinema screen at the end of the exhibition which shows video of the Aurora Borealis from different locations around Iceland on a loop. This was a very enjoyable, very attractive, incredibly relaxing thing to sit and watch for about ten minutes.

Bryggjan Brugghús

We’d had another reason for picking the part of Reykjavík we’d wanted to start our Saturday’s wandering in and that was because we’d seen that the Bryggjan Brugghús was there, the first independent microbrewery and bistro in the country. We weren’t quite ready for any food at this point, having had a suitably large breakfast in the hotel that morning, but we couldn’t pass up the chance to try some very locally-produced ales. It’s what we do when we travel. The drinks were wonderful and the brewhouse was a very nice venue too. We didn’t do the beer tour because we wanted to make the most of our time in the city but that’s something we’d definitely consider when we return, as we surely will.

Reykjavík

The next two places we wanted to visit were across the eastern side of Reykjavík. We weren’t in any rush and Iceland’s capital isn’t very large, though, so walking was an easy choice for us. We headed back into the city and walked along the main drag, Laugavegur, towards the first of the two destinations we intended to visit.

The Icelandic Phallological Museum

One of Reykjavík’s most famous museums must surely be the Icelandic Phallological Museum, or as it’s more commonly described, the Penis Museum. In fact, we’d wanted to visit this museum when we’d come to Iceland before but had ended up missing it for some reason. This time we’d checked the map beforehand and realised how easy it was to find.

The museum houses penile specimens from nearly all of Iceland’s sea and land mammals plus examples from other mammals around the world and, bizarrely, some ones from the realms of fantasy too. It’s a place that’s worth visiting to say you’ve been there but it would be fair to say that all the exhibits are a little samey after a while and you get a look that spells danger from your wife after five minutes of saying “Mine’s bigger. Mine’s bigger. Mine’s bigger. That’s just wrong. Mine’s bigger.”

Reykjavík Art Museum

We’re generally appreciative of art so our final cultural destination for our day in Reykjavík was the modern art museum only about fifteen minutes away on foot south of where we were. We ended up walking past the road we’d intended to take to the museum’s entrance so approached the building from its south once we’d realised this but this meant we got to walk through Klambratún, a large park with some interesting art sculptures and play equipment. With the sun sinking in the western sky by this time there was some lovely light coming across the park area casting long shadows and reflecting golden warmth in the windows of the art museum.

The art museum was perhaps a little disappointing in what it contained but probably mostly because of the exhibits at the time we visited which just weren’t to our taste. That’s just a chance you take when you visit any art gallery. From an architectural perspective, though, we loved the brutalist design of the building itself and the cakes on offer in the building’s café looked very tempting indeed.

Food And Drink

By this time we were starting to get hungry and thirsty again so we decided to make our way back towards our hotel as it was very close to a number of dining establishments and some good places to get drinks too. We walked back through the centre of Reykjavík, detouring slightly so that we could pass by Hallgrímskirkja. We’d visited it before so didn’t go in this time and satisfied ourselves with a couple of shots as we headed back but you can read about our visit to Hallgrímskirkja in 2015 if you’d like to see inside it and the views from the top of the impressive landmark.

We dined just around the corner from our hotel then took a short stroll to the Skúli craft ale bar nearby that we’d enjoyed visiting on the night before. We didn’t want to eat or drink too much as we had one final activity planned for the night.

Reykjavík Northern Lights Boat Cruise

Part of the deal that saw us travel to Iceland included tickets for an Elding Northern Lights Cruise from Reykjavík Harbour. It had originally been scheduled for the day before but the weather had put a stop to that so we’d rescheduled the trip for the Saturday instead. With eating and drinking out of the way we stopped in our hotel room to start layering up then made our way down to the Elding office on Ægisgarður in the Old Harbour area. Tickets were shown and exchanged for admission slips then we were sent down the dockside to board the boat.

On board we were shown the red overalls we were invited to put on should we wish to. We decided not to bother but plenty of people did. After everyone was aboard and we’d been given a little bit of information from one of the guides the boat set out into the harbour. We elected to stay inside at the start as there didn’t seem to be much point heading outside into the cold when there was nothing to see but it wasn’t very long before we were told that there was an auroral band forming in the western sky. We headed topside and for the second visit to Iceland in a row we got to see the Northern Lights. We know plenty of people who’ve been multiple times and not seen them at all so consider ourselves very lucky. Of course, trying to take a photo on the phone on a boat that’s rocking on the water and in strong winds is not the easiest thing to do and doesn’t produce the best results but here’s what was captured anyway.

The aurora faded pretty quickly and there were only hints of more forming during our time out on the water. To the east of the city on the island of Videy the Imagine Peace Tower was throwing its beam of light into the night and provided the only other point of interest in the sky.

It was incredibly cold on the boat. I know, I know. It was December, it was night, it was Iceland, it’s what we were expecting. I was wearing two pairs of socks, long thermal leggings, jeans, a long-sleeved top, a hoodie, a double-layered coat, gloves, a woollen hat, and had the hood up on both the hoodie and the coat. It was absolutely bitter out there on the water and the main problems were with the toes and fingers and the hoods getting whipped off by the wind that was cutting across the harbour and battering the boat. For those parts that were coldest we don’t think that the overalls would have helped so my recommendation if you think about doing this cruise is invest in thermal socks and gloves.

We really enjoyed the experience on the boat and can now say that we’ve seen the Northern Lights from the land and the sea but if you’re mostly interested in photographing the aurora rather than simply seeing them then this isn’t the best way to go about it.

We’d originally planned to visit a bar after our boat tour but were so chilled to the bone by the end of it that we elected for a cup of tea in our hotel room instead. How dreadfully sensible of us. The next day, Sunday, would see us up early in order to take a tour of the southern coast of Iceland.

Lyme Regis is famous for its fossils that are often exposed in landslides along the coastline near it. The town was the birthplace of Mary Anning, a heavy influencer of scientific thinking in the fields of palaeontology and geology who, because she was a woman, was not eligible to join the Geological Society and often was not credited as well as she might have for her work. She was well-regarded by her male peers, though, and she made important discoveries such as the fossilised remains of an ichthyosaur, two nearly complete plesiosaurs, and the first set of pterosaur bones found outside Germany.

We would visit the museum at Lyme Regis, located on the site of Mary Anning’s birthplace, but first off we wanted to take a walk along the seafront. Despite the cold. Despite the high winds. Knowing us, it was probably because of those things. We had a choice to make from where we emerged at the shore after our walk through the town from the car park: west towards the beach and harbour wall; or east along the sea defences towards the Dorset cliffs. Both had merits but we opted for the latter on this occasion.

Our seafront walk initially took us past some older stone structures and even a part of a wall that appeared to be miniature fortifications with a small tower of some kind and for some odd purpose. The local football team play at Davey Fort Ground whose name might explain the history of the walls but I’m only guessing here. One thing that was evident, however, was just why there were so many landslides along this part of the coast as the water, churned up and turned over by the powerful wave surges, was as brown as the soil and sand it was eroding right before our eyes.

A sign on a wall we passed promoted the friendship between that local football team and one in Normandy. Lyme Regis is also notably twinned with St George’s, the capital of Bermuda, on account of the island’s founder being Sir George Somers, a renowned sixteenth century privateer and former MP of the Dorset town.

The east coast of Lyme Regis was a vista of cliffs around a curving bay with a modern sea wall protecting the town as best it could from the battering it was receiving – and clearly often receives – from the wind and sea funnelling into the spot along the shoreline. With the geology of the region accounting for its abundance of fossils and the geography of the region delivering up striking demonstrations of raw power from the elements it would be fair to say that Lyme Regis is a great destination for nature lovers. We wandered along the top of the sea defences for a while, marvelling at the pounding from offshore, and braving the wind until such time as fingers and faces started to edge towards the painful side of numb.

That brought the walk along the sea wall to an end as far as we were concerned so we turned around and headed back towards the main part of Lyme Regis. I noticed and approved of the big variety in house designs along the seafront and it was interesting to see some fossils – ammonites, mainly – embedded in some of the walls we passed. Any seaside resort in the UK worth its salt has colourful beach huts and Lyme Regis is no exception there either. We walked to within range of the harbour wall and breakwater jutting out to sea from the shore, but decided not to head onto it at this time (despite our love of piers and similar structures) as we wanted to pay a visit to the museum, fancied a bite to eat, and were in need of restrooms at this point (a biting wind and crashing waves can have that effect).

Tea and cake inside us (that’s what you do when you’re beside the seaside) and a little knowledge injected into our cranial cavities later we made our way back to the car in order to continue onwards to our hotel in Devon. But our visit to Lyme Regis doesn’t quite end here.

The thing about a journey long enough to warrant a stop on the way is that the same journey in reverse is likely long enough to warrant a stop on the return, and this is precisely what happened at the conclusion of our 2014 West Country holiday. We decided to head back to Lyme Regis just a few days later not because we’re getting senile and had forgotten we’d already visited, but because as we’d left the town we’d spotted an interesting-looking art gallery which was sadly closed. But we’d paid attention to its opening times, and realising that those coincided with our trek back towards Hampshire we hit the seaside town once more.

The weather was not quite so clear and bright on this occasion (an understatement) but that didn’t stop us from making immediately for the seafront of Lyme Regis once more. This time we took a walk westwards and made for The Cobb since we’d not ventured onto it just a few days earlier. This harbour wall is mentioned in documents dating from the early fourteenth century. Until the nineteenth century Lyme Regis was able to function as a fair-sized trading port thanks to this artificial harbour but the increasing size of ships soon relegated it to a smaller role. The Cobb is also mentioned in both Jane Austen’s Persuasion and John Fowles’s The French Lieutenant’s Woman. The heavy cloud cover and low tide exposing muddy sand and beached boats lent this Dorset town a delightful gloom.

Coming back from The Cobb towards land I was taken by some of the patterns left in the sand by the receding water. One of the shots I took could almost be an orbital photo over Mars.

The next thing to catch my eye on the walk back into town was the sight of a group of (I assume) photography or art students on Lyme Regis beach trying to take some leaping photos against the sea and cloudy skies. The wind was not making this an easy job but it looked like they were enjoying themselves and it made for interesting viewing from our vantage point back from the water.

All that remained was to head into town and to the art gallery. A few more pictures were taken because if it’s not clear by now, taking photos is what I do.

The art gallery we’d spotted on our previous trip was BizleyArt. We popped in and saw the artist painting while we were there, and after a bit of dithering and an embarrassing moment when I turned my back on the artist to point out what we were interested in, forgetting he was deaf and now unable to hear anything I was saying nor read my lips, we picked up something with which to decorate the home. Richard Bizley is heavily influenced by science and nature in his artwork and Lyme Regis’s connections with prehistory feature often in his works, but it was a piece called Enceladus Expedition that caught our eye as it combined sci-fi with a cartoon style that appealed to that part of us that likes street art and pop art.

Lyme Regis has some nice beachfront and lovely views and there’s plenty to potentially discover if you’ve got an interest in geology or prehistory. We obviously saw enough on our first visit to visit again, so as a day trip it gets our thumbs up but it’s not the sort of place we’d use as a base for an extended stay as it doesn’t quite have that liveliness for the evening we look for.

We’ve met Paul, the artist, several times over the years when he’s been out and about producing pieces in the city or when he’s been gracious enough to throw open the doors to his studio. He’s a very approachable person and we love the style of artwork he produces so we jumped at the chance to take a look at a short-run exhibition he arranged to hold inside the former Grosvenor Casino & Ballroom in Southsea in the latter half of July, 2021.

This post is mainly a showcase of photography from our visit to the Inside art exhibition with a little of my own take on what I saw, which may not be in any way what My Dog Sighs intended. Hey, but that’s art, right?

We’ll start outside Inside, waiting to go inside Inside, and enjoying some of the street art that decorated the exterior of the building. You’ll find similar pieces from the artists responsible across much of this part of Portsmouth.

Covid precautions were in effect, with masks required and with limited numbers allowed to attend in timed slots to ensure everyone got 45 minutes to wander around and take in what they wanted to see on each of two levels. We started off on the upper level and the initial entry into the ballroom is sorely not given any of the justice it deserves in the photograph here.

You can get a sense of the atmosphere created by the ambient sounds and music, and the chatter of the limited number of visitors in this tiny video clip I took from two spots in this ballroom.

There was a video here, but now there isn’t.

The previously-abandoned space plus the noises at the periphery of your senses plus the imagery all added up to an immersive art experience. What I got from this was an otherworldly wander through the mind of My Dog Sighs with representations of the artist’s life and inspirations, along with memories of the evolution of artwork. As a science fiction fan, both aspirational and dystopic flavours, I could easily imagine myself in an episode of some television series where characters are sent in to see what is affecting someone through a hologrammatic exploration of their dreams.

Larger pieces included a run-down playground area with colourful tent and broken shopping trolley and toys that could have been a memory of the formative years and appreciation for making things out of discarded items; at the opposite end of the room there was a depiction of the creator of the can people at work in a sea of empty cans under a couple dancing under the glitterball which felt like love inspiring procreation in a way.

Of course, I could be completely wrong. I didn’t ask Paul – although I could have; he was there, friendly, ready to talk to anyone – and I didn’t try to find out. I just wanted to see what I thought, which ties in quite nicely with that sci-fi hologram investigation. If I’m completely wrong then I’ll just claim that art is subjective and we push our own interpretations on things all the time so sue me. When that comes to art appreciation that perhaps only occasionally aligns with the artist’s original vision. I’ve watched enough art programmes to exclaim “What the hell are you talking about!?” when some historian describes some convoluted interpretation of a piece that I feel it’s only fair I give it a go at being on the receiving end myself.

A perhaps easier-to-grasp series of pieces were the famous eyes of My Dog Sighs. From entering the ballroom the left-hand wall looked to be a clear progression of improvements in examples of these pieces of art, on different materials, increasingly detailed, increasingly cleaner, all sporting differences in the silhouetted reflections capturing a snapshot of where and when they were formed. From wood the eyes moved through concrete and metal towards the final piece in the corner of the room, in canvas, and titled Inside.

I won’t try to interpret every piece here because there are limits to my imagination and, besides, isn’t the point of art for you to see your own thing and come to your own conclusion, and tell the artist “Oh, really? No, I didn’t see that at all? Are you sure you’ve not got that wrong?” when he or she patiently explains how they have tried to convey emotions and thoughts in a visual medium.

A nest-like structure holding seed pods was a popular spot for people to sit opposite and gaze into. Given that I considered us to be inside My Dog Sighs’ mind, it felt to me that we were looking to the outside world through the back of an eyeball to ideas being born. Again, probably waaaay off the mark.

We had three quarters of an hour on that level of the building, soaking up the atmosphere, roaming the inner space several times to see if we could see something we’d missed, enjoying being around other people totally engrossed at the pieces on display.

We descended a set of stairs to get to the next level of the building. Portraits of My Dog Sighs were at the stairwell’s entrance to each floor, both of them showing him pressed up against glass and staring at us. As we were Inside, were we looking out at the artist looking in, trying to see if we liked what we’d seen as we headed down? Or were these versions of the artist trapped in the Phantom Zone, sent into exile for crimes we can only guess at? I’m guessing the former is more likely, but who knows the real reason?

The walls down the stairs were decorated with art, but you knew they would be.

The first section of the second level of the Inside art exhibition was akin to a more standard art gallery. Framed pieces on walls, including a large triptych, plus sculptures mounted on pillars. I wondered if this was a nod to people who perhaps hadn’t got the upper floor, or perhaps to people like me who’d got it all wrong. I also wondered if this was a bridge; this might have been the first idea for a show but one which was superseded by the wondrous dreamscape we’d already wandered through. It might simply have been a nice place to display some artwork. It was a nice place to display some artwork.

From there we entered the Mind Maze. This was a claustrophobic labyrinth featuring blind turns and mirrors, every surface decorated with older pieces of art, prints of eyes, copies of adverts that had been run in the local paper, statements, and flyers. The things that had led to the birth of the main show. Coloured arrows provided a way to move around the maze in a set way if you chose to do so and there was a room with chalk boards covering the walls and coloured chalk with which you were free to leave your own mark. Some interactive fun for kids, no doubt, but also for adults because of course we had to write something. We walked through, we stopped often as we came face-to-face with others coming another way, we backed up, we pointed down other corridors, we enjoyed seeing kids of other visitors stopping to take photos of anything and everything.

There were a couple of rooms off from the maze, blocked from entry, but allowing you to look down into them. I particularly liked the deer sculpture that seemed frozen in torchlight, seemingly caught in the middle of something nefarious. No wonder that room was boarded up from the main part of the maze.

From the gallery or the maze the exit was, naturally, through the gift shop area. This was still decorated with art on the walls and on window sills.

And that brought our look through the My Dog Sighs Inside art exhibition to a close. The photos here don’t do it justice, and I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know by mentioning that my writing won’t have helped. However, Strong Island have documented the installation and interviewed the artist himself, and are in the process of wrapping up and editing video footage as I write this, so keep an eye out for that when it appears and maybe things will become clearer.