wallpainting – rene bauer photography

Iceland: Arriving In Reykjavik

The worst was not the temperature of -6°C, but the strong wind. Within minutes out on the car park, searching for my rental car, my fingers got numb. It took me several minutes more to defrost them again and finally got my gloves out of my luggage. Lesson learned, always keep your gloves ready.

Strolling around Reykjavik, enjoying the clear morning air, the long dawn in the morning and of course some bakeries with coffee and sweets. But also visiting some landmarks as the sculpture ’sun voyager‘, the rainbow street or the famous Hallgrims Church. From the bell tower one get a fantastic view over the capital city and the surroundings. It was absolutely worth it.

A worth was also to visit the bar ‚Hus Mals Og Menningar‘ with their daily live music. You can’t end your day better than with a glass of local beer and music from ‚The Bookstore Band‘

Februar 4, 2024Februar 4, 2024 by Rene Bauer Categories: culture, europe, humansofplanetearth, landscape, nature, reportage, roadtrip, travel, urbanlifeTags: city, graffiti, hallgrimschurch, iceland, icelandair, landscape, northerneurope, people, rainbowstreet, renebauerphotography, reportage, reykjavik, roadtrip, sunvoyager, Travel, urbanlife, wallpainting, winter, winteriniceland Hinterlasse einen Kommentar

Winter In Turkey: Ephesus

Winter in Turkey impressions #14: Ephesus surprised me not only with its sheer size and the huge roman theatre, but also with some incredibly well kept mosaics and wall paintings in some excavated houses. Lucky i arrived early, because i spent way much more time than estimated before. It was so amting to roam trough these contemporary witnesses from so many eras and history.

Januar 17, 2024Januar 9, 2024 by Rene Bauer Categories: Asia, culture, Middle East, reportage, roadtrip, tradition, travel, turkeyTags: ancient, art, cat, culture, ephesus, history, izmir, middleeast, mosaic, overland, renebauerphotography, reportage, roman, romantheatre, ruins, theatre, Travel, turkey, unescoworldheritage, wallpainting, worldheritagesite Hinterlasse einen Kommentar

Israel – Masada, The Fortress On The Sky

In the tiny rental car the Judaean Desert felt even more huge. A black bitumen road navigates between stony fields, rocky areas and along deep, dry valleys with some rare, green oasis. I have to admit, i always do enjoy traveling trough lonely deserts. All in a sudden a deep blue surface appeared on the edge of a plateau. I reached the Dead Sea region.

Not far from here i arrived at the foot of a mountain. On top of it is the legendary fortress of Masada.

Built by Herod the Great it has two palaces for himself and fortified city on the plateau of the mountain. Beside the space for the inhabitants it also has huge storage rooms and a clever system of water drains and cisterns. King Herod enjoyed life up here with big, painted halls, terraces overlooking the Dead Sea and even heated baths.

Later the fortified city was occupied by the Jewish on the First Jewish-Roman War. The story tells a sad end of the folks up there. When the Romans besieged the fortress, they even build up a ramp to breach the walls. The people inside the city decided not to go in slavery but rather commit a mass suicide.

Nowadays a cable car brings the tourists on the top. There’s still a long, steep way uphill for the wanderers. I preferred to spend some time up there and wander between the ruins. Some wall paintings are still well preserved, as parts of the Roman bath is too. Even the earthen ramp, which was built to breach the wall, is still good to see.

The view is just stunning. On the back raises the mountains of the desert with its nice rock formations. On the front lies the blue Dead Sea with the Jordan mountains on the other side. It was so beautiful and magic, i spent longer than planned, but regret not one minute of it.