perigraphika

Sicily ... where to even start? It was buzzy, scrappy, dilapidated, fascinating and ridiculously friendly. I went on an organized photography trip which was incredibly disappointing in some ways (esp. around accommodation), but I don't plan to winge about those here.  Palermo: I arrived a couple of days before meeting up with the group and had some time to chill out and explore on my own. I tried to do stuff I knew I wouldn't do with the group including visiting the botanic gardens and the stunning Palazzo Butera, an 18th century palazzo creatively converted into a contemporary art gallery. I'd expected to spend maybe half an hour looking round and ended up mooching around for a whole morning! Once I'd met up with the rest of the group - 5 of us plus the tutor/group leader, Christian - we switched into photography mode, exploring the city's markets and back streets, and establishing our photographic aims for the week. Having arrived with really nothing specific in m...

I planned a work trip to Paris months ago, thinking it would be something nice to look forward to at a dark, dull time of year. It turned out that it came at a point that I was especially busy (mostly with work), so I arrived already quite weary. I had a couple of free days to explore ahead of the conference, but the combination of a hard bed (my perennial issue!) and cold, damp weather with on-off sleety rain, meant I was a bit wiped out, a bit achy and not especially in the mood. HOWEVER, in-between some slightly grouchy patches, Paris still provided some magical moments. I'm currently halfway through a photography course and was missing a session while I was away, but serendipidously, it happened to be on architectural photography and it was a visit to Bristol Cathedral I was missing. So, the newly renovated Notre Dame made an appropriate substitute for my assignment! I also snapped some more modern architecture along the way ... ... and popped into Sacre Coeur, in part for a bi...

Inevitably, a week at a conference, staying in a huge concrete monstrosity of a conference hotel involves quite a bit of sitting in windowless rooms and drinking bad coffee. At least, though, on this trip those coffee breaks spilled out onto a sunny terrace under blue skies & overlooking the even bluer sparkling waters of the Adriatic. The conference was taking place in Cavtat, just down the wiggly Croatian coastline from Dubrovnik, and it was a gathering of around 250 lexicographers, most of them academics attached to universities across Europe, plus me, a jobbing lexicographer on commercial dictionaries feeling distinctly the odd one out, but still joining in enthusiastically with some of the nerdiest conversations imaginable. I did manage to arrive a day early to grab a free day in Dubrovnik before the conference kicked off. I took one of the handful of small boats that ply their trade between Cavtat and Dubrovnik, chatting to an Australian woman travelling around Europe on ...