Wordless Wednesday - Norman Rockwell.

His paintings speak for themselves.  Enjoy!

Memorial Day 2018

On this Memorial Day remembering those who gave their lives for our country to preserve our freedom.

Norman Rockwell painted these to represent:

Freedom of Speech

Freedom to Worship

Freedom from Want

Freedom from Fear.

And here's the Statue of Liberty (a replica) in France in a traffic circle at Colmar, France where the sculptor came from.  In NYC it represents a welcome to all who want to come here to enjoy our freedoms.

Locks of Love

I am sure you've heard of the tradition of placing locks on bridges and then throwing away the key.  I believe it started in Paris though the bridge there had to remove the locks because of the weight and what that was doing to the bridge fencing.

In our travels along the Rhine we saw some of these locks.

In Cologne our tour guide took us across a bridge and we returned on the other side.  One side had fewer locks then the other.  The tour guide said he'd put a lock on there too.

In Basel the bridge railing did not lend itself to attaching a lock but the door to this monument on the bridge did.

Have you attached a lock somewhere?

[We saw locks attached to a bridge in Harper's Ferry, WV too.

See that here scroll down to the last photo.]

Basel Museum

My last long post on our Rhine Cruise and stop over in Basel.  

Our last day there we devoted to visiting museums though only one really captured our interest: 

The Museum in a Church, one of three of the Basel Historical Museum sites.

The church was built as a convent church in the 14th century.  In 1894 it became a museum!  The church had closed.  The museum is known for having the Basel Cathedral Treasury, The Basel Dance of Death, stunning medieval tapestries and archeological finds from the Celts, Romans and Early Middle Ages.

We spent hours in this place just fascinated.  Here's some of what I captured in photos.

The tapestries were in very dark rooms.  I couldn't use flash so I've tried to lighten the photos.

The detail was incredible.

We both loved the color of this one.

When I was in junior high school I wanted a globe like those.  Never did get it.

That is gold on there.

Someone's bones were in this gold head.  At this point I was limiting photos because my battery was about to give out.

This was a wonderful museum and I have only captured a fraction of what there was to see and learn.

We flew back home on April 5th savoring our visit to the Rhine and Switzerland.

Lucerne, Switzerland - A Walking Tour

It was a beautiful afternoon in Lucerne.  Warm temperatures compared to what we had experienced up in the snow covered Mt. Pilatus.  We enjoyed walking the town to experience it.

 Chapel Bridge first constructed in first half of 14th century as part of fortifications.

Water Tower built around 1300.

Needle Dam to regulate water level of Lake Lucerne.

Walking across another wooden walkway over the water on Spreuer Bridge.  Halfway across was this shrine. 

Paintings in the timbers above.

Original wall around the town.

 

Snow covered peaks loom over the city.

Paintings in rafters of the first wooden bridge.

We stopped in Starbucks before heading to the train station.  It was a good day.