The Story of 3 Birds That Rescued Themselves ...

My favourite cafe was closed the other day and I ended up at a nearby restaurant, hoping the espresso would be drinkable, knowing I didn't want to wander too much further in my search for good coffee.

Sitting there I noticed a rooster totally owning the small garden beyond the hedge in the grounds of the restaurant.  It amused me.  This was centre-city Antwerp.

A few minutes later I watched him visit with the pigeon you see in the series of photographs.  And honestly, they seemed to be greeting each other. 

I asked Vitaliy, the waiter, about them when he returned with a second, spresso and he told me the loveliest story.

The restaurant is called De Markt and the Bird Market is held weekly in the square nearby. Christoph the Rooster arrived first, after escaping the market, and set up home in the garden.  They named him after the manager I was told.

Then Micheal the Pigeon arrived and he stayed too.  He's named after the restaurant's Italian chef.  Vitaliy told me, smiling a little, that Christoph the Rooster often 'shouts at' Micheal the Pigeon ...

And finally, I think that third bird is a Crow.  He's quite motley but he moved in too and I love that.  How did those birds know they could set up home in the garden of a restaurant in the city of Antwerp.

And they've stayed

I loved the story.  I'll go back soon, I'll take Miss 11 with me.  She's visiting this week.  We have plans.

Microguagua - street power Reggae!

These guys. 

I was in awe of the high-energy, joy-filled street performance of the Reggae band called Microguagua.

I bought one of their cds because I wanted their music back in Belgium. 

They're brilliant.  Seeing them perform live made me smile.  Perhaps I caught a sense of them here but honestly, their music makes you smile.

I found them out in Via San Lorenzo, in Genova.  I had to stop for some photographs.

Out of Time ...

the streets of rome 2.jpg

Wandering in Italy often allows you to see things as they might have been.

The cyclist rode into my shot while I was distracted by my camera settings and trying to capture the soldiers, who had appeared suddenly.

And then seemed to disappear just as suddenly too.

At first I considered the image a reject.  I don't like blurring my foregrounds however I'm keeping this one.  There's something I like about it ...even if it's simply the feeling that I was caught out of time, just for a moment or two.

Palimpsest ... perhaps.

the wall genovadi portra 400vc4522.jpg

A palimpsest is a manuscript page, either from a scroll or a book, from which the text has been either scraped or washed off so that the page can be reused, for another document.

Source: wikipedia.

I remember being introduced to that word, palimpsest, and its meaning back in university and falling madly in love with the idea of it.  I love discovering layers and traces ... old stories, other stories.

But perhaps Genova's caruggio walls work in much the same way for me.  They tell stories over stories over stories in a way that becomes beautiful.

And Genova's Palazzo Ducale is more tempting than most.  Whoever organises their cultural events is surely nothing less than a genius.  I also missed a Robert Capa exhibition there back in summer ...  I imagined I would return before it was finished. 

And so ... a wall in a caruggi somewhere in the ancient city of Genova.