All you need is fruit…..

We used to watch a program on the BBC about wines…  There were two enthusiastic  presenters, a woman with blond curly hair and a more or less bald man. As they tasted the wines they would always start to contemplate their first sip and then cry out hmmm nutty, hmm hmm fruity…. As I provide the nutty bit of life myself… all I need to get is the fruity side.

Brazil is a very fruity place. Of course we all know bananas, water melons (melancia), pineapples (abacaxi), apples and pears…. Bananas come in different sorts: the large hard banana da terra (banana from the earth) to fry, the small banana maça (apple banana) and the more common banana nanica (our banana)

But there are also more fruits. Acerola; a kind of cherries for making juice or jelly. Maracuja; the fruit of the passionflower. 

Yellow (unripe) caqui, red acrerolas, green maracuja....

Juice of acerola

Mamão = papaya

I love the mamãos; that we call papaya. The seeds are so beautiful (don't eat them).

Then there are the real exotic fruits: Fruta de conde (fruit of the count); a very messy fruit. I wonder what count had time to eat that one. They look like little porcupines. This should at least make you be ware. Innumerable little seeds hidden in the white flesh.

Frute de conde = fruit of the count

Red caqui that is delicious and easy to eat. I was presented one that was still yellow (fresh from the tree), but in no time it became ripe and red like a tomato.

Caqui and frute de conde in the market

Sometimes we buy pinhão. The giant seeds of huge pine cones from large pine trees. First cook them for a good hour and then you peel them and eat them. They taste very good with a glass of wine.

Huge pine cones

At the market the fruit is fresh and cheap. Don’t forget to sit down and drink some água de côco (coconut milk) before you go home….. 

Beetles... Jan Fabre at the Kröller-Müller Museum

Beautiful colored shields of beetles. The Kröller-Müller Museum always has something to surprise you. This time I was surprised by the exhibition of works of Jan Fabre: Hortus / Corpus at the Kröller-Müller Museum in Otterloo (The Netherlands). It was something different.... I am not enough of an expert on art to give an opinion. But it was fantastic. Just look at the pictures and then Google on Jan Fabre (the artist).

The upside down side of the ceiling in the Mirror Room of the Royal Palace in Brussels…. Then named; Heaven of delight. Now less delightful referring to Belgian politics in Congo.

For more information:

Jan Fabre Hortus/Corpus

Bruisend feest van Jan Fabre

The Wood Art Museum in Campulung Moldovenesc

The Wood Art Museum displays a large collection of  wooden objects for daily use in a rural society. All objects show the love and care that went into the making. Some are real works of art.

From all the things that were on display I just want to mention a few. After all visiting a museum and taking pictures (flash is to harsh / without flash you have to use the tripod that you don't carry) is no fun. So, there is the cute little table…

And the chair that made me think of the chairs I saw in the hide out of Fidel Castro in the Sierra Maestra. I looked up the picture. The chair of the Romanians sure looks a lot more comfortable.....

Chair of Fidel Castro

The mugs of birch bark and the little pot….

The beautiful chest….

      Carvings….

The hammer of an oil press…..

But did you ever see a lock that was completely made out of wood? In this Wood Art Museum you can see how it worked. In “the old times” people locked the house when everybody was out. You locked the house just to show that no one was there. And when somebody wanted to wait for you to come home? Everybody new the key was there above the door anyway…..

The salt mine in Turda

Being afraid of heights means automatically that you are afraid of depths. So I was on “red alert” going into the salt mine at Turdo (Romania). I had no idea what surprises to expect. Just a picture in a guide of something deep down in the mine that to me looked a bit “alien”.  A nice hide out for the Martians. 

At the entrance there is a staircase with (around) 100 steps. Long corridors that shine in the light of the lamps. 

When you touch the walls they feel smooth and wet. In the upper part of the mine (Franz Joseph) there is the altar for the miners that prayed there before going down. 

There is also an old machine to extract the salt and some other rests from the mining times.

An old wooden staircase is covered in salt. 

To go further down you can choose between wooden stairs and two elevators. The first elevator is busy. This means waiting for some time on a wooden platform (partly metal). 

The view was killing. It takes some time, but then you adapt a bit. The urge for taking pictures starts to equal the fear…..  Then you notice that you can walk around the mine on wooden platforms along the walls…..

Finally you get into the “safe” elevator. Don’t think of the depth of about 40 meters underneath this thin metal floor you are standing on. Down at last in the Rudolf mine you discover that there is another elevator….  There is a wonderful view of the Martian space station (some 90 meters below) in the Theresia mine from there. There is the balustrade to lean over……

Yes, after the second elevator you arrive at the space station. It is almost a surrealist experience. A sort of fun park in a mine. 

The lake is 10 meters deep. The view up is astonishing.

Some people complained that there were no salt statues cut out in the mine, "like in Poland"…..  But sure Romania is Romania! I like the mine as it comes. It is fun being there. So different from what I expected. This fantasy space station for the Martians……..