A Place Called Space: January 2012

It has turned very cold again and no sunshine today, it is grey and bitter - they say it will snow in the next few days. But, as it is not raining we decide to go to Faliron and spend some time in the marina there.

As we are waiting for the bus to take us to Floisvos, we can see all the little white sailing boats in the horizon

Once we get to Floisvos marina, we head straight for the longest quay where the big, massive, expensive boats are ( an example pictured) this is not like the marina where we live, this is millionnaires' row

Even though Faliron is quite a way from the city centre, you can see the Acropolis on the left and Lycavetus hill on the right.

The person in the small sailing boat is a child - my guess is that she is around 10 years old. We see a lot of children learning how to sail in this marina and in the one near where we live

By now we are hungry and head for the area where all the shops and restaurants are.

After lunch we decide that we will walk all the way to Edem.

A pale, anaemic sun is out by now, and these seagulls are taking advantage

Ken decides to do some exploring

it is 4oC - how does she do it?

it must be 3:00, and the light is changing just as we reach Edem where we take the tram

A last look at the sea as we get off the tram before going home.

Robert Mapplethorpe, at the Onassis Foundation was great fun and very informative as my previous knowledge of Mapplethorpe's work was photographs of Patti Smith and the male nudes he photographed in his early career, the ones with all those whips and the leather. There is so much more to his work, I learnt yesterday. I was totally entranced by his photographs of flowers - not since Georgia O'Keefe's paintings have I been so touched by pictures of flowers. I also loved the portraits and some of the sculpture-like nudes of his later period as well as the 'white gauze' series.

We were also able to watch a film on his work and life which was very good - as the credits started rolling, we realised that it was a BBC Arena film made in 1986!

We were not allowed to take photographs of the exhibition but thanks to the Mapplethorne Foundation I have been able to download some excellent ones, some of which I saw at the Onassis Foundation and some others that I would like to be able to see again. There are far too many, but I got carried away....

Flowers