Tag: Europe

“Best Wines” of South Africa

A group of wine ‘connaisseurs’ from Europe has been touring the Western Cape during the past 6 or so weeks. Although they heard of this cellar in Robertson they never visited it. I took them there. It was the last wine tasting experience of their trip and they were ‘flabbergasted’ by this experience. Wines of some rare grape varieties next to a few of the known. Unanimous response: “Best Wines of South Africa”. BTW anno 1798 ‘Fraai Uitzicht’ is one of the oldest original cellars in South Africa. And they do a great wine/food pairing as well! Production is only 25000 bottles per year and you can only buy (also online) from the cellar.

Zurich animated and the stunning succulent collection (2 tubes)

A few years ago me and Yvonne travelled in Europe and North America again (after 11 years in South Africa). One of the cities we visited was Zurich in Switzerland.

The first tube is an animated version of some images we made during wandering in de city. The second is that of a stunning succulent plant collection which is regarded as the largest of its kind in the world.

The original pictures were made with a Sony snapshooter.

 

 

Thanks to all …

… as this blog just passed the 20000 visits mark. That is excluding the bloggers who read my submissions via the WordPress Reader.

Most of the visits are traced back to the Americas (>50%), South Africa and neighboring countries account for approx. 20 percent as does Europe. The rest is from where-ever!

Thank you all!

As Dutch (especially in South Africa) always say it with flowers here is a symbolic one for you all and it originates from the area I live in (Overberg region, Western Cape, South Africa):

_DSC8226

Bulbine natalensis ….

…. or “Red Carrot” from South Africa. Traditional healers use the rootstock of this plant as one of the three main ingredients in their recipes. It seems to purify the blood.

Rastas in South Africa grain the root, let it dry and make tea of it.

 

A previous minister of health advertised this plant as the natural medicine against HIV-AIDS during a conference in Canada some years ago and we all had a good laugh.

Nowadays the pharmaceutical industry in Europe and America are experimenting with this plant.

_DSC8912

Out of South Africa 1: A refreshing Welcome

Last year we went on a 4-week journey to Europe and Canada. It was for the first time since more than 11 years that we had a holiday ‘out of (South) Africa. We mainly visited family and friends but in between we took time to travel around a bit. With my Sony Cybershot 7.2 I shot a few thousand low resolution pictures (average 100 kB each) so don’t expect much high quality. For this serie of 10 I selected about 30 pics.

Today’s image is that of a refreshing Welcome at Amsterdam Airport.

DSC09746

Breakfast on the farm

Every now and than you see the ‘hidden force’ of South Africa along the road having a meal. And this Xhosa farm worker in Stanford maker of every meal a colorful event. Farm workers in South Africa are in general hard workers and many of them are only paid the minimum wage of 105 Rand daily which equals 15 US-dollars for 9 hours of labour. Daily groceries (veggies, etc.) are in the South African supermarkets significant more expensive than in Europe and North America but farming in South Africa is not profitable for most of the farmers. The profits made on food end up in the pockets of traders and supermarkets and unfortunately farmers in this country are not so well organized that their voice counts.
_DSC4516