A day of art

 Almost every year Grand Rapids, Michigan’s second city, hosts ArtPrize mainly in its downtown. It used to be huge but even though it is drastically downsized it still is fun to go to. 

I liked the Hillow man

This is only a third of the exhibit 

My favorite by far: a collection of broken vases with historical sciences inside. There was about 15 of these

Moving colored lights kept casting different shadows on this paper creation 

These birch trees are made of hundreds of punched out paper. a close up a few pictures down

Art?

The eagle is cool and is on its way to winning the top prize but still prefer the clay jars

Another clay jar. Of course I loaded these all together but somehow they get disordered

This yard used to have fifty exhibits. Now just a few

This train exhibit consists of somewhat famous Midwest bridges. Steve loved it

The famous blue bridge 

Also a visitor favorite next to a standing Kodiak bear

Bejeweled horse

Covid pregnant lady

Another pot

Close up of the paper punches used to make the birch trees

Bejeweled cat

The Black Forest

 Our last day of the cruise, we took a bus tour through the Black Forest. It was raining half the time.  We stopped at some touristy place where they showed us how to make a Black Forest cake giving us a recipe which I made for the moms a few weeks later

I have a very mixed background though l am entirely Northern European. I am about 25% German. Of my German ancestors half came from this region so I probably come from the Alemanni that we learned about 

Cute village through a rainy window 

Beer steins galore 

Our tourist stop was near the highest spot in the Forest

Switchbacks 

The next day at the three country airport serving France Switzerland and Germany. We had to get up at 4 am in Basel to catch our flight. We were lucky: all our flights were on time. others had to go through hell

Smokers

Very expensive cuckoo clocks

Last dinner

Cherry orchard 

Black Forest cake

Artistic glass

We skirted Freiburg which Steve and I visited 19 years ago

Well I am finally done with that trip. We will return to Europe in 6 weeks 

Breisach am Rhein

 It was a rainy morning when we went out to explore Breisach. We were berthed a mile away. I noted with irritation that the other ship got the good berth right in town   That made 3 times we got the worse deal. We could have waited an hour for a shuttle but meanwhile the weather would get worst so off we went. Half of the town is high up on a cliff which we walked up first to hopefully get a view. As one could tell it was quite foggy but it never more than misted on us

Looking down for n the lower town

This grave dates back to the 14th century. This was the plague section of the cemetery 

Main lower town. The cathedral is high above

A cigarette machine. Haven’t seen one in the US since I was a kid

On our walk to town. a combination Harley store, nursery and cafe