Anne's Short Musings

Kurashiki is an old canal town in Japan. Like most other places calling themselves 'a little Venice', the canals were once important routes between the port and both warehouses and merchant houses. During the Edo period, Kurashiki rose to prominence as a place for storing and redistributing rice. In the Bikan Historical Area, these canals flow back to a more gentle past, lined with weeping willows,  and with the occasional swan drifting past.

I found Prague's famous astronomical clock impossible to photograph. There is simply so much to take in, which I couldn't collect into one photograph. Every hour, starting at 9 am and continuing until 11pm, a parade of characters move above the clock, peering out to world as they pass a small window. To one side a rooster crows and flaps his wings as a skeleton rings a bell. Unfortunately, it's all over in some 30 seconds, until the next hour strikes....  I was lucky, for our guide had found us a perfect place to stand. The Old Town Square is perennially crowded, no more so than when the hour approaches. The only time I saw the square empty was on an early morning walk as I set out to photograph Charles Bridge before all the tourists arrived. Perhaps because it was 3 degrees C the square was almost empty. Installed in 1410, Prague's clock is the third oldest such clock in the world, and the oldest astronomical clock which still functions. The dials sh...