Street Art in Malaga and introducing Dadi Dreucol

A disney like mural with easter island statues

Malaga is the birthplace of Pablo Picasso, probably the most influential artist of the 20th century. Picasso was a painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, stage designer and a street artist. In 1937 he painted a wall in Guernica as a protest against the german bombing of the city and the coming of General Franco's dictatorship. It's an amazing mural. And if you ever go to Malaga, please visit the beautiful Picasso museum. 

The beautiful patio of the Picasso Museum

Nowadays the andalusian city Malaga is not known for street art, but when you walk around, you see murals and shutter paintings. Small shops and cafés often use murals and paintings  as part of their public image. In addition, as all cities of some size, there are graffiti artists and writers around, using the spray cans with varied skills and experience.  An artist who signed  the works with "Doger" was of the high quality kinds.

True Love by Doger

Dadi Dreucol

However, there was some quite interesting and original stuff in the streets I hadn't seen before. The style reminded me of Escif, the more internationally known brother from Valencia. Dadi Dreucol is from Malaga, but lives and study art in Valencia at the time. In the near future, we probably will see his works in all major street art cities in Europe.

He has a funny/serious characteristic style and go to his web page to see more of his works

Travel: Poitou-Charentes

France is divided into 22 regions with all together 96 departments. Poitou-Charentes is a region in the middle western part of france and consists of 4 departments: Charente, Charente-Maritime, Deux-Sèvres and Vienne.

This story is mostly about Charente. In the heart of Charente is the biggest town Angouleme. The department of Charente is named after the river Charente which runs through the district.

The biggest cities is Angouleme and Cognac. For me, both were new places, I’ve of course heard of Cognac and the famous alcohol drink made of grape wine. The area is famous for their cognac houses and destilleries. I was more exited about Angouleme. The city organises the largest comic festival in Europe, and every january about 200 000 visitors travels to the city for Angouleme International Comics festival. It’s the beginning of July, so I am far to early for the festival, but I’ve heard about the murals and wall paintings in the town. And I have a friend who lives there and could show me around.

Angouleme is a beautiful city on the hill. In the middle of the city I found a statue of Herge, the creator of Tintin

The city is full of beautiful murals

The river Charente runs slowly through Cognac and is a popular for boat trips

Except the cities, Charente is a fertile agricultural district with beautiful nature and small villages. I lived in the small village of Massac while staying there. Grape and Sunflower fields as long as the eye can see.

Small villages and easy atmosphere

Beautiful landscapes

In the west (Charente-Maritime), Saintes and Saint-Jean-D’Angely are two beautiful cities west in the region. Old towns with calm atmosphere. Its nice to travel around in the area and quite relaxing. There is much to see and this time I didn’t go to the coast and the main cities there, I was driving out of the region down to Bordeaux.

Saint-Jean-D'Angely

Saintes

Bordeaux

A special visit! Mount Melleray Abbey

Mount Melleray Abbey is situated in the county of Waterford in Ireland and was founded in the year 1833. My friend took me for a drive to this place yesterday and in the middle of February the air was mild and the fields still green. The Abbey is on the southern slopes of the Knocklemealdown mountains, around five miles from the borders of Tipperary! The landscape is mild and beautiful as we see the big, light grey cathedral.

It was a quite day and inside there were no other people than us. The monks of Mount Melleray are members of the Cistercian or Trappist Order, an Order of the Benedictine family, founded at Citeaux in France in 1098.

Constitution 7 says:"In the Cistercian Order of the Strict Observance the way of life is consecration to God expressed in fraternal union, solitude and silence, in prayer, work and a disciplined life". My friend tells me that she visited this place often as a child. Now, I became curious! Why? They visited her grand uncle who was a monk at the abbey and further her father was a monk at the abbey, but decided to leave the Monk Order at 23 to start a family. So this is a special place for you, I replied! Yes, she said and told me a facinating story about her grand uncle and her father, once a Monk.

The confession boxes looked rather scary I think, and it was a strange thing to sit in one! A poster invited me to stay and live with the community and actually stay for life as a monk. I could stay for a while, but at this point, certainly not for life.

My friend tells me that at one point there where so many as 700 monks at the Abbey, and they were self sufficient with food, equipment and even had their own power station. They had huge land areas, animals and crafts. It's said that they put food in a certain box for the beggars and poor, and the box never got empty.

Its a special place for my friend, and all her stories made it a special day for me.