Over the past two weeks, I have released 10 photos from The Europe Collection daily on my Instagram, available as prints just in time for Christmas. Here’s the full story in one HUGE post.
See how small you are next to the mountains. Accept what is bigger than you and what you do not understand. The world may appear illogical to you, but it does not follow that it is illogical per se. Our life is not the measure of all things: consider sublime places a reminder of human insignificance and frailty.
Alain de Botton, The Art of Travel 🥀♥️
Prologue. This book accompanied me on my travels around Europe last year. There are many wonderful travel guides, travel memoirs, travel musings out there. This one spoke to me and touched me. Travel is beneficial for many reasons, but the privilege and blessing of it is a narrative often lost in the haze of wanderlust and adventure and destination and self-centredness. This is a story of wonderment and gratitude, culture and philosophy, figuring and yearning.
Chapter 1. I am no stranger to travel. My parents are from Malaysia and Singapore, and migrated to Melbourne, Australia, where I’ve lived my whole life. But we return to see family and friends regularly, and we are so blessed to be able to do so. We’ve also spent time when I was much younger in Hong Kong and Taiwan. When I was 18, I went to Vietnam via Singapore on a volunteering trip, my first taste of solo travel. By far, the majority of my travel adventures have been roadtripping and camping around Australia – I’d been to every state and capital (except Darwin) before I turned 18. But my biggest dream has been to live in England. I’ve always felt in my bones like I’d belong there. Maybe it’s the idealism from a childhood with a healthy diet of English classics like Dickens and Austen and the Brontës (thanks Mum). Or maybe it’s the love affair my grandparents had with Britain. Or maybe it’s something else entirely. Paris and France at large has also been another dream but that’s another chapter for another day. I thought I’d end up in the UK through postgrad, but in the end, the opportunity to study abroad for a semester at Warwick came up, and the cost and subject selection and ease ticked all the boxes and before I could blink I was on a trip on my way to Europe for six months. I knew almost as soon as I started the trip that I’d long for a year, that six months wouldn’t be enough, but law school doesn’t work that way unfortunately (nor the bank accounts for that matter). Anyway, it was a trip of a lifetime, my first Europe trip. One final, honest, note, my mum unexpectedly joined me for the first part of Europe and a roadtrip around England. And in the end, I couldn’t be more thankful for the experience. We’re closer than ever before, and I think I’ve mended some bridges I’d thought were burned.
Chapter 2. In August, I flew from Melbourne to London via Kuala Lumpur, then sorted some errands to prepare to live overseas for six months, before taking the @eurostar straight to Paris. Paris was and always will be my forever city love. I learnt French in primary school, kept my affinity for it, and picked it up again for a year in uni. I’ve blogged before about Paris exceeding any and all expectations. These photos tell you why. My first morning in Paris was a glorious greeting of a sunrise. The gardens are at once filled with nature and with culture. Walking along the Seine, á la flâneur, with les bouquinistes. Seeing the historical legacy of French society through the ages. A week in Paris. Then trains and buses through the Swiss Alps. While not very well travelled, I have never seen landscapes like these ones. The 10 hour hikes, the hardest I’ve ever done, are worth it. And then swinging back into Provence, in the south of France, for a taste of the provincial. A summer afternoon at antique markets (give me all the film cameras). A summer afternoon at Cezanne’s atelier (give me all the ART). My first taste of Europe.
Chapter 3. The second half of this round of Europe was a taste of a Mediterranean summer (without Greece hah). We meandered our way through Barcelona, a city of architectural beauty and surprises. Its Catalan roots and modernista style is like nowhere else, from its parks to its boulevards to its music halls. Then was Madrid, a city of art and culture, of lots of town squares, and pink bougainvillea flowers. Seville was a hidden gem, a mixture of Arabic and Moorish and Mediterranean, a melting pot of colour and contrast, and nowhere symbolises this more than the Royal Alcázar. And finally Lisbon, with its trams, limestone, pastels, tiles. Hugging the coastline. Sun and salt and sea. Throwing caution to the wind. Such is a European summer.
Chapter 4. Autumn, going into winter, in England. I’m a summer person, but being Australian, I really wanted to experience a white Christmas. The German-style Christmas markets in Birmingham were the first of many, and I was there on the first day they opened. Hence the first shot. But that’s getting ahead of myself. After gallivanting around Europe, I spent almost two weeks on a roadtrip around the English countryside. We went to Stonehenge, which I hadn’t intended to visit and hadn’t even realised was visible from the road behind that shot. But I’m glad we stopped, and since falling in love with Outlander, stone circles mean so much more (we also went to Castlerigg in the Lake District later). We went to St Ives and Cornwall, a sea of colours and inspiration I’ve seen nowhere else. We spent time in the moors, Dartmoor and Exmoor, and on the English Riviera. We went up to the Lake District and to the Yorkshire Dales, Swaledale being a particular highlight. Au naturel. My happy place. So much of my childhood was spent reading about the English countryside. It was perfect. And then while studying, I visited many towns and cities. Coventry. Kenilworth. Warwick. Cambridge. Stratford-on-Avon. Oxford (the Bodleian, that’s all). Royal-Leamington-Spa (the autumn leaves particularly delightful and the squirrels too). Worcester (the last battle of the English Civil War and where John Adams and Thomas Jefferson visited Fort Worth, and also where Edward Elgar’s cello concertos premiered in the cathedral on the organ that’s still there). Liverpool (where I visited to see how the city has been shaped by its history as a profiteer from the slave trade and plantation economy, but also a stunner of a sunset at the docks). And Bath (a little treat myself as I stayed on my own in a hotel for a few days before returning to London, and where I fell in love with its distinctive Georgian stone facades in its terraced crescents). So England was full of culture and history, art and rivers, swans and squirrels, and plenty of autumn leaves with a breath of Christmas in the air. My childhood dreams come to life.
Chapter 5. I didn’t plan much travel beyond the initial Europe/UK trip, as I needed some certainty in my uni timetable first. Although I made quite a few daytrips, I was amazed by how cheap flights are around the UK and to Europe (yeah, Australia is BIG). So in my reading week, I explored Scotland and Northern Ireland – Birmingham to Edinburgh to Dublin to Birmingham and back to uni at Warwick. It was a trip full of serendipity. I didn’t exactly know what to expect, I was staying with some acquaintances, and stumbled upon old friends, and made plenty of new ones too. Edinburgh honestly has my heart. I’ve said this before, every place is unique and special in its own way, but Edinburgh was one of the few places outside of London I truly felt I could live in. Maybe it’s the literary heritage, or the cobblestones and hills, or the way a castle and a hill are somehow the centre of a city. I felt welcome. There was Glasgow too, Bonfire Night fireworks and Supreme Court wigs. And bussing around the Lochs and Highlands and Glen Coe and the seaside village of Oban. If I’d known my Outlander locations back then I’d have done more but it’s hard without a car and in any case I know I’ll be back one day. And then off to Dublin. I really didn’t expect its literary history (don’t ask why, although honestly Irish writers simply never attracted me before this), nor its Georgian doors, and its café culture. This was my first overnight stay on my own, and it was when I knew solo travel, despite the warnings of my protective Asian parents, would work out just fine.
Chapter 6. Ok. We interrupt regular programming. This is a special series because we’re midway through The Europe Collection. We’re going into black-and-white mode, because I genuinely believe street photography almost always looks better in monochrome. Or at least, it’s a lovely throwback look. Anyway, this lot is from everywhere. It was incredibly difficult to narrow it down to 10, but also, it made me think about the essence of a photograph. Street photography is about watching for emotions, capturing a past realist, participating in a moment, finding some empathy. It is both presence and absence, a microscope into the human condition, a purveyor of human existence. To see a city through the lens of other people? What a joy in itself, beyond one’s own individual experience of a place.
Chapter 7. London. Utterly different from Melbourne, and yet in some ways much the same, and almost like Melbourne on a bigger scale and with much older history. Similar. The food scene. The beautiful, extraordinary mix of ethnicity and culture. Some of the non-colonial architecture exported from Britain. Also the multitudes of names we’ve stolen. But different too. The highbrow. The museums and galleries. The traces of monarchy. The flower boxes everywhere. The black cabs. The red telephone boxes. The gardens, formal and otherwise. The truly unique neighbourhood feel. The burgeoning of a city (compared to Melbourne, a grid-based city). The architecture (the sculptures and cathedrals). This is my love letter to London. Visiting both as an ‘on-the-way’ and as a ‘sole purpose’. Places and neighbourhoods I’ve always known (thanks to literature and monopoly) but only imagined. But always finding new things to appreciate and explore. So this is also a dream. One day, I’ll live in London. It’s a city that stays with you in dreams.
Chapter 8. Before I went gallivanting around Europe a second time after the end of autumn term at uni, I made two short trips. The first was to Belgium, last minute deciding on Brussels and Bruges to see the Christmas markets. I loved the medieval feel of Bruges especially, and studying medieval/renaissance/early modern history myself, it almost did feel like going back in time. The other was to Northern Ireland, exploring Belfast, the countryside, and the coastline around Giant’s Causeway. And then it was back on a big Europe trip. I again visited Paris, no complaints there, and went back to the Swiss Alps, this time to Lauterbrunnen and Jungfraujoch. Like a fairytale, the moon shining down into the valley. The first tastes of a white Christmas.
Chapter 9. The Europe trip continued in Italy. I fell in love with its art, culture, food, history, architecture. And more than most, the colours and sunlight and shadows and reflections inspired me. So I was devastated to hear of the acqua alta in November 2019. Having also studied the Venetians in the Crusades this year, I also appreciate its history all the more now. This is the Grand Canal, gloriously painted and photographed and reimagined countless times. But there was also sunset in Pisa, Florence (and David), Orvieto and alleyways (and hands down the best food in Europe), burnt orange Rome, and the treasures of the Vatican. And then we moved on to Austria. The Salzburg Christmas market was simply Christmas magic. But also The Sound of Music locations. The Schönbrunn Palace in Vienna was picturesque and really puts the Hapsburgs and Vienna into perspective (we love some ahistoricity). But also the Monets at the Albertine and the Klimts at the Leopold and the chamber orchestras. And of course, my favourite was skiing in powdery white fresh snow with fir trees and mountain landscapes for days. Snow in Australia just isn’t the same.
Chapter 10. These are the last of the prints from The Europe Collection available at the link in bio, just in time for Christmas, as the huskies represent if you swipe. And just like that, we’re at 10/10. So the Europe trip ended with a pit stop in Bratislava, Christmas in Budapest with hot baths, evening classical soirées in churches in Kraków, the bohemia of Prague, running around art galleries in Dresden, ringing in the new year in Berlin, and the paintings and books of the Rijksmuseum and the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. So ended the Europe trip, my first time there, my first solo adventure, my first chance to really put my photography skills to the test. Bittersweet, but utterly content. What a privilege to be able to experience, to see, to learn all that I have?! I hope you now know why I released this collection of prints. They mean so much to me, reminding me of precious memories that tell such diverse stories, of breathtaking beauty, spell-binding serenity, and absolute adventure. And thus I finish presenting The Europe Collection.
Epilogue. A white Christmas in Europe was exactly what I wanted. Christmas is so different here. The cold, the snow, the ice rinks, the markets. The atmosphere at large. It’s all encompassing, and I LOVED it. Can you tell? This photo sums it up. (I also like it because my teeth look spectacularly straight!!! 😂😂) Being in Australia for Christmas will be different, but I recently heard someone say they admire Australians’ dedication to Christmas despite the weather. We play Christmas music, do Christmas shopping, and decorate our houses with lights and dedicate evenings to driving around to see them. What a difference perspective makes?! And here’s the thing, a year on from my Europe adventure…it feels like a lifetime ago and yet just yesterday. I still scroll through my phone photos or insta, some moments stand out more than others. But travelling in Europe broadened my perspective so much. I certainly hope these lessons stay with me always (or I’ll just have to travel Europe again 🤣🤣). One more thing. Did you notice the launch date of The Europe Collection? It was 11 days ago, the 14th of November, my mum’s birthday, and the birthday of my photoblog, @FlowerFolio. Five years ago. I’d been thinking about starting one. But I was going into my final year of high school and didn’t know whether to take the plunge. In the end, I did, and for someone who was totally averse to my parents’ careers in IT, wowee have I learnt a lot more than just how to take a photo. In the beginning, I didn’t even own a camera, just a Samsung phone. Then it was WordPress.com, later WordPress.org, hosting and domains, naming it, figuring out when, what, how to post. How to do social media (which began a whole other adventure). I still don’t know what I’m doing. But it doesn’t matter because I’ve had the best time learning. So here’s to another five years and beyond. To capturing many more emotions and moments. To art. To storytelling through photos. I love you all. Thank you for keeping me going. I appreciate every like, comment, share, question. I don’t do it for those things. But I won’t lie, they do make it more special. Love & bisous, always & forever ♥️🥀
