Crowded

This was done during the Bournemouth Air Festival, the peak of the tourist season. It was very busy in the more central locations. As usual, apologies for the blurriness of some of the photos.

Pier

I started off on the East side of the pier.

Start point

This was the first location; a drinking fountain at the end of Undercliff Drive.

Zig-Zag

I stopped halfway up the path to watch an aerobatics display.

Notice

All the locations were twinned with one in Cuernavaca.

Path

I continued upwards to the cliff top.

Pier approach

I went back towards pier approach, aiming for the central gardens.

Battling through the crowds

Sign to the aviary

And that odd thing in the background is some kind of artistic installation. It used to light up and flash at night, but I'm not sure if it still does.

Birds

I arrived at the aviary as it started to rain.

More birds

I stayed here a few minutes because the area was quite sheltered.

Finches

Notice

One of these sponsor names seems familiar...

Churchyard

It was still raining when I got to St Peter's church

Information

I looked around for a blue plaque, but couldn't find one. The best I could do was this sign.

Mary Shelley

The Crypt

This is the actual crypt. Out of respect, I decided putting my notice on the grave itself was not a good idea.

Notice

The church

Steps

I went down these steps from the churchyard and into the high street.

Pocket watch

Before this task, I had never realised it was a pocket watch. I'd always just thought it was a more ordinary clock.

Pocket watch

By this point, the rain had stopped and it was brightening up again.

Notice

Square

I then walked into the square, which was also busy.

Mosaic

Unfortunately, most of the pebble mosaic was covered by a tent put up for the Air Festival.

Notice

It's positioned behind the tent in a position which would work if the tent were not there.

Town hall

From the square, I went towards the Town Hall.

Bourne Avenue

I was looking for a steep pathway going up to the right. The gardens are on the left.

Pathway

This looks likely...

Notice

Steps

I went down the steps behind the Town Hall in search of a bypass with V-shaped supports.

Bridge

No Vs here...

Bypass

That's more like it...

Notice

Church

On the way back towards the high street, I passed another nice church.

Daily Echo

I also passed the headquarters of our local newspaper.

High Street

Back in the high street, I headed towards Horseshoe Common.

Horseshoe Common

Now all I need to do is find a candle-holder shaped tree...

Tree

I couldn't really find one the right shape, but I chose one I thought was a possibility, and which I liked.

Tree with notice

Road

This was the best bit, beacause I'd never been this way before and had to guess my way through roads. The final location, a Thai restaurant, was quite a long way from all the others.

Charminster Road

I then got to a bit that I knew.

Fish shop

This is my usual aquatics shop.

The end is in sight

Tuk Tuk Thai

Finally, I reached the last location.

Notice

There was some room at the bottom of the menu board...

Heading home, triumphant!

And thankfully, there was no sign of the minotaur...

Crossing Queen's Park

One of my favourite locations in Bournemouth.

sombreroguyasAriadne

The map. I wonder if the fact that the places form a "b" means anything in particular. Or what is it? A baseball cap in lieu of a sombrero?!

The staircase street

The way to get to the ravine that's under the bridge is this very steep staircase street, called Calle de Las Flores. At least a hundred steps.

at the bottom

Finally down in the ravine, everything is humid and wild, a true biome underground from the city. I mean, there were stripped lizards and blue dragonflies. And I am sure at night must be full with fireflies. There were *caves* too.

bridge from down below

I am heading towards the place. You can see people on the bridge watching down, leaning on the high suicide-prevention fence. It is about 50 meters high.

under

It doesn´t get much more "under" than this.

first golden plate

The plate reads (in Spanish): This bridge is a sister landmark of the V-supports for the highway on Bournemouth, UK. http://sf0.org susy derkins/Sombrero Guy

bridge with people

Those people were looking at me. I was enjoying the tasking-high and the awesome new favorite place. Very little graffitti, even. So secret. A very little group of people know about it, including Sombrero Guy from Bournemouth, UK.

on the bridge

After climbing back *the very steep staircase street* I drove over the bridge and took a picture. Driving photography. Also, pants observation.

private property allright

This is the house where the tennis court is located. The delimiting wall of said house keeps going for a whole block. Old money. Weekend place. Closed and empty but perfectly kept, as far as one can see.

door to tennis court

The front door that would have led me to the tennis court, were it open. No-one answered. Fail.

plate

I affixed the plate to a niche on the wall. It reads: The tennis court that is behind this wall is the sister landmark to the Zig Zag Walking Path by Boscombe Pier" in Bournemouth, UK.

there

This picture was taken while climbing the wall and peering through the vine. You can almost see some white garden furniture by the side of the tennis court. You also can almost see that the net is broken/hung down. I guess I should have tresspassed properly.

Robert Brady Museum

This is such a nice place, and I don´t go nearly enough. Lots of folk and fine art from over the world, collected by this crazy gringo in its home. http://bradymuseum.org/

confusion

At this point I was unsure what landmark was twin of this one. I tried to reconstruct Sombrero Guy list. I am not sure I got it right (document confusion).

plate

The plate reads: The Robert Brady Museum is the sister landmark of the Tree with an Unusual Shape, in Bournemouth Gardens, Bournemouth UK.

La Catedral is massive and classy and quiet. All around cool. I hardly go there, maybe because there is a mass going on most of the time. But it was lunch time, so all empty and quiet, the courtyard. The Catedral itself, closed.

The plate now says that on top of being an UNESCO Heritage site, it is also the sister landmark of The Steep Walking Path near Bournemouth Gardens, in Bournemouth, UK.

fountain

There were two guards just to the left of the fountain. I had to do the whole routine of "I'm taking pictures of the water". The plate reads: This fountain is the sister landmark of the Drinking Fountain by the Pier, near Bournemouth, UK.

This was another fail. Since there are a lot of restaurants that go out of bussiness in here, and since the sequence of the exterior numbers tend to be random, I thought Don Vito was gone, and in its place was a "Comida corrida". So the plate reads: The pizzeria that used to be here was going to be a sister landmark of the Tuk Tuk Thai restaurant in Bournemouth, UK.

I attached the plate right next to the menu of the day: your choice of two different soups and five dishes.

failure 2nd part

The problem was that I *found* Don Vito down the street. And that I didn´t have an extra golden plate. So I had to use some black construction paper, written on black ink, wich read what it was supposed to read. Dang.

Non-golden sister landmark plate attached to the wall of Don Vito: pizzeria and trattoria. The front was all glass and due to the place being empty, the waiter was looking at me the whole time, while I studied their very tasty menu.

Kiosk

They sell the best "licuados" at the bottom of it: milk or water + every imaginable fruit combination, 30 sec in a blender. Every "licuado" has a proper name: penguin, wake up-call, martian, crazymonkey... A favorite place of mine too, in case it wasn´t clear.

sister landmark plate: kiosk

kiosk plates

The tile plate tells the stiry of the kiosk, how it was a gift from the British government, and then was dismantled and all kinds of things that are impossible to read here and I forgot. The gold plate to the right is mine and it states that the the Kiosk is a sister landmark of the Aviary in Bournemouth Gardens.

sister landmark plate: monument to Morelos

"This monument to the Great General Morelos is the sister landmark of the Floor Tile Mosaic in Bournemouth, UK.

Palacio de Justicia, the courthouse

That lady there is Justice, with her weighting scale and all. The pedestal says "A cada quien lo suyo" ("To each its own"). I had planned to do "Object annotation" on it once, but never got around it. The shield on the wall says "La tierra es de quien la trabaja con sus manos" ("Land belongs to those whose hands labor on it"). Yep, very favorite too.

There

See the first bench to the right of the statue? See the plate on the wall behind it? Frankly, me neither.

Benito Juarez statue

Juarez in the middle of the roundabout. This was the guy who said "Among men as well as among nations, respect to the right's of the other is peace". Not that you recognize the quote. He was a short man, but this statue is very tall.

plate

"This monument to Benito Juárez is the sister landmark of The Blue Plaque for Mary Shelley's family" in Bournemouth, UK. The statue is there, see? Kind of tricky to get to it. And it was raining. Hard.

There!

See it? in th corner of the official plaque?

bonus

There is a dragonfly in the picture, I swear. You can almost see it. Yeah, my phone camera is not that great but on the other hand it can get rained on allright. THE END