Although I had taken part in various short fashion courses to prepare me for my study of fashion communication and promotion, since I was having a gap year, I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to gain some independence in preparation for moving away from home, to go to university in the following September and to create some of the best memories to remember in years to come. Hopefully this blog post influences you to go travelling as it is something worth doing if you have the opportunity and also offers you some insight on what route/where is best to go! Obviously everyone has their own dreams of where they aspire to visit one day, so a few of these may not appeal to you, but I can ensure I had a great time in each and every one of them for many different reasons.
Adding on, I have also included some interesting places we shopped/ate/visited along the way!
London – This was where we started our journey and although we had not left the UK yet, it was still really good to get the chance to visit London and explore the city, stopping by the National Portrait Gallery in Trafalgar Square, Westminster, and Covent Garden. We decided to stop over night before boarding the Euro Star to Belgium early the next day which would be the real beginning of our European adventure.
The National Portrait Galley in Trafalgar Square
Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament
Westminster, London
The Monument to the Women of World War II, located on Whitehall in London
Below I have included each city we visited in a timeline of photographs, captions will be attached to each image to inform you where each image was taken! Enjoy!!
Brussels, Belgium
The Grand Place, Main Square
Brussels City Museum.The Grand Place, Main Square
The Grand Place, Main Square
Brussels Town Hall. The Grand Place, Main Square
Parc du Cinquantenaire in Brussels
Parc du Cinquantenaire in Brussels
The Botanical Garden of Brussels- Le Botanique
(Le Jardin botanique national de Belgique)
Aux Gaufres de Bruxelles (Waffle House)
Paris, France
Jardins du Trocadéro
The Moulin Rouge
Love Lock Bridge
Notre-Dame
The Eiffel Tower
Musée du Louvre
Nice, France
Cannes, France
Lace Summer Dress- H&M
Cannes beach
Streets of Cannes
Milan, Italy
The Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II
The Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II
Rome, Italy
The Coliseum
Vatican City
The Vatican's Museums
The Ceiling of the Sistine Chapel
Valentino's June window display in the flagship store in the centre of Rome
Venice, Italy
Part of the canal in Venice
Grand Canal of Venice
Vienna, Austria
The Rathaus in Vienna
Vienna's main square
Vienna's main square
Hofburg Dome
St. Charles's Church (Karlskirche) at night
Dolce and Gabbana's June window display in the Vienna store
Prague, Czech Republic
The old town of Prague
The canal of Prague
Budapest, Hungary
Széchenyi Thermal
Széchenyi Thermal
Hungarian Parliament Building
Budapest city centre at night
Budapest's Széchenyi Chain Bridge
Budapest's Széchenyi Chain Bridge
Berlin, Germany
The Reichstag/Bundesrat building
The Brandenburg Gate
Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe (Holocaust Memorial)
Remains of the Berlin Wall
Remains of the Berlin Wall
War memorial located in Check Point Charlie
Remains of the Berlin Wall
Remains of the Berlin Wall
Potsdamer Platz
The SONY Centre in Potsdamer Platz
Museum für Film und Fernsehen
Museum für Film und Fernsehen
Hamburg, Germany
Außenalster or Outer Alster Lake in Hamburg
Amsterdam, Holland
The Anne Frank House
The Anne Frank House
Quote taken from Anne Frank's diary written on a wall in The Anne Frank House
Out of each place that we visited on our trip, I would definitely say that Berlin was my favourite city to go to and one that I would love to re-visit one day. Since I had studied Germany in the 20th century during A Level History I was already aware of many of the cultural, political and historical issues that had commenced in Berlin in this period of time during both World Wars, and by visiting the city, it really put everything I had learnt into perspective and gave me a visual understanding of life in Germany pre and post war. Alongside this reason, in terms of fashion and technology, Berlin is great for shopping and observing street style and innovating trends as well as experiencing their modern day graphic technology and forward thinking architecture and interior. Clearly their creation of the Bauhaus back in 1919 paved the way for Germany's lead in the futuristic structure of buildings that we're seeing today in the 21st century since Germany was and still is the home to many of the greatest modernism and expressism artists about.
Whilst visiting we also got the chance to go to the 'Museum für Film und Fernsehen' located in the Sony Centre and look at the Marlene Dietrich clothing exhibition. This was even more interesting to see as it gave me an insight into 20th century Hollywood fashion and the beginning of an androgynous trend, that Dietrich was known to ironically take on board and embrace during her time as a star. This was also good because it allowed me to compare androgynous trends post 2010 to ones from the 1930s when it was an unconventional thing to acquire.
Museum für Film und Fernsehen/Museum of Film and Television
Marlene Dietrich Collection in the Museum für Film und Fernsehen, Berlin.
Exhibition name: Marlene Dietrich in der Ständigen Ausstellung
Another thing that was really cool to see at the museum was the display of the props used for Fritz Lang's 1927 film 'Metropolis' that was created during the Weimer era of Germany and is based on a futuristic city in 2026. The film portrays the Marxist view that the bourgeoisie ideology controls society and causes the over populated proletariat working class to maintain subordinate. Again, something that was really interesting for me to see after my study of Sociology and History at A Level. Furthermore, it is also something that is really useful for my study of fashion when considering cultural, social and historical influences on style, especially German fashion which changed rapidly during the 20th century.
Figure from the 1927 Fritz Lang film 'Metropolis' featured in the Museum für Film und Fernsehen.
No comments
Post a Comment