MarksWorldOfAdventure

The Mirror Maze in Petřín Park, Prague. October, 2018

Walk around Newcastle Upon Tyne city centre, in between Lockdowns 1 and 2. 03/08/2020

Riots in Anderlecht following the death of a young man trying to avoid a police covid checkpoint. Brussels, 11/04/20. Youths in Anderlecht in Brussels clashed with police overnight after a young man died while trying to escape from a police control. The clashes led to 45 arrests by Saturday evening. The troubles took place mainly around metro station Clemenceau and the Place du Conseil, where the town hall is situated. The 19-year-old was riding a scooter when he was stopped by police for a check on his movements. He instead tried to escape, and later died when he drove into a police car, according to reports. The incident is being investigated by the Brussels prosecutor’s office. In the meantime, the news of the accident brought a number of young men onto the streets in defiance of the lockdown, where they encountered a reinforced police presence. A running battle ensued, with youths throwing stones and police responding with baton charges. Several cars were set alight, and one witness video showed a masked youth running off with what appears to be a police firearm lifted from a police van, firing it into the air. The family of the dead youth, named as Adil, intervened to appeal for calm. “Adil was a very calm young man, always smiling and full of life,” his aunt told Sudinfo. “He was liked by everyone, his family, his friends. He was a boy without problems, a diabetic of fragile health.” The rioters, she said, were all young. “They are carefree, for sure, but all we ask for now is for them to allow us, his family, to mourn his passing.” The mayor of Anderlecht, Fabrice Cumps, said the idea of mourning was far from the minds of the trouble-makers. “One thing is for sure, they didn’t come here to mourn the memory of young Adil. They came here to cause a riot, they came to cause violence. Their motivation is very clear.” By the early hours of the morning the situation had settled, with the presence of reinforcements from the federal police for the local force of Zone Brussels-South, including police vans and water cannon. Police chief Patrick Evenepoel said the situation was “under control,” but that police were ready to intervene if the violence started up again.

The Bijlmermeer ([ˈbɛi̯lmərˌmeːr]), or colloquially Bijlmer ([ˈbɛilmər]), is one of the neighbourhoods that form the Amsterdam-Zuidoost borough (Dutch: stadsdeel) of Amsterdam, Netherlands. To many people, the Bijlmer designation is used to refer to Amsterdam Zuidoost as a pars pro toto. The other neighbourhoods in Amsterdam Zuidoost are Gaasperdam, Bullewijk, Venserpolder and Driemond. The Bijlmermeer neighbourhood, which today houses almost 50,000 people of over 150 nationalities, was designed as a single project as part of a then innovative Modernist approach to urban design. Led by architect Siegfried Nassuth and team, the original neighbourhood was designed as a series of nearly identical high-rise buildings laid out in a hexagonal grid. The goal was to create open spaces for recreation at grade, elevated roads to reduce pollution and traffic from those same recreation areas, and residences climbing upward offering residents views, clean air, and sunlight. The apartments were meant to attract a suburban population, in the manner of condominium housing. The buildings have several features that distinguish them from traditional Dutch high-rise flats, such as tubular walkways connecting the flats and garages. The blocks are separated by large green areas planted with grass and trees. Each flat has its own garages where cars can be parked. The Bijlmer was designed with two levels of traffic. Cars drive on the top level, the decks of which fly over the lower levels, pedestrian avenues and bicycle paths. This separation of fast and slow moving traffic is conducive to traffic safety. However, in recent years, the roads are once again being put into a single plane, so pedestrians, cycles and cars travel alongside each other. This is a move to lessen the effects of the 'inhuman' scale of some of the Bijlmer's designs and improve safety using direct sightlines. Because of the Bijlmer's peripheral position relative to the city centre, it was decided that metro lines would be built connecting the Bijlmer with other neighbourhoods. The Oostlijn (east line, comprising two lines, numbered 53 and 54) links the Bijlmer to the Central Station of Amsterdam, while the Ringlijn links it with the port area at Sloterdijk. Social Issues Until recently, Bijlmermeer struggled to draw in many middle-class families. Following Suriname's independence in 1975, many of its inhabitants migrated to the Netherlands. The government placed a substantial number of them in affordable social housing in the Bijlmermeer. The neighbourhood once had a very high crime rate, but this has decreased dramatically in recent years. The number of registered complaints to the police decreased from 20,000 in 1995 (of which 2,000 were robberies) to 8,000 (of which 600 were robberies) in 2005. The area has always been home to many different nationalities simultaneously. Throughout the years, claims of rising social segregation or ghettoization have been both denied and pre-empted by local government. Urban renewal After El Al Flight 1862 crashed into two Bijlmermeer buildings in 1992, an incident known as the Bijlmerramp (Dutch for "Bijlmer Disaster"), it was decided that the neighbourhood needed some further change. In recent years, many of the high rise buildings have been renovated or torn down. More expensive low-rise housing has been built to attract more middle- and upper-income residents. This resulted in significant reduction in crime and a more balanced socio-economic composition, whilst at the same time maintaining the area's ethnic mix. Lately students have discovered the Bijlmer as an affordable place to live compared to the city centre where space is limited and costs of living are high.[2] Events and sights Amsterdam Zuidoost is host to Ajax Amsterdam's ArenA football stadium, which hosts football matches and musical concerts, the Pathé ArenA multiplex cinema with 14 screens, the Heineken Music Hall and music and theatres, located in the business park area of Amsterdam Zuidoost, just to the west of the Bijlmer. The recreational strip is called the ArenA Boulevard. The strip mostly hosts concerts, with a very small number of bars and no night clubs. It has not been able to compete with Amsterdam's city centre for the casual Saturday night crowd. The Bijlmer boasts Amsterdam's biggest shopping centre, the "Amsterdamse Poort", though Amsterdam's city centre remains the largest shopping area. Alongside the shopping centre, the "Anton de Kom plein" (square) is completed, it houses a cultural centre and the borough administrative offices ("stadsdeelkantoor"). In 2012 the entire area from the Ziggo Dome in the west, Villa Arena home furnishings mall, the ArenA Boulevard and stadium, and the Amsterdamse Poort started being marketed as "ArenaPoort". The annual Kwaku Summer Festival is a six-weekend long multicultural festival during the summer, with Surinamese, Antillean and African food, music and other events.

Checking out Ołowianka Island in Gdańsk, Poland. 26/06/23 Ołowianka ( German: Bleihof ) - an island in Gdańsk on the Motława River and the Stępka Canal , located in the Śródmieście district . History Ołowianka was in the years 1343–1454 the property of the Teutonic castle. Life in the medieval port of Gdańsk focused on the left bank of the Motława. There were water city gates, with quays, wooden piers and reloading facilities. The constant development of the port caused the need to enlarge and develop the infrastructure. The land on the opposite bank of the river was used to build new warehouses and transhipment quays. In the times of the Teutonic Knights, it was an area of ​​great strategic importance, as evidenced by the fact that it was here that the buildings of the order's steward were erected . The oldest name of this place, recorded in documents from 1404, was Szafarnia. The Zamczysko, located on the other side of the Motława River , was connected to this tract first by a bridge, and from 1417 by a ferry . Ołowianka was not an island then. It became such only after digging in 1576 the Canal on Stępka . It owes its current name to the warehouses used to store lead . The largest of them was referred to as the Lead Manor . There was also a scale on which a large crane (designed by Wybe Adam) loaded lead brought by water as far as Olkusz . In 1454 Casimir IV Jagiellon donated the island to the city, which in the same year incorporated it into its administrative borders. The city began to rent granaries to institutions and individuals. Rent registers mention three granaries in 1499 and four granaries in 1553. In addition to the Tin Manor , as well as the aforementioned weight and crane, of which no traces remain, there were also granaries . Royal was the best preserved of them . This three - storey building was built in the 17th century . The creator of the granary was the Gdańsk architect Jan Strakowski . Three others - Panna , Miedź and Oliwski - were rebuilt only in 1985. The eastern part of Ołowianka, once called Ciesielnia, together with Kępa , which ended it , belonged to the harbor. There were great carpentry shops there, as well as a kind of repair yard , which was used by the Teutonic Knights. There was a water barrier nearby , in the form of a long chain or bar blocking the Motława River. It is possible that it still functioned in 1809. In 1643, there were 7 granaries on Ołowianka Island. In the late 1860s, construction began on a sewage pumping station in the area of ​​the old Ciesielnia , preserved to this day. Construction was completed early in the next decade. With it came the first chimney and steam engines . The task of the pumping station was to collect sewage from the entire city. It was deliberately placed very low, on the border between urban and industrial areas. The pipes discharged sewage towards the meadows in Stogi (Rieselfeld), where, after treatment in sand-filled settling tanks where vegetation grew, the sewage was discharged into the Martwa Wisła near the Wisłoujście Fortress. In 2018, there was a failure of the pumping station and the discharge of sewage to the Motława River. In the years 1896–1898, a municipal power plant complex was built on Ołowianka by the Berlin company Siemens & Halske . A railway bridge was built over the Canal on Stępka with a line that transported coal to the power plant. According to the original plans, Ołowianka was to power the lighting of Gdańska and Wrzeszcza streets . Initially, gas lighting was replaced on today's al. Victories . The installed devices supplied a total of about 6,200 light bulbs. In 1907, the length of the then overground network did not exceed 170 km. It was the beginning of Gdańsk's electrification. The power plant underwent extensions increasing its capacity in the years 1905–1907, 1915–1916, in 1942, in 1952 and in 1962. In the last months of World War II, the plant was damaged. The façade on the Motława River, the industrial chimney and the ceilings of the power plant were demolished. The damage to the plant itself was repaired in August 1945. In 2011–2012, the area in front of the entrance to the Central Maritime Museum was renovated, where a city square was created. Transportation Currently, access to Ołowianka is possible via two bridges over the Canal on Stępce: Kamieniarski Bridge (in the past a drawbridge ) from ul. Szafarnia on the eastern side, and over the bridge from ul. On Stępka, built around 1916 as a railway bridge. The Motława passenger ferry connects the island with the Main Town .

Exploring Bili Brig, the largest commie block in Zadar, Croatia. 28/06/22

Hiking up Mt Ślęża, Lower Silesia, Poland. Checking out the She Bear & Lady With a Fish sculptures on the way up. Day trip from Wrocław. October, 2019.

Time lapse video of walking and running through the streets of Warsaw at night. Poland, 2022

Wrocław main market square during covid lockdown. 24/10/20. Poland

Brzeźno Beach, Brzeźnieński Park , Fort Brzeźno & Nowy Port Lighthouse. Gdańsk, Poland. 25/06/23.