After Matera, we drove down to Oria then Lecce, a beautiful fortified old town, full of wonderful architecture. Once again, Elaine excelled with her choice of abode – a taste of Morocco in the heart of Puglia.

Just to the east of Lecce are some lovely, empty beaches where we lazed in the sun, only moving for liquid refreshment (usually Primitivo) and good food. NB. There really is no BAD food in Italy!

With so much to see, do and eat, we needed the entire week to get around all the areas of central Prague, absorb the history, take in the culture and still have enough time to sit and savour the numerous old cafes and famous eating places in town.

Yes, it was cold, with a flurry of light snow a couple of days, but this only added to Prague’s beauty and charm, we weren’t swamped by other tourists, and we had no problem getting a seat in restaurants.

Amongst the many sites to see, the Alfonse Mucha Museum, in particular, showed many of the artist’s significant paintings as well as a huge number of his famous poster originals – not to be missed, nor his stunning stained glass window in the cathedral. Indeed there are many signs of Art Nouveau throughout the city centre exteriors and within its beautiful buildings.

Below are just a wee selection of the photos snapped in the seven days.

PS. If you’re going to Prague and want Steve’s great inside info, you know where I am.

Below is just a small selection from the thousands of photos we took during our 17-day visit to Qingdao, on the east coast, and Beijing, a 5-hour bullet train journey north-west.

Life, culture, food, architecture, transport, signage, everything is different, so there is so much for the tourist’s eye to take in.  We had such a great time there that, what we didn’t photograph last year we can capture in June 2013 when we return.

Admittedly for the first 10 years or so, when Aaron and Simon were growing up, the cards tended to feature them with humorous captions.  The first of these saw the pair of them at our dining table, aged 6 and 3, both bespectacled, ala The Two Ronnies, captioned “It’s a Merry Christmas from me… and it’s a Happy New Year from him!”  Others borrowed from topicality and fads including, among other things, the Ninja Turtles and our ‘new’ Commodore computer (which is still up the attic somewhere).

More recently though, I literally stumbled upon a theme that might last for the foreseeable future – the Madonna and Child.  I happened to produce our 2007 Christmas card using an image of the Madonna and Child, taken in a monastery in Alcobaca, while on holiday in Portugal, but the following year we nearly fell over a pavement sculpture in Monopoli, Italy depicting the same subject.  I snapped it and suddenly we had a theme.

Needless to say our holidays now include a search for Madonna and Child images.  Crakow alone has given me enough images for another eight or nine years!

This year is the 5th in the series.  The image turned up most unexpectedly, not in a church or a chapel, but at an antiques market in Lucca, Italy, in July this year.  There they were, mother and child, sitting on a beautiful antique chair, between a coffee table and chest of drawers, in the shade, out of the heat of the gorgeous Italian sunshine!  Beautiful.

The four previous Christmas Madonnas are shown below.  By a coincidence, the tapestry was hanging in the apartment we rented in Crakow, Poland, while the wooden icon was spotted in a Cracow museum.  Following these are some of the early ones, namely ‘Dots’, ‘Two Ronnies’, ‘Star’, ’E.T.’, ‘Good News’, ‘Red, Red Robin’ and ‘Commodore’.

Merry Christmas to you all.  Have a great 2012.

This year, Elaine and I revisited Pisa during our week’s stay in Lucca and walked around most of the town’s landmarks, bridges, shops and cafes.  The tower was no less impressive this time but unfortunately the t-shirts and souvenirs on the many stalls lining the roadway along to the tower don’t seem to have changed much since ‘88!

It proved to be an excellent base from where we would drive west to the beaches, north into the mountains, west towards Florence and south to visit Pisa and the coast down to Livorno.

Planned as a recce trip ahead of Simon and Jane’s marriage next year, it was a fun-packed, fact-finding week which included visiting the wedding villa and gardens, experiencing an excellent 9-course food and wine sampling from the caterers, and taking in an Elton John concert in the town’s main square.  Of course, we also had to sample much of the local food and wine, then work it off with miles of footwork and cycling.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t until our last night that I discovered cafe corretto – coffee with alcohol, sambucca preferably – very more-ish!

On leaving, we were amused to spot Harper’s Sandwich Bar & Delicatessen across the road.

Later that day, we ended up walking through Soho and into Chinatown, with its colourful decorations celebrating their new Year of the Rabbit.

Elaine and I have just spent a week over there – five days staying in a riad within the Medina (old town) of Marrakech and two days on the coast at Essaouira, also in a riad in the old town. Wonderful! And the food was, as expected, fantastic.

With great difficulty, I have selected just a few (I assure you) of the snaps I took that week. This selection does not include any of the hundreds that Elaine took on the Canon Ixus. These may follow, so watch out!

PS. None of the skies have been Photoshopped!

The weather was kind to Elaine and I so, as well as having a most enjoyable wander around the city centre on the Wednesday morning, we also took a trip up the River Cam on a punt to experience a quite unique view of the university buildings of Cambridge.

That afternoon, Peter Alliss turned up at Gog Magog Golf Club to help Cambridge author, Donald Cameron, launch his book, Social Links, a history of the Victorian golf boom in England.

As usual, I snapped my way around to remind me of where I’ve just been!

Whilst these were shot in the normal 35mm format, I’ve cropped them all down to a more panoramic proportion – quite an interesting exercise in deciding how much of the picture was unnecessary, yet maintaining a pleasing image. The following pics are in chronological order, the first five taken on the Tuesday afternoon, all others on the Wednesday morning.

Elaine and I had gone down to see the BP Portraits exhibition and visit the Modern Art Gallery’s 50th Anniversary exhibition across the road.

I must admit I thought there were far too many photo realist paintings on show for my liking and not enough painterly paintings. What’s the point, I ask, in people STILL trying to imitate the camera by using oils and a brush when the camera does it so much better … and quicker! One artist admitted that his realistic egg tempera painting of his teenage son had taken him four years to complete! – Why bother? And some of these artists were bold enough to tell us that these were done from real life in a studio! No, I’m sorry I don’t believe you. The human eye just doesn’t perceive depth of field as shown on your ’so real’ painting. Even the poster for this painting exhibition featured an image that looked like a photograph! Why?

Oh get off your high horse, Chic! You’re just jealous because you haven’t put paint to canvas as you have been intending to do since 2004!

The 50th Anniversary exhibition was a bit of a mixed bag too, in my opinion. Some very nice stuff, some just a waste of space – like a room of white paintings and a room of black paintings!

Having tea and scones in the Dean Gallery cafe, it was great to bump into photographer Douglas Corrance after so many years. Douglas used to work for the Scottish Tourist Board and supplied Baillie Marshall with many great shots for numerous tourist board publications. He doesn’t know it (yet), but he was an inspiration to me and my snap taking by the way he would frame his wide angle shots with foreground objects, giving them extra depth and perspective. Thanks Douglas.