In France, the fashion in doorknockers seems to run less to lions than to hands. Actually, this set includes ones seen in Ludlow, Bishops Castle, and one in Shottery before and after the door it was on had a fresh coat of paint.
Not a doorknocker, but definitely French, this was one of the lampstands in the restaurant of the Hotel CroMagnon in les Eyzies. The village is at the centre of a region with numerous prehistoric sites, with a regional gastronomy centring on le canard.
Lions are a popular subject for portrayal on door knockers. Are they meant to deter unwelcome visitors? Most of the ones in these sets are from domestic front doors which have caught my attention over the years. Can you spot one from a door of the cathedral in Mainz?
A few lion images which are not doorknockers have crept in. From inns (though none happen to be from pub signs), from an alms house building in Ludlow, and a long-defunct drinking water fountain in the same town.
A robin posing on a tree, on a Christmas Day some years ago. It didn’t want to move so a holly bush could be in the background.
Merry Christmas. Here’s some seasonal street decorations from a couple of European capital cities.
If the famous mannekin pis fountain wasn’t kitsch enough already, it gets dressed in a regularly changing array of costumes. I don’t know whether the little santa suit is an annual tradition or not.
There’s a shop entirely devoted to Lego among the up-market establishments on Berlin’s Potzdammer Platz (I assume it’s still there). They have big Lego models outside the shop. A life-sized Santa was there some years back.
Across the city, the Ku’Damm is another up-market shopping district. I’m not sure whether the larger than life figure here by one of the stalls of a Christmas market was meant to be Santa (beard, red trousers and boots) or one of the three kings (the crown).
Some of the reindeer from the Frankfurt Christmas Market in Birmingham city centre. Spot which of the reindeer are actually elk / moose.
The singing head on the glühwein / beer stall opposite the town hall has been there many years now. It missed once, then returned the following year, refurbished – it looks like it’s time it had some more care. No singing when I was there.
I saw this heron on the same day as the canal scenes in yesterday’s post. It was standing stoically on the snowy canal footpath at Compton, undisturbed by the noise of the traffic heading along the Bridgnorth Road.