Another day at the Floriade and today the weather was
varied, periods of rain and fine conditions and when it rained the pavilions
filled up making it difficult to view the exhibits.
We were a little disappointed with the exhibits today in the
World Show Stage area, we expected the various countries would have gardens and
cultural exhibits but the majority were market stalls selling art and craft
works, rather tatty. The Chinese exhibit
was a beautiful replica of an ancient garden and pavilion, what we expected
from all countries. Indonesia also had
an interesting exhibit with several replicas of houses from the provinces,
together with traditional music instruments and other artefacts.
Two interesting
exhibits were cinemas, one a domed ceiling with the film projected onto it
which had the potential to cause a loss of balance when looking up at the
dome. The other had a glass floor and
gave the appearance that we were flying over the world. These were environment based and most unusual
display.
Along the Floriade Street there were fifteen designer
gardens, ranging from a Japanese style to a very simple garden with a path and
a few shrubs, a big variation in styles.
The highlight of today’s visit was the street theatre, in
the morning six girls on stilts and costumes performed a ballet in the Plaza
and in the afternoon three girls on stilts in “bird” costumes wandered through
the crowd interacting with them, very entertaining. Even though the displays we visited today
weren’t as interesting as those we saw yesterday we still spent nearly seven
hours at the Floriade.
A post script to our Venlo visit, we went to the local
supermarket to buy some fruit and it contained the biggest tea and coffee
section we have seen in a Supermarket.
For those familiar with Oxleys in Brighton, the section was bigger than
the total floor area of Oxleys. We
always knew the Dutch like their coffee but didn’t realise how much they used,
on the floor were five pallets of one brand of ground coffee, each pallet over
a metre high. There were dozens of
different brands of ground coffee and beans together with instant coffee. In one area there were about thirty
containers of coffee beans and customers were able to mix their own
blends. In the tea sections there were
over fifty different blends and types of tea and herbal teas. A paradise for caffeine addicts.
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