Thursday 27 November 2008

2004 Within These Walls - Afternoon Visit

Having eaten a small lunch it was time to venture inside another museum. The ground surrounding the entrance was covered with paving slabs like the one below.
There was also two sculptures outside. This is the first,
whilst for the second Guzzisue took a daytime shot (scary)
and a night time one (frightening).
The sculpture is called the Birth Machine Baby and is the work of H R Giger and his museum is situated at the top end of Gruyeres.
Giger, apart from being known for his work in the films Alien and Species has also designed album covers, including the one for ELP's Brain Salad Surgery
and Debbie Harry's Koo Koo.
Inside the museum there was many of the original sketches from Alien III and also Species.
His paintings are on a very large scale, so large that pictures in books do not give them any justice. Some of them would cover our living room wall! In fact the more that we looked at them, the more we saw.
Guzzisue could not take any pictures of any work on display in the museum but she was rewarded a little later on.
The museum is located on three floors with things to see round every corner. The Alien film was playing away to itself, in German, if I remember correctly, in one room.
Eventually working our way down to the gift shop area,
there was also a small display of old resin books with lizards, bats and assorted things emerging from their pages. This was the work of Martin Schwarz.
The Giger afternoon was completed with a visit to the Giger Bar, situated across from the museum. The decor is based around some of Giger's work, including Guzzisue's favourite piece, the wall of babies.
The ceiling was formed into arches with molds of vertebrae
Sitting at the bar itself could have been a risky business as the bar chairs spun round and were also raised on platforms. We opted out and took window seats and watched as day trippers looked in the doorway, took a photo and disappeared again.
Later we walked down to the new town but it was closed so returned uphill to the old area and went for our evening meal. Seeing as we were in Switzerland, home of the fondue, it would have been impolite not to try one. Melted cheese and potato devoured it was back to the hotel to start packing for tomorrows journey.

3 comments:

Affer said...

What an amazing place! Did you ride to Gruyeres specifically to find it, or chance upon it?

bikerted said...

Hi A F-A

Pleased you are enjoying our trips.

When we first started travelling abroad we would have one place of interest to head for, usually the furthest point away from home, get there as quick as possible and then just follow our noses for the remaining time. Later we started to plan(?) where we would like to go. Nothing was really set in stone until 2006 with our trip then, all of which will be revealed later.

As for Gruyeres we were already thinking of going to Switzerland when Ian and Guzzisue saw an article about Giger and his museum. We are not sure if the bar was mentioned so this came as a wonderful surprise.

Sparky said...

That's an interesting museum, in a twisted sort of way. :o)
My husband and I are motorcyclists. We live in Southeastern Georgia USA and have many lovely roads to ride. We don't have anything as curvey as what you're on, but it's still fun. We must travel to western North Carolina for really twisted roads.
Ride Safe!
Sparky ♥ ∞