They’re everywhere - in books and magazines, on postcards and tea towels, coffee mugs, fridge magnets and t-shirts - artistic masterpieces so familiar and endlessly reproduced they could be wallpaper for our collective consciousness. Warhol’s soup cans, Monet’s waterlilies, Van Gogh’s swirling skies, Munch’s The Scream, Picasso’s Weeping Woman… our world would look a whole lot different without them.

But nothing can compare to seeing these artworks in the flesh, exhibited in the great galleries of the world. To be taken by surprise by a painting’s presence - overwhelmed by its power - can be an emotional experience that’s hard to put into words.

On a recent visit to Spain, I had the opportunity to see Picasso’s masterpiece Guernica in its current (contested) home, the Museo Reina Sofía in Madrid. Wandering this stunning gallery, I wondered what it’d be like to see this painting I’d studied and read so much about over the years… I should’ve known.

I’m always amazed when I see Picasso’s paintings in the flesh – the energy and life force they emit is intense. Guernica, painted as a protest against the Franco-sanctioned bombing of the Basque town Gernika by Hitler’s troops in 1937, is no exception. This huge canvas explodes with the artist’s fury; the effect on the viewer is devastating. Its black-and-white colour scheme is grimly powerful, and its myriad details – so much starker when hanging on a wall in front of you – are chilling. Seeing Guernica up so close in all its enormity is like being punched in the face.

Not far away, at the Museo del Prado, it was Velázquez’s luminous, painstaking portraits of 17th-century Spanish aristocracy and their servants that blew me away. There was something unexpectedly poignant about all these posturing royals, long gone and forgotten; while the artist’s empathy for the clowns, freaks and lackeys common to the Spanish courts of the day could not be missed. Las Meninas brought tears to my eyes.

Yet reproduced on the printed page, Velázquez’s paintings are more striking for their historic interest and fine composition than for their overwhelming emotional impact.

What work of art has most affected you on your travels? Where did you see it?

- Suzy Watusi

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What’s the age limit for travelling with your parents? I’d say there isn’t one. I’ve been travelling with mine for 26 years. We’ve visited more than 100 places in 24 countries and our experiences have been wide ranging: we’ve shopped in Paris, road tripped through 15 states of the USA and volunteered for one month at a primary school in Cusco with Peru’s Challenge - collectively our most incredible travelling experience. Next of the list: Hong Kong, quickly followed by Brazil.

These trips have firmly planted the travel bug in us all, and my brother, two sisters and I travel as much independently as we do all together. But it’s the family trips I like best.

- Gab Nancarrow

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Every August, locals and tourists in the thousands throng to the Alice to construct bottomless boats, jump in, and carry them around a race circuit. It’s completely insane and hugely entertaining to watch (with a cold beer in hand, of course). The nautical nuttiness doesn’t stop at boat racing – there’s a Bath Tub Derby (four people carry a fifth around in a bath tub), a Boogie Board event (a lucky crew member sitting on a board gets towed around the circuit), kayaking, rowing, and a whole of other run-around-in-the-sand-and-make-like-its-wavy fun.

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There’s going to be a little less sparkle on legendary Coney Island as the lights go out on the landmark ’space-age’ Astroland amusement park A breakdown in negotiations between owner and developer, and the place that wrote the book on gritty charm falls by the wayside.
‘This is a tragic loss for the City of New York and visitors around the world,’ said Carol Alber, the co-owner and operator of Astroland. It’s pretty heart-breaking to see such irreplaceable heritage so easily trashed. Once it’s gone, it’s gone.

Relive Coney Island glories through these photo galleries. Or post a comment and share your memories of Astroland - your laughter, your tears, your hot-dog puke after a Top Spin.

- Dee Dee Luxe

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The Kindness of Strangers

One of the best things about travel is experiencing random acts of generosity from strangers. It reminds me that for all the scams and troubles travel can present, kindness usually prevails.

I’ve been reading The Kindness of Strangers, an anthology of short stories. It led me to reminisce about the many times I’ve been in a pickle, and have been levered out of the jar by strangers who expect nothing in return.

Don George introduces the stories with these wise words:

‘I have learned two things: the first is that when you travel, at some point, you will find yourself in a dire predicament… The second is that someone will miraculously emerge to take care of you – to lend you money, feed you, put you up for the night, lead you where you want to go. Whatever the situation, dramatic or mundane, some stranger will save you.’

Indeed, I have found myself in most of those situations – both dramatic and mundane – and have been saved countless times.

My first, mundane, yet to this day most memorable experience of this kind was in Helsinki. In an act of teenage foolishness, I arrived in the city with no cash when the banks were closed and the snow heavy. I had a whole day before I was to meet my Helsinki contact.

As I wandered around town with an empty stomach and a heavy backpack, a little old lady approached me at the traffic lights. She wanted to know if I was from New Zealand, and, quite reasonably, what I was doing wandering around in the snow. When I explained my stupidity she took me to a Scouts stall and bought me a big bowl of hot soup. She then took me to the art gallery - she was a retired art teacher - and spent hours leading me around explaining Finnish art movements. When we left the warmth of the gallery, she took me for tea at Café Engel. In one of Helsinki’s oldest buildings we whiled away hours chatting about nothing in particular before she took me to the station to meet my contact.

When we parted ways we exchanged only names; there was no expectation of any recompense, not even a postcard.

I’ll never know what she had planned to do with her day, but I will always be grateful she chose to spend it saving me from my own stupidity. She was the first, now one of many, and undoubtedly not the last.

- Louise Clarke

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