An Autumn Holiday

We broke our "tradition" of celebrating our anniversary this year with a visit to Australia's capital, Canberra, instead of our perennial favourite Melbourne. After a "lacklustre" memory of my last trip to Canberra more than six years ago, it was time for a reassessment, if I could remember much from my previous trip at all. The other reason was to visit the Turner to Monet exhibition being held at the National Art Gallery, which has been recommended by more than a couple of friends, speaking of which the inspiration of the previous visit was also a Monet Exhibition which I visited with my flatmate then.

Canberra is a smaller city in comparison to Sydney and Melbourne, and unfortunately, there isn't too much to do in terms of tourists attractions except the Parliament, Museum and Art Galleries. It is primarily a place where government officials and embassies congregate, so there isn't too much development to the city or perhaps a need to attract tourists to this city. The good thing about this though is that there is less overcrowding of people, buildings and apartments leaving plenty of space for national parks and beautiful gardens and walkways.

It was a perfect time to visit Canberra and stroll through the Autumn colours, so beautifully represented with their gorgeous flaming red and bright yellow trees and their fallen leaves peppered along the streets. Beautiful as this sight, and as interesting as Parliament House is, there is little much else to visit in Canberra. Shopping is sparse and their Brand Depot, a factory outlet of supposedly famous brands abysmal, I was looking forward to discover a different Canberra in my mind, which unfortunately never eventuated.

Thankfully, the exhibition was excellent even though I am not a big fan of impressionist art, which made up only a fraction of the artwork presented. My favourite segments were the paintings that presented human behaviour during that period. I was intrigued by how the focus on these art pieces changed over time. Human behaviour was presented quite prominently in the early 1800s by some of these artists, which moved onto landscape as these artists ventured further away from their "comfort zones" of their towns, onto beaches, seas, volcanoes, and then back towards the simpler things in life, back to their home surroundings and gardens. There were only a handful of paintings of human study, which could be a representation of the times where little information flowed from one town to another, and these paintings were used as a form of communication about what people in the other towns and cities did. Note that this is just my interpretation based on what was presented and what little I know of art (which is practically zilch), but this was what I walked away with from the exhibition.

It is always the company that counts, no matter where we are or what we do, and John put it well that the best thing about the trip was spending the time together. We did make sure that we made up for the shopping disappointment with a really lovely dinner, hotel breakfast and luxurious accommodation. We also took opportunities to take many silly and fun photos of ourselves, making full use of the Autumn beauty of Canberra. It was a overall, a nice getaway but it will definitely be a long time again before we pay another visit to Canberra.