The Full Story
About Kelvin, Margaret and Sol and snow globe collecting
Living a few minutes from a regional UK airport has many advantages for cheap travel and we have been on many short trips around Europe at various times of the years (for most of the last16 years restricted to school holidays).
Wherever we visit including in the UK, we like to collect souveniers and in particular snow globes to remind us of these special places and experiences. This website and occasional blog shows some of our hundreds of snow globes and looks at them in detail placing them in perspective to the places they represent around Europe
The Lisbon 25 de Abril Bridge (Ponte 25 de Abril), crossing the Tagus river taken from the The Sanctuary of Christ the King as I try and get the hang of a selfi-stick. The snow globe below shows the Sanctuary Christ Tower in the dome and the bridge on the side of the base.
We do have some basic rules in our snow globe collecting
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We must have visited or at least seen what is in the globe - so we cant just buy up globes of other places which might just be in a shop in another town. If we go to Nice we must have seen the fantastic Negresco Hotel on the sea front before we can actually purchase a globe containing the Negresco.
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We limit our purchases to a couple of key globes to remind us of our particular visit. So when we go to Barcelona which has many different times of globes we dont buy up the lot all at once but limit ourselves to 1 or 2. But if we go to Barcelona again at a later date we can buy a couple more - our aim is not to get the maximum number of snow globes possible to fill our house but the most relelvant to that particular visit.
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We need the globe to show the name of the place on it, though sometimes the design may make it obvious where the globe represents so is ok to add to our collection.
We go on our trips to see new places and revisit old ones
To get winter sunshine as an alternative to UK cold and rain.
To visit football grounds and go to matches - Sol
To get away and have adventures
To expand our minds and experiences
And to add to our snow globe collection
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The steps to Bellver Castle in Palma and a snow globe of the castle
Why snow globes? Going around souvenier shops has always been a fundamental part of our holidays especially at night when the shop windows are lit up by the products for sale. We have collected float pens (now sadly nearly extinct in souvenier shops), Alfa Romeo model cars (I once owned four life size ones in a row), local pottery and fridge magnets. But our main memento of choice has always been the snow globe.
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We dont just buy em up. Part of the holiday expereince is wandering around the various shops looking for the best of the selection to purchase (we limit ourselves to a few per holiday). Sometimes that is easy, Murcia in Spain has only 2 souvenier shops and one globe design of the cathedral, whilst Barcelona and Nice have lots to choose from.
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The globes themselves like any souvenier remind us of our holiday and maybe specific moments within. They are like 3 dimensional photographs. There is a certain magic about these encased little worlds and locations. There is no incgongruity seeing a representation of a warm place encased in a snow covered dome.
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Globes just happen to be usually inexpensive, small and portable, the safe wrapping up in the suitcase involves some forward planning like bringing a box and protective bubble wrap, we have not lost one yet. Its surprising how quickly they start adding up into a collection.