One great thing on my recent trip to Dortmund was getting to all the puzzles that I hadn’t seen for four months. I had forgotten so much of what was there that it was almost like getting 100+ new puzzles all at once 🙂 This is the first one I did, and it was lovely.
At first, I thought Villa Como was a reference to the famous lake Como, but then I realized that the artist is called Como, so that’s probably the explanation.
I loved every minute of this! I like doing water, and there’s plenty of that here. Also, I like the panorama format.
There were two extra pieces from some other puzzle(s). They look like Clementoni pieces. I got this puzzle in a large lot of about 40, and there are plenty of Clementonis in there, so perhaps I’ll be able to repatriate these two yet 🙂
This is a poster from a 1935 Marlene Dietrich movie called The Devil is a Woman. I actually have the DVD and watched it while working on the puzzle. I didn’t like the movie the first time around, and it was no better now. I found the story misogynistic in the extreme, not because Dietrich played an unscrupulous woman who charmed men to get money out of them, but because it was portrayed as perfectly natural that an infatuated man would try to use his money to control her, and then beat her when it failed. I mean, that poor man, what else could he do? Bleh.
Anyway, the puzzle was nice, although the fan-thing (the movie was set in Spain) behind her head was pretty hard. I’m glad it wasn’t any bigger 🙂 And yes, Marlene Dietrich was supposed to be Spanish.
I think this is the Bow Bridge in Central Park, New York. There was a bit too much vegetation for my taste in this puzzle, what I enjoyed most was the water 🙂
Fantasy image with waterfall and two unicorns. You can hardly see them in the photo, but I could see them clearly, I just couldn’t get a better photo. Not my favourite image of all time, but I’ll do pretty much any 500-piece Ravensburger and enjoy it 🙂
This was fun, but a bit more difficult than I had imagined. It’s from a museum gift shop, although I bought it second hand, but still unopened. There is no indication who actually made the puzzle, but the quality is OK. The pieces are sturdy enough, but it’s fairly easy to place pieces wrong. Unfortunately, almost all the pieces had the basic shape with two tabs opposite, with only a few pieces where one side is a wave.
The image is a painting by Finnish 19th Century artist Gunnar Berndtson, and the dress is definitely 18th Century. The Louvre opened to the public as a museum in 1793 (care of the revolution), but it housed the royal collections and resident artists since the late 17th Century, so the scene may be intended as happening before 1793. These guys are definitely not dressed like revolutionaries 🙂 I like their relaxed poses.
The box doesn’t show the whole image, the actual puzzle goes further down.
I would love to know what painting they’re looking at 😀
Nice enough 500-pieces Ravensburger with an image of the Taj Mahal. One piece missing, unfortunately. I can’t find much to say about this one 🙂
An Alpine landscape, one of the most typical puzzle images in Europe since at least the ’70s, probably longer. I enjoyed the sky and the rock, but, as usual, I wasn’t crazy about the vegetation. This puzzle has been done many times before, it was pretty worn, as you can see.
So, guess where I am? That’s right, I’m finally back in Dortmund. I flew in yesterday, on a flight with only about 20 people and walked through two ghostly airports. I’ll return to Helsinki in a week, and then I’ll have to quarantine for 14 days. I already prepared by buying plenty of supplies, and I’ll bring fresh fruit and vegetables from Germany. When I did this puzzle in April I had no idea when I would be able to get to Dortmund, and I was feeling rather wistful.
Anyway, the puzzle was easier than I expected, and so much fun.
I did the border first, then the water in the north (there’s not much of it, compared to Finland) and the neighbouring countries (all white). I was expecting the rest to be difficult, but the background colour helped quite a lot, it was green in the lower regions in the north and more brown/yellow in the mountains in the south.
Along the border, there are the coats of arms of the states with size and the state capital. Below is the coat of arms of North Rhine-Westphalia, not the biggest state but by far the most populous. The capital is Düsseldorf, although the biggest city (and the only one with over a million inhabitants) is Cologne (Köln in German). Dortmund is the third-largest city in NRW.
There’s also a small map with the states and capitals.
Here’s a close-up of the area I know best. Many times I have flown to Düsseldorf and taken a train that first goes north to Duisburg, then turns east towards Dortmund over Essen and Bochum. I did this yesterday, for the first time in four months.
I loved this puzzle and will definitely keep it to do again.
Puzzler1909 