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Morning has broken in Stockholm....

And yes it's cold

Those of you travelling to Stockholm this weekend I recommend that you pack something warm and wintry. At first glance it would seem that the weather was similar to London, but it's a good bit colder. Anyone coming from south of Switzerland really be prepared!!!

Plans for today are to try and make some video clips around town, but unlike in previous years, we wont be doing too many tourist things. So many Eurovision travellers have been to Stockholm, often more than once, so the focus really will be on;
1. Where is Globen and what's it like
2. Where is Eurovillage/Eurofancafe/Euroclub and what are they like
3. Where to buy drink :-)

Semifinal results

Andy on Sun, 05/24/2015 - 00:57

01 Russia 182
02 Belgium 149
03 Estonia 105
04 Georgia 98
05 Romania 89
06 Greece 81
07 Armenia 77
08 Hungary 67
09 Serbia 63
10 Albania 62
11 Moldova 41
12 Belarus 39
13 Denmark 33
14 The Netherlands 33
15 Macedonia 28
16 Finland 13

01 Sweden 217
02 Latvia 155
03 Israel 151
04 Norway 123
05 Slovenia 92
06 Cyprus 87
07 Lithuania 67
08 Poland 57
09 Montenegro 57
10 Azerbaijan 53
11 Malta 43
12 Ireland 35
13 Czech Republic 33
14 Portugal 19
15 Iceland 14
16 San Marino 11
17 Switzerland 4

Stift Klosterneuburg

Andy on Sat, 05/23/2015 - 21:11

ESCKAZ team today has visited Stift Klosterneuburg (Klosterneuburg Abbey) which was free with Vienna Pass offered to the press by ESC organizers.

Klosterneuburg Monastery is a twelfth-century Augustinian monastery of the Roman Catholic Church located in the town of Klosterneuburg in Lower Austria. It was founded in 1114 by Saint Leopold III of Babenberg, the patron saint of Austria, and his second wife Agnes of Germany.

The abbey church, dedicated the Nativity of Mary (Maria Geburt), was consecrated in 1136 and later remodeled in the Baroque style in the seventeenth century. The impressive monastery complex was mostly constructed between 1730 and 1834. Its foundations, including a castle tower and a Gothic chapel, date back to the twelfth century. Other older buildings still extant within the complex include the chapel of 1318 with Saint Leopold's tomb.

Klosterneuburg Monastery contains the Verduner Altar, made in 1181 by Nicholas of Verdun. Its three parts comprise 45 gilded copper plates modeled on Byzantine paragons, similar to the Shrine of the Three Kings at Cologne Cathedral. The monastery also contains a museum with a collection of Gothic and Baroque sculpture and a gallery of paintings, including fifteen panel paintings by Rueland Frueauf from 1505, four Passion paintings from the backside of the Verduner Altar from 1331, and the Babenberg genealogical tree /Wikipedia

We took a sacral tour, which lasted for about an hour and included German speaking guide and audio commentary available at different languages including Russian and English.

It included a very short visit to the Collegiate Church with one of the most important organs in Europe (which was unfortunately closed and we could just see insides from the glass walls), the Leopold chapel with the grave of St. Leopold, the world-famous Verdun Altar, the seven-branched candlestick of Agnes and art treasures of the 14th and 15th centuries.

Monastery also contains great shop (highly recommended, so many great religious and other things, souvenirs and memorabilia and Cafe (not recommended).

It was a final and very pleasant sightseeing during our stay in Austria.

You can read more on the website: http://www.stift-klosterneuburg.at/en
Guided tours: http://www.stift-klosterneuburg.at/tourismus/fuehrungsangebot/

Golden Microphone for our Golden boy Mike

Andy on Wed, 05/20/2015 - 09:30

ESCKAZ.com team has awarded the best Eurovision interviewer and our precious team member Mike with the Golden Microphone (with ESCKAZ.com engravering on it). Have a nice trip back, Mike and see you back on Saturday.

From Press-r
From Press-r

Mike says his best interview this year was:

But we think this 40 minutes one was outstanding:

Macedonia throws the party of the year!

What's one of the world's best kept secrets? The hospitality of Macedonia.

Yesterday, the Macedonian embassy and delegation of this year's Eurovision Song Contest invited a selection of Macedonian nationals and press people to build bridges in honour of their candidate Daniel Kajmakoski.

In the wonderful venue Novomatic Forum, filled with tables made of cones lit up in an orange and yellow colour, resembling the colours of the Macedonian flag, the Macedonians threw an amazing party by serving a selection of wonderfully tasty Macedonian wine, one of their best kept secrets easily giving French wine it's run for their money, and a selection of delicious great food. To top it all off, a huge cake with the Macedonian and Austrian flag, was the centre piece of all attention too.

Throughout the night, everyone attending were treated to a selection of music by one of Macedonia's most popular ethno band who performed a set of songs. Eventually this year's Eurovision winner Daniel Kajmakoski, joined them on stage for two songs, before singing an acoustic version of his Eurovision entry 'Autumn Leaves', accompanied by piano only. The crowd went wild and as the videos prove shown below, it was a great night. Bojana Stamenov, the Serbian representative this year, was also present, supporting Daniel during this performance.

Finishing the set, with his X Factor winner single 'Red', a cover sung originally by the Australian Daniel Merriweather, and a special surprise with a brand new video of 'Hold Me Now', a cover of Johnny Logan's winning Eurovision entry, Macedonia treated us to an amazing night of wonderful music, good food and wine and fantastic company.

Thank you to the Macedonian delegation for the amazing party and letting ESCKAZ be part of this magnificent and wonderful celebration.

The SUN IS SHINING.....well it was this morning.....

When we went off on a little trek round the sights and sounds of tourist Vienna

All started very well, at 9.30 a.m. too, there's a first for us two....and in shorts too, the weather could not have been more perfect, sun shining, no sign of the forecast rain anywhere!

Seems that Vienna is a lot bigger than we were all led to believe though, so after 30 minutes walking it was the cheap cop-out and we hopped on the HOP-ON-HOP-OFF tourist bus to take in the main sights....Actually this seemed like the bets option when seeing some of the hordes wondering round the streets....

I guess this old doll (Marie Teresa) seemed to be the most impressive thing we first saw, then it was usual mix of old buildings and various famous streets until we hit the impressive TV tower on the other side of the Danube

Some very esteemed members of the press will be hurling themselves off this in a bungee jump in approx five days time....I think we need to have a "cameras at the ready moment" that day :-D

All in all was a nice day out.....short video clip here; and some more photos underneath that, it tried to rain but now the sun has come out again...#eurovisionbringssunshine