Above, the view as we pulled away from Ålesund, which of course is Møre og Romsdal county’s largest city. Below, everything else we still have from that lovely little city :-).
A selection of entrancy photos from various parts of Ticino on my visit there more than 5 months ago. I need to accept that I’ll never get all those photos posted…
In this entry, royal dungeons from the oldest portion of the keep at the Chateau de Vincennes — since, as the tour notes below indicate, when one has a hereditary absolute ruler who is thus also the final arbiter of justice, that hereditary absolute ruler must have a dungeon in which to lock up those whom he deems out of line with the laws that he created. This particular dungeon saw some famous prisoners such as the Marquis de Sade during that highly unstable first French revolution, when France went in the course of about 15 years from absolute monarchy to various phases of pretty vindictive and murderous republic, back to empire once Napoleon decided he like the absolute-monarchy idea after all, then finally after Waterloo (nope, not just an Abba song) back to the house of Bourbon with the “Bourbon Restoration,” for its own last hereditary-royalty hurrah prior to the various other revolutions, empires and republics that tried to govern France over the course of the 1800’s. France is a repository of so many lessons on how to do or not do governance, should once choose to study it or even, crazy notion, learn from it and apply lessons :-).
I probably share too many of these wonderful views of my local lake and park, but when the simple act of looking out one’s windows, or taking a stroll around the block, can give one such lovely views…it’d be wrong to not enjoy and share, eh? 🙂
A few of you may notice the signature finial that ornaments the front of my home city’s lovely Concertgebouw, hidden away to the left side of this photo. From a walk to the a concert there in early September last year; and since I’m using up my last A’dam 24 photos, below just a last two from my own neighborhood that caught my eye in 2024.
Yes, this sapling protector in my local park bears a crown design and the name of NL’s current monarch, King William Alexander. Don’t ask me why. If I had to guess, I’d say maybe the sapling itself was planted in 2013, when he took on the role after his mom abdicated and left him holding the crown?
(so much world, so little time....) 