Above, your last shot of those Hajar Mountains over UAE on the Dhaka to Dubai run in September. Below, another of my new form of “in the air”-ness, taken from a gondola high above the valley of the Ticino river on my way to a mid-mountain stop that gave me access to a Tibetan hanging bridge that connected two villages without having to go up or down and around, not too long ago. You can see the shadow of my gondola on the mountainside, plus some of the city of Bellinzona in the center – left. Much more on both the Tibetan Bridge, and Bellinzona and its pivotal role in history, later… 🙂
My last few days in Ticino I moved over to Locarno, at the northernmost part of Lago Maggiore where it’s Swiss. (I showed you a few views from the train of bits of the Italian parts farther south, a while ago.) Above and below middle, you can basically see from Locarno on the NW corner of the lake, to the northeastern corner which means these shots cover maybe half the Swiss parts of this enormous lake.
A bit of the English west coast, I believe (I feel like I remember thinking I might finally see Liverpool from the air, but if anyone who knows the coast better can say different, lmk), as seen from the airplane approaching Amsterdam when I returned from my long US visit earlier this year.
Not a camera error: the shadow versus light being shown past Monte San Salvatore by the setting sun managing to shine past some parts of other mountains south and west. As seen from the waterfront at Campione d’Italia, the exclave of Italy on this segment of Lake Lugano, after that cruise back from Morcote I mentioned in an earlier post :-).
I decided while in Paris that this’ll be my first new series in a while: Bridges. Appropriate, for Paris — but there’s a backstory. These images were all taken my first morning in Paris nearly two weeks ago, when I realized upon waking up that I’d need to get out in order to have tea (no kettle in the room grrr nor even anything available at the hotel at all double grr). Checking my handy Paris guide and my map, I realized there was a well-respected park nearby that I’d never yet been too called Parc de Bercy, so I grabbed my handy go mug and headed out for tea and a stroll (and, of course, a croissant, pain au chocolat and I think even something else…).
Unfortunately I made the wrong turn when I got there, so ended up royally annoyed at the pedestrian-unfriendly entrance and signage b/c I was walking around a big stadium or big walls, looking for an entrance to a park but instead I was on a narrow side walk next to noisy morning traffic on a major artery. When at long last I found my way into the park, I found it as delightful as suggested, and I even found the foot bridge across the Seine – named after Simone de Beauvoir – that you see above. These photos are all taken in the park, from the Passerelle Simon de Beuavoir, or of foot bridges that connected the two parts of the park to each other, over those busy streets.
I’m also happy to highlight infrastructure built for pedestrians first and foremost – usually an afterthought in too many places I’ve lived, and nice to see here, though they could improve their pedestrian-oriented signage up by that major commercial auditorium for us visitors 😊.
(so much world, so little time....) 