Hamburg

Urban Entrances.88

July 23, 2023 | Categories: Germany, Hamburg | Leave a comment

Urban Entrances.81

So this rather differently-styled entrance is to the church noted in a previous post as Northern Germany’s largest baroque protestant church. What I’d never tuned into was just how very baroque and old-style some of those early protestants could be. For example, I blithely assumed it was a catholic church because when I was growing up, the only place you saw an actual body on the cross in the sanctuary was in catholic churches. Similarly, I don’t usually see such dramatic renditions of Archangel Michael (after whom this church is named) trampling Satan as one sees in the statues above this main entrance. Eek, eh? All this imagery of trampling, taming, binary good-evil simplifications of complex realities and so on leaves an unpleasant taste in my mouth, tbh, so I’ma just pop all my remaining pics of this particular building in this one post and move on to other views in our future HH posts 😊.

20230630_104921 — So this rather differently-styled entrance is to the church noted in a previous post as Northern Germany’s largest baroque protestant church. What I’d never tuned into was just how very baroque and old-style some of those early protestants could be. For example, I blithely assumed it was a catholic church because when I was growing up, the only place you saw an actual body on the cross in the sanctuary was in catholic churches. Similarly, I don’t usually see such dramatic renditions of Archangel Michael (after whom this church is named) trampling Satan as one sees in the statues above this main entrance. Eek, eh? All this imagery of trampling, taming, binary good-evil simplifications of complex realities and so on leaves an unpleasant taste in my mouth, tbh, so I’ma just pop all my remaining pics of this particular building in this one post and move on to other views in our future HH posts 😊.

July 18, 2023 | Categories: Germany, Hamburg | Leave a comment

Image

City Views.190

July 16, 2023 | Categories: Germany, Hamburg | Leave a comment

City Views.189

On HH’s waterfront, with HH’s city flag to the left :-).

July 14, 2023 | Categories: Germany, Hamburg | Leave a comment

Urban Entrances.79

Exact same archway-entrance as our last post in this series, but turned around to look at HH’s St. Michaelis Kirche, which the guidebook tells is Northern Germany’s largest baroque protestant church.

July 13, 2023 | Categories: Germany, Hamburg | 1 Comment

Urban Canals.139

Turns out that once you start looking for them, you’ll find urban canals and rivers in many cities other than Amsterdam, including this lovely little waterway that connects Hamburg’s Alster to it’s busily-trafficked shipping river, the Elbe, en route flowing past its dramatic city hall (seen here).

July 12, 2023 | Categories: Germany, Hamburg | 1 Comment

Urban Entrances.78

We spent a few nights and days in Hamburg with friends last week, enjoying lovely ballet performances at night and the sights of the city during the day.

July 5, 2023 | Categories: Germany, Hamburg | 1 Comment

Image

City Views.41

November 5, 2021 | Categories: Germany, Hamburg | 1 Comment

Clearly, I fly a great deal. And clearly, I like to look out the window, dream, and see the world from a new vantage point. At left: the salt-evaporating ponds full of bacteria along the shores of San Francisco Bay, shortly before landing in April. Below: Hamburg and its major harbor along the Elbe, shortly after takeoff in September. In the three galleries lower down: more of the lovely colorful salty ponds plus a few shots from a late-May flight into SFO when sky was clear enough to see over the peninsular mountains to the Pacific Ocean; more of Hamburg as well as clouds above London and easternmost England, later on that flight; and then a trio taken while flying into SFO again from Dallas, in September. And at the very bottom, a large photo showing both some salt ponds near San Jose, as well as the mountains on the peninsula and the sky over the Pacific Ocean at sunset. There are reasons I’m always happy when I fly home to the Bay Area :-).

December 5, 2019 | Categories: California, England, Germany, Hamburg, London, SF Bay Area, United States | Tags: elbe river, hamburg harbor, salt-evaporation ponds sf bay | 4 Comments

Ahhhh, Springtime in Northern Europe

So at this moment, smw slt has actually been in one region (the NYC area) for eight nights! That means, as I sat in a lovely NY Philhmarmonic Ensembles chamber recital yesterday and let the music soothe out the kinks of my scattered psyche, that I could count back the Sundays and realized I’d actually gone to bed the prior Sunday in the same rough location as where I’d be going to bed last night. And that’s a big deal since I’d woken up each of the prior several Sundays in at least different countries and more often than not on different continents. And that, my friends, does get old fast. 🙂 That said, there are clearly joys to travel and they include both seeing old friends and meeting new ones, as well of course as having one’s sense of the possible expanded. After two years in the tropics of PNG, I found myself utterly captivated by northern Europe in spring. I also found myself captivated by the grand buildings, the flat fields, the old brickwork and lovely metal and stonework adorning so many buildings. And I was delighted by the freedom and safety to walk or bike at will, at sunrise or sunset and all hours of the day, through the fields and along the streets. In this entry you’re seeing a bunch of shots from the fields and streets around where I was visiting friends in East Frisia & Schlewsig-Holstein in Germany, plus a few urban scenes from Hamburg where I also spent a wee period. It does all look rather different from, say, Port Moresby or the highlands around Tari? Hard to really believe that phase of my life is now wrapped up…
r