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Skylights.4

Posted by  |  February 27, 2025 | Categories: Netherlands, North Holland & Amsterdam | Tags: | Leave a comment

The Source.4

Ah, the many ways water (source of life, right?) manifests in winter Norway….

Posted by  |  February 26, 2025 | Categories: Norway | Leave a comment

Windows.14

The first time we’ve shown you the outside of Chateau de Vincenne’s lovely cathedral, though in this series we’ve shown you its inside a few times already. 🙂

Posted by  |  February 25, 2025 | Categories: France, Paris | Tags: | Leave a comment

Bridges.24

Another ode to lovely mornings by the Seine to begin…and then to business lol. A few days ago we promised to reveal how many bridges are in that photo from right next to my home in Amsterdam. There are three bridges within the frame of the photo, though in fairness only one of them is easy to discern in the bottom foreground of that photo, given its vantage point. I’ve photographed all three bridges in photos below, now from the perspective of my windows 15 storeys up. For reference, the photo I shared before was taken from the far right side of the first image below, looking towards Sloterplas and the third bridge which you can see below right, i.e. a bit below and left of anything you can see in the first image below. The second bridge is easily visible below left, and the first bridge is on the far right-center of the left-hand photo below, though what you see easily here is just the road surface as it crosses the mini canal en route to that street and construction site to my north. 🙂

Tap or click the individual images below to see them full size, if you want to make more sense of it. And since I’m linking Paris & Amsterdam in one post here and it’s the 750th anniversary of Amsterdam, we’ll do a wee historical ‘did you know?’ By and large NL (and trade-wealthy Amsterdam) managed to remain free of French dominion for hundreds of years, once in fact by purposely flooding fields to keep the ‘Sun King’ out. Only once did they succumb, to iced-over fields and Bonaparte. Who was himself beaten three times later on, first by the self-liberating humans formerly called slaves in Haiti, and then twice a decade and more later, by the English-Austrian-Dutch etc. coalition. Ah, the wheels of history.

Posted by  |  February 24, 2025 | Categories: France, Netherlands, North Holland & Amsterdam, Paris | Tags: , , , , | Leave a comment

Bridges.23

And we’ll wrap up this week of bridges with two posts from Paris, where we began it all. This one’s all from Chateau de Vincennes. Its 700-year-old keep (above, with protective drawbridge) was built here well outside the city limits, at a time when France’s kings were feeling a bit vulnerable after a capture by the English and some demonstrations by angry peasants – most likely about the tendency of France’s wealthy dictatorial hereditary rulers’ tendency to underestimate the difficulty average people faced in feeding their families – near their city palaces.

Posted by  |  February 23, 2025 | Categories: France, Paris | Tags: , , | Leave a comment

Bridges.22

From Bergen op Zoom in NL (last post) to Bergen in Norway as my plane approached just over a month ago above, and as our ship pulled out (below) to begin our journey on up to all the wonderful things I’ve been sharing with you from that Norway cruise. I don’t think these are the same bridge but can’t be sure b/c I wasn’t very well oriented, and they may in fact be the same…

Posted by  |  February 23, 2025 | Categories: Norway | Tags: , | Leave a comment

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Bridges.21

Posted by  |  February 22, 2025 | Categories: Netherlands, Noord Brabant | Tags: | Leave a comment

Bridges.20

Many bridges in Bellinzona; the one above connecting Castello di Montebello’s inner and outer courtyards, also seen in some below along with a few street bridges from my lovely hike between castles that day. If you missed it earlier, do check out our prior post explaining these castles.

Posted by  |  February 22, 2025 | Categories: Switzerland, Ticino | Tags: , , | Leave a comment

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Bridges.19

Posted by  |  February 21, 2025 | Categories: Netherlands, North Holland & Amsterdam | Tags: , , | Leave a comment

Bridges.18

Posted by  |  February 21, 2025 | Categories: Schaffhausen, Switzerland | Tags: , | Leave a comment

Bridges.17

A trio of Centovalli bridges enjoyed during my walk around Camedo back on the lovely sunny afternoon of November 6th, amongst the beautiful memories I carry from that day. 🙂

Posted by  |  February 20, 2025 | Categories: Switzerland, Ticino | Tags: , , | Leave a comment

Bridges.16

And the last shots of another hanging bridge we’ve shared before, this one in the mountains above Zermatt.

Posted by  |  February 20, 2025 | Categories: Valais | Tags: , , , , | Leave a comment

Bridges.15

Last post of the Tibetan footbridge we’ve shown you previously, in the hills above Bellinzona. Anyone with trouble viewing the small circles below: tap or click on the individual photos to see them full size. 🙂

Posted by  |  February 19, 2025 | Categories: Switzerland, Ticino | Tags: | Leave a comment

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Bridges.14

Posted by  |  February 19, 2025 | Categories: France, Paris | Leave a comment

Coasting.124

This is the town of Honningsvåg shortly after 2pm on the afternoon of January 25th, the northernmost port call on our trip at pretty much 70N degrees. I took this shot as our boat began to pull away for the journey to the last port call where Gary & I moved on for our night at the Snow Hotel, in Kirkenes. We’ve shared only one post from Kirkenes so far, but will share more in due course – there were reindeer, sled dogs, ice beds and ice sculptures in the snow hotel and so much more still to come just from that one little border town in farthest-north Norway! From the dock here at Honningsvåg, we boarded a bus for the only formal paid side-trip that we signed up for: by road up to the actual Nordkapp itself, the northernmost point in continental Europe at 71N degrees. We haven’t yet shown you Nordkapp either…but it’s coming, whenever I catch up to it in the blog.
Hugs, and enjoy these views of yet another interesting place in the world. Perhaps enjoy a bit of armchair tourism and dreaming about ways you can also enjoy the world around you, as an antidote to following whatever phone, computer or media alerts might be otherwise pulling you into non-productive feedback loops? The world’s still out (t)here, friends, so do let’s remember to enjoy it :-).

Posted by  |  February 18, 2025 | Categories: Norway | Tags: , , | 1 Comment