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Urban Canals.164

Evening sun warming Ghent’s impressive riverfront buildings after a day of mostly cloud and drizzle, back in early March.

Urban Garden.194

Late March sunset at museumplein. The days’ll be much longer by the time I get back to A’dam next week 🙂

City Views.224

Last shots from Geneva, til our next visit: the number of mountain shots I’ve amassed on this current visit in the US means I need no longer retain any of these lovely alp shots for future entries in that series 🙂

Urban Entrances.124

The lone gate of Haarlem’s old city walls that still stands is the Amsterdamse Poort (A’dam gate, originally named the Spaarnwouderpoort or Spaarnwouder Gate) and dating to the late 14th and early 15th centuries. One bikes right past this when one bikes over from my place to meet a friend for lunch in Haarlem, as I did on this particular day…

Ah, Royalty.24

Apples did indeed once rule in lovely Sebastopol, but these days the noble wine grape has become both Queen and King. Still, the annual Apple Blossom Festival parade draws a good crowd and many floats, which we’ll be showing you in future posts 🙂

Mountains.34

During my recent stay in California, I got as far north as central Mendocino County when I spent two glorious nights off-network or wifi at all-natural Orr Hot Springs. I took the coast road up from Sonoma County, but cut over to Ukiah and the freeway for the trip back. This photo is from the crest of the coast range west of Ukiah, and if you look closely above or below you will see what I’m 99% confident are the snow-capped east and west peaks of Snow Mountain (which we’ve shown you before), more or less E-NE of this spot. Both peaks are well over 2,100 meters (7,000 feet) high, and it’s good to see at least a bit of snow at that elevation this late in the season.

City Views.223

Urban Entrances.123

County Views.133

City & County of SF in the foreground; Marin County on the far side of the GG Bridge, and bits of at least Alameda & Contra Costa counties on the eastern side of the bay (top right).

Urban Canals.163

Urban Garden.193

I wandered through a lovely string of parks our first morning in Ghent, as Steve slept off some of his jet lag. He’d commented that the countryside looked mighty wet from the airplane as he approached Amsterdam; I explained that it had rained every day between about October and January, not always a lot but really (or nearly) every single day. By his arrival, the rain had reduced in frequency and volume, but as you’ll below, mud and standing water were everywhere. On the bright side, when I first approached this pond, I thought those were a real flock of naturalized parrots but in fact they’re colorful wooden parrots perched there to appeal to the children who’d be playing here on a clearer day no doubt.

Coasting.93

Tomales Bay, with Point Reyes Peninsula on the other side and its mouth to Bodega Bay to the right in the second photo below. For those who don’t know the region: the San Andreas Fault runs right down the middle of this bay, and the peninsula is measurably moving away from the shore from which I took the photo by inches each year. 🙂