CFFC: Bridges to…Adventures

It’s been awhile since I have participated in Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge, but I am back in time to contribute to this week’s bridges!

Point Defiance Park, Tacoma, WA
Budapest, Hungary (over the Danube River)
Looking down from the top of the Melk Abbey, Austria
Regensberg, Germany
Cologne, Germany with its famous cathedral spires in the distance. On this bridge, many lovers had put…
thousands of love locks!
One of many canal bridges, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Pegasus Bridge, Normandy, France

Bridge over the moat at Caen Castle, Normandy, France
Maisons-Alfort, suburb of Paris
Covered bridge in Madison County, Iowa
Des Moines, Iowa

2020 Photo Challenge: Shot From Above

Travel Words’ 2020 Photo Challenge theme for September is “point of view” and for this final week, the subject is shoot from above.

Looking down on Maasai villages from prop plane flying from Serengeti National Park to Arusha, Tanzania
Plane ride Serengeti-Arusha, Tanzania
Hotel room balcony view, Old Cataract Hotel, Aswan, Egypt
Ruins of Roman settlement during the siege of Masada, from Masada plateau, Israel
Looking down from the courtyard behind the abbey atop Mont St-Michel, France
Looking down on the Rhine River from Marksburg Castle in Germany
Looking down on hoodoos from the Rim Trail at Bryce Canyon National Park, Utah
A trail we chose to view from above rather than hike down! Bryce Canyon NP, Utah

Castle Perspectives

A castle on a hill…sounds dreamy, doesn’t it? And to us modern tourists, seeing one castle after another on the Rhine River is a dream come true – we admire their beauty and their history. Castles were built not just as residences for royalty, but fortifications against invading enemies. Positioning them on hilltops above a river (which would have been the main form of transportation in medieval times) was meant to be imposing; they were symbols of power and strength; a hilltop position provided a view up and down the river, to spot adversaries from afar. (Although note that one of the castles in this gallery is actually right ON the river, not far above it.) Many castles were dark, damp places, fires burning for warmth in only a few rooms.

Thinking about these castles from that perspective takes some of the glamor away. Even so, they are worthy of admiration. One of them – Marksburg Castle (the white one with red trim – 2nd and 3rd photos) – we were able to tour, but I would have loved to explore some of the others. What is amazing is that these structures have been standing for centuries – they were built to last and of course many of them have undergone significant renovations.

Although Americans are amazed to see and visit these representations of centuries of European history (since we have nothing either as old or as symbolic of feudal society), I suppose people who are used to seeing them all the time don’t think about their history and probably take them for granted. Another perspective, I guess.

Posted for Becky’s July Square Perspectives photo challenge, day 24.

Square Perspective 23: Inside a Lock

On our “Grand European Tour” river cruise last summer, we went through a total of 63 locks! I guess many of them were at night, but we also experienced going down and up in locks quite often in the daytime also. This was my perspective (taken from the balcony of our stateroom) of descending into a lock.

At this point all was darkness inside the lock; the scant light illuminated only a spider!