I thought this snap of a Zurich church steeple behind the leaveless winter trees looked pretty artistic,
Amazing futuristic city in the Camargue – 7
Continuing the series, one of the best ways to view the city is not from within the city itself, but from a distance:
Amazing roadside cathedral in Schwyz
Continuing the series, the magnificent Swiss canton of Schwyz has marvels that could easily cause the eyeballs of outsiders to explode, as this snap of a roadside cathedral shows:
Amazing futuristic city in the Camargue – 6
Continuing the series, I am quite glad I decided to publish these snaps one at a time. Each of them are so intensely amazing, if you were see more than one, there is a very real danger that your brain would explode!
Within the futuristic city I don’t know if I would go so far as to say there are thousands of buildings like this, but it is no exaggeration to say there are zillions of them at least, if not many more!
Winter sunrise in the Berner Oberland
The view from my apartment one cold winter morning, when I lived in the Berner Oberland:
The highest peak doesn’t look like it is the highest but it is. That’s the peak in the center, and it is around 4100 m high.
The amazing Swiss canton of Schwyz
Switzerland has only amazing, magnificent cantons, and the canton of Schwyz is no exception:
Aigues-Mortes – 4
Continuing the series, here he is, the only French King to be declared a Catholic saint, on display in a prominent square in the city: Saint Louis, IX or a statue in his honor at least. He’s the fellow that started not just one but two Crusades, where hoards of marauding Christians marched into Jerusalem, in an attempt to re-capture it from the Moors.
Pullman Coach on the Glacier Express
There is a wonderful train – some might call it a luxury train, although I’d stop just a bit short of saying that – that runs through the south of Switzerland, from St. Moritz to Montreux.
Passengers sit in honest-to-goodness Pullman coaches, like this one shown here:
To be sure, it’s hard to imagine a more uncomfortable ride – the seats are fancy but hail from the days before the term ergonomics was in common use.
One of the wonderful fringe benefits of having a first class railcard (a so-called GA) for the Swiss Federal Railways is that you can take magnificent railway journey such as this, as often as you like, with no extra fees!
Amazing futuristic city in the Camargue – 5
Continuing the series, when you walk around the city, all the amazing futuristic sights almost make your brain explode!
Wooden family
No unusual sight for travellers to Sargans,
Aigues-Mortes – 3
Continuing the series, here is another snap that – if you look carefully through the doorway – shows how truly enormous the walls are:
Note: normally I do no post-processing of my images except for a bit of cropping – but in this case I used a iPhone app called SLRWT to straighten up the curved sides a bit, which anyway is just an artifact of having a spherical lense.
Camargue in the Winter
Amazing futuristic city in the Camargue – 4
Continuing the series, here is yet another snap that shows the magnificence of the city:
More amazing fishing boats in the Camargue
Continuing the series, here is a another view of the harbor in Camargue filled with fishing boats:
One of the truly most impressive things about Provence is the clear air and especially the intense sunlight on the horizon during the winter. Maybe one reason so many famous artists like Van Gogh relocated here?
Church in the Kirchenburg
Continuing the series, this is the inside of the church,
The castle in Bulle
Continuing the series, here is a very artistic snap of the castle in the western Swiss town of Bulle:
Aigues-Mortes – 2
Continuing the series, here is a snap that shows just how huge and imposing the walls of this medieval city are:
Amazing futuristic city in the Camargue – 3
Continuing the series, this snap gives a bit of the flavor of what it looks like in the city itself where – according to law – each structure with more than 1 story must look like an ancient Mesopotamian Zigurrat:
Amazing flamingos in the Camargue – 2
Continuing the series, there are people who’s passion is wildlife photography. I am not one of those people, but nevertheless I can never resist the chance to take a snap of a pink flamingo when I see one:
Garbage in Liguria
Continuing the series, I took this snap in the Ligurian coastal city of La Spezia,
I think people often don’t stop and think about sights like this. Each country – and quite often, each region within a country – makes a slightly different decision about what it finds worthwhile to recycle. What I find particularly appealing is the first container on the right – the yellow one. The city is collected used plastic and metal containers. Sadly, there is no way for me in Switzerland to separate out my used plastic and metal containers
Amazing train station infobooth
France is world-famous for its information booths at their train stations, proudly labelled with the French word Accueil (Accueil is a French word that can be translated as out of order or not staffed). Although not technically useful for any purpose, they are like museum-type displays of what a working information booth would look like, if in fact it were staffed.
Switzerland is a bit different. Here the train stations all have working information booths, staffed by very knowledgeable people. This is a stunning architectural example of an information booth towering high above the main train station in Luzern:
Amazing futuristic city in the Camargue – 2
Continuing the series, here is a stunning, artistic snap of what has to number among the world’s most futuristic cities:
Aigues-Mortes – 1
A few years ago I stumbled quite accidentally across the medieval walled city of Aigues-Mortes, located in the Camargue region of southern France. I posted a few snaps of what it looks like inside the walls.
I recently returned, and now I’d like to share a few snaps of what it looks like outside of the walls.
One of the most impressive things about the city is that it is located directly on canals that lead to the Mediterranean Sea, and in fact some of these canals divert the water into moats, as this snap shows:
Strange Things – 1
Every once in a while I encounter something strange and can’t identify it or its purpose – despite a bit of online investigation.
Here’s a good example. I took this snap just outside of the medieval walled village of Aigues-Mortes in the Camargue region of southern France:
No writing on it. Facing away from the parked cars – or else I’d naively think it is some type of electric charging station. The oval bit in the middle looks to be a cover with a hinge, but there is no obvious way to open it. Even Google Images could not help me out.
Luzern Locomotive
I thought this pretty snap on a chilly winter’s morning was quite artistic, showing a locomotive of the Re460 class parked in front of the control center at the main train station in Luzern:
