Photo of the Week--11/7/11

More things framed by other things! And all of the things are shiny! And all of the things inside one of my favorite, favorite things in the world! Yes, these lovely stained-glass windows and painted ceilings are framed by lovely marble columns inside the bestest of best places: the U.S. Library of Congress. A library! With shiny shiny pretties in addition to all the books you could ever want! No wonder I'm getting carried away with the exclamation points!

Photo of the Week--9/26/11

Oh, right, I was also looking for architectural things that caught my eye on this go-round of vacation photos, and it doesn't get much more interesting than Frank Lloyd Wright. This, of course, is his famous building for the Guggenheim Museum in New York City, which we visited in the fall of 2003. I love that except for one guy probably getting his own picture taken and thus imposing himself on my picture, the place looks deserted. In reality, it was pretty busy, with lots of people enjoying the selection of Impressionists and 20th-century artists. Or not enjoying, depending on your taste for weird art. In any case, it was fun to look up and down the spiral "staircase."

Photo of the Week--6/6/11

Madrid is a city that knows how to light its landmarks. Ironically enough, this is the Fuente del Sol ("Fountain of the Sun," but it sure looks great at night!

Photo of the Week--5/30/11

Now that's what I call an airport with a view. It's a very small airport on Gibraltar, but I bet it's easy enough for pilots to find, being at the very southernmost tip of Europe with a giant rock at the end of the runway. Spending four years overseas and taking advantage of to travel, we certainly saw a lot of different airports, and this was one of our favorites.

Photo of the Week--5/23/11

Shiny! Those Europeans, they sure know how to gilt it up. During a lovely New Year's trip to Vienna, we stopped at the Natural History Museum, which opened in 1889. It has a great collection of dinosaur skeletons, among other cool things, and is housed in this lovely building erected specifically to hold the vast collection of the Hapsburgs. Of course, being Europe and being the late 19th century, you had to have the awesome gilt ceilings! We stopped for a snack and I looked up and snapped this photo. I'm not sure how high up the ceilings are—high enough that I wouldn't have wanted to do the artwork!

Photo of the Week--5/16/11

Nighttime, lights, water, reflections: all things I love when I'm taking a photo. This one was during our trip to Budapest, Hungary, back in fall of 2001. The Chain Bridge is a major landmark of the city, bridging the two parts split by the Danube, and at night I couldn't resist the lovely sight of it glowing over the river.

Photo of the Week--5/2/11

Okay, I want my next house to have a room like this one: crystal chandelier, mosaic floor, marble walls, gilt-covered wainscoting. This is the Pavilion Room in the Hermitage, the Russian State Museum in St. Petersburg. Besides this gorgeous room (and others), the Hermitage has an amazing art collection with some 20 works by Rembrandt alone, as well as Renaissance masters, Impressionists, and all sorts of fun stuff. Of course, it was so crowded when we visited there during our Baltic Cruise that we didn't get very long looks at them, but it was still a great trip.

Photo of the Week--4/25/11

So I discovered that not only did Jean Sibelius write one of my favorite pieces of music (his 2nd Symphony), but he also had this gorgeous house outside Helsinki. He named Ainola, it after his wife Aino, and had it designed with a study facing a lake. We were there in the summer, as you can probably tell from all the lovely sunshine and green. Some days I'd like one of these little writing retreats in the middle of nowhere (but not too far from somewhere).

Photo of the Week--4/11/11

Here's something architecturally interesting ... a tower with no stairs! The Rundetarn in Copenhagen, Denmark, was built in the 17th century as an astronomical tower. I don't know why they built a spiral ramp instead of stairs—perhaps to make it easier to deliver the telescope—but it made for a fun trip upstairs, especially with little hidey-holes along the way, perfectly sized for a Boy to jump out and scare people.

Photo of the Week--4/4/11

Now, I'm not a huge fan of climbing things—my knees are too troublesome to enjoy it for long—but I do love a good aerial shot. This is of the Stadhuis (Town Hall) in Delft, the Netherlands. I'm guessing it's taken from the vantage of the top of the Nieuwe Kirk ("New Church"), "new" being a relative term as the building was finished in the late 15th century. The building is a hodgepodge of styles, as it was built and rebuilt over the years. I like the contrasting colors in the shot—the orange and grey roofs, the red shutters on the stone building. It makes for a nice pop of color on an otherwise colorless day, something you learn to appreciate after enough winters in Michigan.

Photo of the Week--3/14/11

Venice is a lovely city, especially so when you get to visit and leave your kid behind, as we did in September of 2000. There's the lovely Mediterranean weather, the canals, the haphazard appearance of the buildings, and the different bridges. This one, the Ponte Tre Archi ("bridge of three arches," duh), was so intriguing I wanted to go back and forth and back through each passageway. I guess that's why they don't let the tourists drive the gondolas, though.

Photo of the Week--3/7/11

We traveled around England quite a bit during the summer of 2000, and Canterbury was a great place to visit. The historical cathedral, with the memorial to the matryrdom of Thomas a Becket; a Canterbury Tales attraction with re-creations of the 14th century; and this lovely building, one of my favorite kinds of places in the world: a library! We didn't see this style of building as often as you might think, because these lovely wooden facings are susceptible to fire damage. London suffered a huge fire in 1666, so there aren't many lovely wooden buildings like this any more. Just one more reason to enjoy our trip to Canterbury.

Photo of the Week--2/14/10

I'd almost forgotten about this quirky little architectural detail in the town of Freiburg, Germany, which we visited in the summer of 2000. There were these little canals running throughout the town, and Boy was utterly fascinated. I barely got him to stop playing around them to take this picture, and for months—and I do mean MONTHS—afterward all he could talk about were his plans to put a canal in our garden, in the front yard, at school, at Grandma's house. It's strange, the things your kids get obsessed about that occupy your conversations for months on end, and that you later forget about. But Boy definitely went through a "canal engineer" phase, a major part of his sojourn through the "Age of Lego."

Photo of the Week--2/7/10

When we passed by St. John's Hospital, now a museum, in the beautiful city of Bruges, Belgium, I couldn't resist this picture. The hospital dates at least to 1188, when it was more a hostel for pilgrims that took in the occasional non-contagious sick person. I'm guessing that back then the water levels in the canal were a lot lower than they are today, judging by the half-doors and incomplete arches just above the water line. Or else there are aquatic people living in Bruges who walk along the floor of the river to their underwater houses, where they live in harmony with their air-breathing friends.

Photo of the Week--1/24/11

I thought this photo was particularly apropos this week because Tunisia has been in the news because of its recent revolution and I figure not a lot of Americans know much about the country except that they filmed bits of Star Wars there. Maybe you know Tunisia is on the north coast of Africa, that part that sticks out  in the Mediterranean towards Sicily and Malta; it's less likely you know that Tunisia was once part of the Roman Empire. This photo is of the amphitheatre at El Djem, which dates from about 3rd century AD and held about 35,000 spectators. The Colosseum at Rome only held 10,000 more, and El Djem's floor is in better shape (meaning it has a floor).

We visited in February 2000, and we got the feeling that they didn't get a lot of American tourists there (plenty of European tourists, especially from Germany, but not Americans). During our "safari" to El Djem and the natural beauties in the south (including the Sahara), TSU remembers having lots of conversations with our guide, who was curious about American-style democracy. We had a great visit there and the people were friendly and accommodating to our group, and I wish them success in creating a more open government.

Photo of the Week--1/17/11

This was just too cool not to feature on the blog: the Prague Orloj, or Astronomical Clock. First of all, it's scientific, with one dial showing the position of the sun and the moon in the sky, along with other astronomical details. Second, it's historic: the first part built around 1410, with a calendar dial added around 1490 and moving statues of the Apostles sometime in the 17th century. Third, it's shiny! Beautiful design, gold details, just pretty to look at. And it managed to survive Nazi shelling during the Prague Uprising of 1945, although several portions had to be repaired. And last, of course, we saw it and took pictures! It's part of Prague's Old Town City Hall and by visiting in January low season, we got a shot without tons of tourists in it. Hope you enjoy it too.

Photo of the Week--12/27/10

This building in Lucerne, Switzerland, was just cool: the Wasserturm ("water tower") in the middle of the Kapellbrücke (Chapel Bridge). The Kapellbrücke was built in the 14th century to help defend Lucerne from attacks, and is the oldest wooden covered bridge in Europe. The water tower is 140 feet tall and made of brick, so it has served not only as a water tower but as watch tower, treasury, and torture chamber (oooo!). A lot of European buildings have such interesting backgrounds just by virtue of existing for centuries, but we thought this one was extra intriguing. A tower! In the middle of a bridge! In the middle of a river! No wonder it's one of Switzerland's most popular tourist attractions.

Photo of the Week--11/29/10

I chose this picture of the Palais de Chaillot, on the site of the former Trocadero Palace, because I liked how wild the fountains were. We were there on a sunny spring day, but it wasn't that warm, so I don't know why they had the large fountains spewing mist all over everything. It still made for a pretty picture ... although that didn't require much skill, as most pictures taken in Paris are pretty.

Photo of the Week--11/22/10

Barcelona, what a beautiful city! Many of its sights were designed by the architect Antonio Gaudí, including the extraordinary cathedral known as the Sagrada Familia ("Holy Family"). Even from a distance, it's a striking  sight, with its conical towers reaching into the sky. I took this close-up because I was fascinated by the detail work, which covers the entire building. I especially liked the colors of the stained glass.

Photo of the Week--11/8/10

So many fountains in Rome ... so lots of opportunities to get shots like this one, with the Pantheon in the back.  I liked the lighting and how it made the features of the sculptures stand out in relief (those teeth!), with the huge columns of the Pantheon gently glowing in the background. We took this trip in early 1999, when Boy was almost five, and we were traveling with my parents and my grandmother, who was making her first trip to Europe at age 83. It was the end of a long day traveling from Florence, so Boy took a nap with his grandparents while TSU and I had a nice relaxing drink at a cafe by the side of the Pantheon. This wonderful  view from our table was the icing on the cake of having a little time to ourselves in a beautiful city.