Bikes, Bridges and Beautiful Brick Buildings

Amsterdam is one of the most picturesque cities I have ever visited. It's where a point-and-shoot camera meets a point-it-anywhere cityscape to record delightful visual images. The whole country of Holland is also almost completely flat, making it an ideal place for bicycling. That would explain the almost 1 million bikes being parked or pedaled in this city.

Here's a barge for secure bike parking, moored in the water behind Centraal Station...

and another bike lot nearby. 

There seem to be enough bikes for everyone, so I don't understand why anyone would need to ride double:

There are even cargo bikes...

that have almost as much capacity as some autos. 

Over the many canals are a variety of bridges, all of them pretty. 

(Of course, most bridges are things of beauty - it's hard to find an ugly one.)

There's an old tower that is situated near a small bridge on the old city walls - the Montelsbaantoren. 

Some of the old buildings need bracing with iron bars to hold the original brick walls up straight. 

(This reinforcing bar is in the wall of the Westerkerk, the grand old Calvinist Church...

near the Anne Frank house.)

Even though most of the buildings are made of brick, and in similar styles, there is a remarkable variety on every street. Quite a few buildings work wonders with wisteria!

Even their shutters are striking. Check out these apartments:

Amsterdam - a beautiful burg to bike through!

Bach is Beautiful

I've heard about the Concertgebouw ever since I started listening to classical music radio stations. It seems as though every tenth piece they play on the radio is a performance from the Concertgebouw.

The Dutch name sounds rather fancy, but it just means "the concert building."

The Concertgebouw program for the evening of a recent Amsterdam layover, entitled "The Last Notes," started with the Netherlands Chamber Orchestra playing Contrapunctus I and V from Bach's final composition of his life, The Art of Fugue. I couldn't miss the opportunity, so I bought a ticket. 

I sat in the south balcony, diagonally across from the "Bach" portal (Bach's name is on a plaque above the red curtains to the right of the organ) in the gorgeous Grote Zaal. 

After the eye-wateringly beautiful two fugues, when our applause had ended, Lisa Larsson made her entrance. She was the soprano soloist for Benjamin Britten's "Illuminations" and she appeared at the "Bach" portal and glided down the red-carpeted steps in a glittering and flowing white gown. 

Like Cinderella at the ball...beautiful!

At intermission, I sat on a bench to enjoy chocolate milk and cookies while looking through the window to see if my borrowed bicycle was still in the rack where I'd parked it. (9:15 pm but still light outside in Northern Europe.)

The final number, in line with the "Last Notes" theme, was Mozart's "Requiem." It was a glorious end to my first evening in Amsterdam's Royal Concert Hall - Het Concertgebouw. 

Buddhist Bangkok Temple Square

A guide in our water taxi, on the Chao Phraya river in Bangkok, said that there are around 30,000 Buddhist shrines and temples in Thailand today. The following photos are views in and around a well-known temple, Wat Pho - the Temple of the Reclining Buddha. 

This is a very long temple, as you see looking from the Buddha's feet toward his smiling face.

"How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings..."

This is one of the dozens of designs inlaid in the soles of the Buddha's sandals, done in mother-of-pearl. 

Mural detail from the interior walls. 

Here, outside, a door frames a door which frames yet another door...

My reflection in a window of one of the buildings in the temple complex.

(Who would have thought, 2000 years ago, that The Enlightened One would have a Web address? Bodhisattva, indeed!)

Paris - the City of Light

I think I've seen that statue before. 

Yessir, there's only one with that silhouette -

It's Lady Liberty!

So then, when I turn around, how can I be looking at this?

Well, it turns out that some ex-patriot Americans living in Paris gave this smaller version of the original to the French as a token of gratitude, to be another beacon in the City of Light. 

Paris is lovely all the time, but especially so by nighttime illumination. Here is the dome of the Hotel des Invalides. 

The Musee d'Orsay by night reverts to its former life as a train station. 

The beacon from the Tour Eiffel swings over the Assemblee Nationale...

and then over the Obelisk at the center of Place de la Concorde

Pegasus rears atop the gates leading to the Tuileries. 

L'Arc de Triomphe at the center of the automobile carrousel that is L'Etoile. 

Edison actually attended the exposition that was the Eiffel Tower's debut. 

Eiffel and Edison - what a pair they made!

As Monet demonstrated in his painted studies of the cathedral at Rouen, not all light is the same - not even all daylight is the same. This is Notre Dame de Paris at midday. 

This is the west end of one wing of the Louvre, in the summer afternoon light. 

This is early evening, looking east toward the Petit Arc and I. M. Pei's pyramid. Note how the color of the gravel path is almost exactly the same...

as the color of the evening sky, looking west up the Champs Élysées. These pictures were taken within minutes of each other.

Here are two sculptural depictions of one of the greatest young women who ever lived - Jeanne d'Arc. After saving France by her courageous obedience to visions and voices from heaven, the young Maid of Orleans was convicted of heresy. 

As she faced the ordeal of burning at the stake, the girl we now know as Saint Joan of Arc put life and death into this perspective:  "To sacrifice what you are and to live without belief - that's more terrible than dying - more terrible than dying young."

Alors, Sainte Jeanne - Merci bien pour votre courage, votre travaille et votre vie.  

On the evening of 13 July, the eight Alpha jets of the Patrouille de France roared over the Seine near the Eiffel Tower, practicing their part in the Bastille Day festivities. They arrived as a very loud blur, and they left red, white and blue smoke as a souvenir. 

Thank you, Monsieur Eiffel, for giving this tower to the city of Paris. And thank you, citizens of the city, for deciding to keep it. 

"Allons, enfants de la Patrie, le jour de gloire est arrive!" 

The Tricolore, "by the dawn's early light" of Quatorze Juillet - Bastille Day. 

Vive la France!