My wife Claudine was barely paying attention to the endless limousine she was walking past. Too conspicuous for her taste, maybe?
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No Limo Today
Tag: tourism
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Of Metal And Meal
Wrought iron restaurant signs are a German specialty, and usually point famished travellers like me toward excellent Gasthaus food. But not far from Tangermünde, where I took this shot, a different sort of iron still separated Europe in two.
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No Bumps In Translation
A speed bump sign in Reykjavik, Iceland. When I don’t understand the language, I’m always grateful to see road signs that translate across borders.
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Where Weavers Nest
This tree was not afflicted by some strange disease: “Village weavers” — little yellow birds we got to see on both Mauritius and Réunion islands — had made it their home.
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And All That Jazz
There’s a lot happening in this shot of an open-air market at Lafayette’s big jazz, arts and crafts festival, in Louisiana. The dolls in the foreground, the little girl sewing, the guy in the crutches — you can even spot a red box of Danish cookies!
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Fresh Coat Of Paint
This man was giving his boat a fresh coat of paint on a hilly street in Valletta. Less than a year before, a U.S.-USSR summit in Malta is credited by some as having closed the Cold War. That meeting was aboard a much bigger Soviet boat anchored in the nearby harbor of Marsaxlokk.
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Among The Hmong
While other tourists were busy buying “traditional” crafts, I took many pictures of members, young and old, of the Hmong people of Chiang Rai, in northern Thailand.
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Casual Friday
In northern Norway, this Sámi family was wearing colored gákti costumes. And I don’t think it was merely for tourists — in the 1960s, some northern families were still in the habit of wearing traditional clothing when selling hides at the local market, or herding reindeer.
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The End Of The End Of The World
This is a reproduction of an Aztec calendar near Huelva in southern Spain. The original lies in a museum in Mexico City. Based on meticulous astronomical observations, the Aztecs used this sunstone to determine whether the end of the world was near. They found out it would happen on Dec. 21, 2012 — and weren’t […]
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Club Med In The Mountains
Although there have been all-inclusive winter resorts by “Club Méditerranée” since the 1950s, it was still strange to come across one in the mountainous landscape of the Austrian Tirol.
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Stubborn Surfer
On the northern tip of the island nation of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean, this man was determined to try his hand at surfing. I took a picture of him just before he fell into the water — the first of many tumbles.
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A Khlong Time Ago
There was a documentary on French TV a couple of days ago about the khlong canals that crisscross Bangkok. Not much seems to have changed since I went there 23 years ago, except for one thing: Running water has made its way to the nearby houses, so people no longer drink directly from the turbid […]
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The End Of The Beguines
There are no more “Beguines” in the Beguinage: In the early 20th century, these lay nuns were replaced by Benedictines, pictured here walking in front of the convent, with Bruges’ Church of Our Lady visible through the leaves.
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Extra Plump
Statues of Buddhas are famously plump, but these chubby figures at Kelaniya Temple near the Sri Lankan capital Colombo really take the cake.
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Roses And Chirps
Too bad slides can’t convey the sounds and odors of a given time and space. Coming across this image from Paris, I can still hear and smell the flower and bird market on the Île de la Cité where my wife Claudine and I were taking a walk one day.
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Venice Vicinity
Just like nearby Venice, Commachio is built in a marshy lagoon across dozens of little islands, joined by bridges like the Ponte dei Trepponti here.
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Alas, Aleppo
Aleppo’s al-Madina souk, the world’s largest covered historic market, was a highlight on our visit to what was then a bustling, cosmopolitan and altogether very pleasant city. It has been sad to watch from afar as so much of it has been devastated during the ongoing Syrian Civil War.
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For Whom The Bell Tower Leans
My daughter Cécile had climbed the steps all the way up the Leaning Tower of Pisa. She smiled for the camera, but you can tell she didn’t feel so safe close to the tilted edge.
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On The Boat Again
The many rivers in Indonesia provide an endless stream of picturesque moments, like this man in Jakarta wearing a traditional caping conical hat.
Pyongyang’s Mansudae monument — Photo: Bjørn Christian Tørrissen BEIJING — “This summer, cross the world’s most difficult border and visit a country with the highest index of happiness and security” reads the advertisement of the travel agency in Taiyuan, in the remote western Chinese province of Shanxi. “Experience the China we used to know!” On […]
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A Mormon State
A stone’s throw away from Salt Lake City’s Mormon Tabernacle is the Utah State Capitol building, the site where famously strict regulations on alcohol have been approved because of the Mormon religion that still dominates the state. I was surprised however to find that one could order French wine in the local restaurants.
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Corsican Siesta
On a warm Spring day at the southern tip of the French island of Corsica, it was time to go home and take a siesta.
Tourists can take a trip through time—and across the French-Italian border—in the 75-meter Monte Viso Tunnel, a footpath originally built during the Renaissance.
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Flying The Italian Flag
This Arlecchino belonged to a band from Bergamo that had made the trip to my native eastern France. Parading in the streets of Montbéliard, this character from the Commedia dell’arte was participating in the folk singing and dancing festival organized by the choir I used to conduct.
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Off-Peak Art
Boasting astounding collections of artists, both Spanish (Velázquez, Goya) and international, (Rubens, Rembrandt …) the Museo del Prado in Madrid is one of the most visited museums in the world. When I went there more than 50 years ago, there was no queue in sight.
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Oops In Yellowstone
Upon taking this mysterious shot of Yellowstone National Park“s hot springs, my camera’s lens cap fell in the mud. Thankfully it was close enough to retrieve without risking that it might melt into the landscape.
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Light From Below
I don’t often go for artistic shots, but this lighthouse staircase in the big fishing port of Hvide Sande, in western Denmark, caught my eye.
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Maltese Megaliths
The limestone temples on the island of Malta rank among the world’s oldest religious sites. As with Stonehenge or the Ecuadorian Kalasaya, some of the site’s prehistoric monoliths were astronomically aligned. I aligned this daytime shot with a perfectly blue sky.
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Waiting For The Rice To Dry
Rice is a staple food on the Indonesian island of Java. The country is one of the world’s biggest producers, and cultivating it means a lot of work for both men and women. But during the drying stage, there’s not much to do but wait.
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Summer Rinascimento
Students were parading through the streets of Perugia in central Italy, wearing full Renaissance robes in the July sun.
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Sad Roadside Attraction
A few tourists were willing to give this man a couple of rupees to be allowed to approach and touch his chained baby elephant.
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Dated In Palmyra
Hanging bunches of dates, a parked motorcycle, leisurely locals: This was part of what I saw in Palmyra, beyond its famous ruins, during a visit to Syria long before the civil war sadly changed the beautiful scenery.
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After The Mouse
It was time to clean up after the 15th anniversary parade at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida.
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Delhi Grind
India’s capital, New Delhi, has long been known for its over-the-top traffic jams and erratic drivers — here’s how it looked 22 years ago.
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In Your Mummified Face
There probably aren’t that many places in the world where you can see a 2,400-year-old man in such an incredible state of preservation. The Tollund Man was naturally mummified in a peat bog, and his body is now carefully placed in the sleeping position in which he was found. You can see all this ancient […]
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Horse-Drawn Time Machine
Granted, it was the “60s — but of which century?
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Easy Way Up
To get from the foot of the butte Montmartre to the Sacré-Cœur basilica in Paris, you can either go up the 300 stairs or, since 1900, buy a ticket for the funicular.
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A Mayan Line
One of the best things about traveling in organized tours is that you get priority tickets for everything, meaning that we never had to wait in line to get into the Vatican, the Taj Mahal, or in this case, the Mayan city of Tulum.
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Former Member
Britain is making the news today. I took this shot in Edinburgh“s Princes Street, just five years after Scotland, as part of the UK, joined the European Union.
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Walking In A Painting
I’m not the only one to find the Alyscamps, near Arles in the south of France, picturesque. Both Vincent Van Gogh and Paul Gauguin immortalized the alley of sarcophagi in this great Roman necropolis.