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Salzburg city views from Mönchsberg

In Salzburg, I’m motivated by a search for Mozart and for signs of modernity. I’ve already examined part of the city through its art: what more can Salzburg offer?

Excellent views of the city and surroundings.

The Mönchberg hill on which the Hohensalzburg fortress sits provides many viewpoints over the city. You can walk along the entire length of Mönchberg for varying perspectives, or you can approach a number of the viewpoints separately.

I ascended and traversed the hill on foot from southeast to northeast, beginning from Kapitelplatz to the viewpoints just north of the Museum der Moderne. I returned to the Old Town below with the MönchsbergAufzug elevator which is a part of Salzburg’s public transport.

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Palacio de Cibeles, Fuente de Cibeles, Plaza de Cibeles, Paseo del Prado, Madrid, Spain, España, fotoeins.com

Madrid: Paseo del Prado, new UNESCO WHS

Congratulations to Madrid and Spain!

In the Spanish capital city, the Paseo del Prado and the adjacent Parque del Retiro were inscribed together as a new UNESCO World Heritage Site on 25 July 2021. The Paseo del Prado is a wide tree-lined boulevard populated with big fountains, beautiful architecture, and buildings dedicated to scientific research and to collections of world-class art. As prototype to the Hispanic “alameda” found throughout Latin America towns and cities, Paseo del Prado is an display of vision and desire for an idyllic society within the (former) Spanish Empire.

Plaza de Cibeles: Palacio de Cibeles (palace 1919); Fuente de Cibeles (fountain 1780, moved 1895).

Banco de España, Plaza de Cibeles, Paseo del Prado, Madrid, Spain, España, fotoeins.com

Plaza de Cibeles: Banco de España (1891).

Palacio de Linares, Casa América, Plaza de Cibeles, Paseo del Prado, Madrid, Spain, España, fotoeins.com

Plaza de Cibeles: Palacio de Linares (1877), host to Casa América.

Museo Nacional del Prado, Diego de Velázquez, Aniceto Marinas, Paseo del Prado, Madrid, Spain, España, fotoeins.com

Diego de Velázquez statue (1899) by sculptor Aniceto Marinas, in front of the Prado Museum (1819).

I made all images above on 9 May 2009 with a Canon EOS450D (Rebel XSi). This post appears on Fotoeins Fotografie at fotoeins DOT com as https://wp.me/p1BIdT-lhx.

Berlin Hauptbahnhof, B Hbf, Berlin, Germany, Deutschland, fotoeins.com

Germany: 30 years of ICE on the rails (2021)

Above/featured: Berlin Hauptbahnhof – 9 Dec 2015 (6D1). Departing from track 3 is ICE 554 to Köln (front-half) and ICE 544 to Düsseldorf (back-half); trains split in the town of Hamm.

June 2021 marks the 30th anniversary of high-speed Intercity Express (ICE) service on German rail.

In the 1991 vs. 2021 comparison graphic provided by Deutsche Bahn, I’ve marked in green the ICE routes upon which I’ve made dozens of trips since late-2001 (when I moved to Heidelberg). Even after leaving in 2003, frequent annual trips back to Germany meant spending a lot of time planted on express trains across the country. Arriving in Europe mostly meant flying into Frankfurt am Main airport, from which I’d travel:

Frankfurt to Berlin, via Kassel
Frankfurt to Heidelberg, via Mannheim
Frankfurt to Köln
Frankfurt to Munich, via Stuttgart
Berlin to Frankfurt, via Kassel
Berlin to Köln, via Hannover
Köln to Berlin, via Hannover
Köln to Frankfurt
Munich to Frankfurt, via Stuttgart

Over the last few years, the express stretch between Erfurt and Halle/Leipzig has vastly improved the Berlin-Frankfurt and Berlin-Munich routes, cutting the one-way travel time for each route by about one hour. Except for the Erfurt-Halle/Leipzig stretch, I’ve travelled on every “Stundentakt” ICE route (thick red/green in the graphic below).

Intercity Express, Deutsche Bahn, German Rail, Germany, Deutschland

ICE coverage, including recent work on the Erfurt-Halle/Leipzig stretch; graphic courtesy of Deutsche Bahn. My “dozens on ICE” are marked in green; red filled circles indicate cities I frequented the most (B, F, HD, K, M).

Intercity Express, train fleet, Deutsche Bahn, German Rail, Germany, Deutschland

The ICE fleet of trains include vehicles with maximum speeds of over 300 km/h; graphic courtesy of Deutsche Bahn.

Frankfurt am Main Hauptbahnhof, F Hbf, Frankfurt am Main, Hesse, Hessen, Germany, Deutschland, fotoeins.com

Morning ICE 5 service from Frankfurt am Main to Basel; how to read this train station signage – 20 May 2016 (6D1).

Hackerbrücke, München, Munich, Bavaria, Bayern, Germany, Deutschland.

Morning light at Munich’s Hackerbrücke station. Foreground: westbound metallic-white ICE train just departing the city’s central station, traveling right to left. Background: red DB regional train approaching central station, from left to right. Photo on 23 Feb 2017 (6D1).

I made three images above with a Canon EOS6D mark1 (6D1). This post appears on Fotoeins Fotografie at fotoeins DOT com as https://wp.me/p1BIdT-l60.

YVR, Vancouver International Airport, Vancouver, Richmond, BC, Canada, fotoeins.com

Taking flight

Above/featured: Departures information in English, French, and Chinese: YVR Vancouver airport – 1 Jul 2014 (6D1).

Once upon a time when I lived and worked on distant continents, I flew on many international transcontinental overnight flights to the accumulation of over 1 million miles in the air. A worldwide pandemic has forced not only air travel to a crawl, but also a rethinking about what long-haul travel in the context of climate change might look like in the future. For the time being, I consider here what it once meant to “take flight” with various images of planes as some time spent as occasional planespotter and images within airports as previous frequent-flyer.

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Spring light over Seattle and the Salish Sea

Above/featured: “Aurora and Mercer” – 4 Mar 2020 (X70).

A favourite place is Seattle, an American city in Washington state, only 2 to 3 hours by car from Vancouver, Canada. For two metropolitan regions close by proximity, their respective evolutions have created very different cities over time. I present below 12 places around Seattle in spring. In this part of the world, there’s every chance for overcast skies and showers, but I assure you of one thing: the light is very good when the sun is out. And when there’s abundant light, I’m all about the superposition of light, shadow, construction, and person.

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