perhaps i just like the quiet

the irony is not lost on me at all that despite harbouring a well-developed suspicion and deep loathing of religion, that i do love the architecture of churches and am fascinated in their history. please don't mistake fascination for admiration - i am also fascinated by world war II history. this photo is taken of the inside of st stephen's cathedral in vienna. amazing catacombs lie beneath, entombing the skeletons of thousands of plague victims. the stuff of horror movies.

the curtain was raised

and the wonders of the east were revealed. night sights and sounds in praha's old town square. simply exquisite. we were walking back to our hotel after an evening in a basement pub sinking czech beer then going to watch an extremely kitsch but highly amusing don giovanni puppet show.

a fairly impressive nightlight

i wonder if everyone else with their bedroom looking out on this sparkling glittering view falls asleep every night with the curtains wide open like we did. i couldn't keep my eyes off it.

2 tall buildings in a single lens

two gleaming towering twin towers of steel dominating the KL vista both day and night from both ground and sky. truly a modern architectural and engineering marvel. our hotel room at the renaissance looked right out onto them for spectacular night views.

unhidden dragons

ornamental wat roofing in vientiane. there were dragons on the roof and (not shown in photo) eaves support struts which were carved to look like elephant head and trunk. mands couldn't see the elephant head and trunk but i am still convinced of it. maybe it's like how some people can't see those stupid magic eye pictures. personally, i could only see them inverted while giving myself a massive headache going cross-eyed. anyway this is not the point. the dragons are obvious and indisputable are they not.

not london bridge, not falling down

walking across tower bridge at sunset. tower bridge is often mistaken as being london bridge. probably because london bridge is really quite boring to look at, while tower bridge is quite striking and makes for a much better photo(s). finally i should mention that tower bridge is featured in the spice girls movie when they jump their bus over the bridge. so clearly it has exceeded london bridge in the fame stakes.

twisted innovation

some very funky and cutting edge architecture we came across on one of our wanders through the eternally beautiful and interesting city of prague. this was, later research uncovered, built in 1996 and is nicknamed 'the dancing house' (originally titled 'fred and ginger' after fred astaire and ginger rogers). if you happen to be in prague and are looking for it, it is on the vltava river, upstream from charles bridge.

grey concrete rainbows

and what's that there at the end? ain't no pot of gold. maybe a trough of gold. this is a shot of commonwealth avenue bridge shooting over lake burley griffin, which is our man-made lake here in canberra. it's a snap i took with the mobile phone camera on a lovely big bike ride mands and i did around the lake (well around a hell of a lot of it!) back in january. i like the strong symmetrical lines of the bridge lanes with the faint sight of parliament house at the end. it almost looks like it's fading away...

eyeful (of) tower

when in paris it is of course obligatory to take a (million) photo(s) of the eiffel tower. i thought i would try a slighty different angle than simply straight on (with mine and mands' faces goliath-like and seemingly bigger than the tower itself as i hold the camera, pointed towards us, at arm's length). if you click for the bigger version of this photo, you can see the many many many rivets holding these giant pieces of iron in place - there are 2.5 million rivets in the whole tower! that fact will hopefully come in handy for you in a trivia night one time.