Interesting Places

Field Notes

Twenty-five places that held my attention. The prints and the writing under them are kept as I first collected them.

The stone Old Bridge arching over the turquoise Neretva River between Mostar’s hillside rooftops

Mostar Bridge, Bosnia

The bridge is a great engineering achievement. It also divides the city along ethnic lines: Muslims, Christians, and Orthodox. Many locals have never crossed the bridge to the other side.
  • The stone Old Bridge arching over the turquoise Neretva River between Mostar’s hillside rooftops

    Mostar Bridge, Bosnia

    The bridge is a great engineering achievement. It also divides the city along ethnic lines: Muslims, Christians, and Orthodox. Many locals have never crossed the bridge to the other side.

  • A pale Trabant on display in a dim museum hall, visitors standing around it

    Trabant car

    From DDR Museum in Berlin. It is also called Trabi, made of hard plastic from the Soviet Union. In East Berlin, families often had to wait more than 10 years to purchase one. I got to drive it in the museum!

  • The gutted brick shell and bare steel dome of the Genbaku Dome against a pale evening sky

    Atomic Bomb Dome

    Also called Genbaku Dome. It was the only structure left standing in the area where the first atomic bomb exploded on 6 August 1945

  • Rows of grey concrete slabs receding into the distance, a single visitor in a red coat among them

    Holocaust Memorial, Berlin

    Designed by the New York architect Peter Eisenman, there are a total of 2711 concrete slabs of different heights. This image is by Vivian Cromwell.

  • Red-tiled roofs and a church spire in Tallinn’s old town under heavy cloud, modern towers on the horizon

    Tallinn, Estonia

    During World War II, Estonia was first occupied by the Red Army and annexed into the USSR in 1940, then occupied by Nazi Germany from 1941 to 1944.

  • Pale lines winding across the flat desert plain at Nazca, seen from a low rise

    Nazca Lines, Peru

    Composed of over 10,000 lines, the figures are most visible from the air or nearby hilltops. The lines were made so large to make their gods see them and pray for water. It was constructed more than 2000 years ago!

  • Four brass memorial blocks set flush into the cobblestones at the edge of a pavement

    Stolperstein in Berlin

    Known as “Stolpersteine”, or “stumbling stones”, there are now more than 70,000 such memorial blocks laid in more than 1,200 cities and towns across Europe and Russia. Each commemorates a victim outside their last-known freely chosen residence.

  • A crouching figure silhouetted against daylight at the far end of a narrow earth tunnel

    The tunnels of Củ Chi

    Near Ho Chi Minh. It was built by Communist guerrilla troops in order to combat better-supplied American and South Vietnamese forces during the Vietnam War.

  • A woman in an embroidered red headdress cooking over a wok in a tiled kitchen

    Bai people, China

    We were invited to a family of Bai people for lunch, near Dali Bai Autonomous Prefecture in Yunnan China

  • The gold statue of Lord Murugan beside the rainbow-painted stairway climbing to the limestone caves

    Batu Caves, Malaysia

    The limestone forming Batu Caves is said to be around 400 million years old. Built-in 1891, the Hindu shrine is dedicated to Lord Murugan.

  • A preserved stretch of the wall and its raked sand strip, seen from above with the city beyond

    Berlin Wall

    The guarded concrete barrier that physically and ideologically divided Berlin from 1961 to 1989. The barrier separating Berlin into east and west consisted of two concrete walls between which was a “death strip” up to 160 yards wide that contained hundreds of watchtowers,

  • Hagia Sophia’s domes and minarets catching low evening light above the square

    Hagia Sophia, Istanbul

    The mosque was originally built by the eastern Roman emperor between 532 and 537. It has both Islamic and Christian influences.

  • Yellow awnings over café tables on a narrow sunlit street in Arles

    Le Café Van Gogh, Arles France

    It is featured in Van Gough’s painting: Café Terrace at Night.

  • Concentric Inca terraces cut in rings into a green bowl in the hillside

    Moray Valley Peru

    The mysterious Inca ruins have drawn many debates! It was built between the 12th and mid-14th centuries but Inca has no written language, so nobody really knows the purpose of it. Some believe it is an experimental farm, others believe it is an irrigation system.

  • Cloud drifting across the stone terraces and steep peaks of Machu Picchu

    Machu Picchu Peru

    Built in the 15th century, dry-stone walls that fuse huge blocks without the use of mortar.

  • A wide view along the dark crater rim of Vesuvius, two walkers small on the path

    Mount Vesuvius, Italy

    The eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79 destroyed the Roman cities. More than 1,000 people are thought to have died in the eruption.

  • The temple’s broad wooden hall and sweeping tiled roof under a clear sky, visitors crossing the courtyard

    Todoji Temple, Nara, Japan

    The temple was constructed in 752 as the head temple of Japan and grew so powerful that the capital was moved from Nara to Nagaoka in 784 in order to lower the temple's influence on government affairs.

  • A black and white street scene: a man carrying a small child past market stalls, a woman in a headscarf in the foreground

    Xinjiang, China

    Uyghur in China, they are mostly Turkic. The area became Islamified during the 10th century

  • Eroded earthen walls of the ruined city rising from bare rock against a deep blue sky

    Jiaohe ruins, China

    From 108 BC to 450 AD Jiaohe was the capital of the Anterior Jushi Kingdom. It was an important path on the silk road. It had a population of 7,000 according to Tang dynasty records.

  • Rows of terracotta soldiers standing in the excavated earthen trenches

    Terra Cotta Warrior, Xian China

    They were built in approximately the late third century BCE, but didn’t get discovered until 1974. There are about 8000 soldiers. It was a myth that many believed human remains inside the Terracotta, which is not true. However, all of the craftsmen who participated in the construction were buried alive to keep it secrete.

  • A stone Buddha head held among the twisting roots of a fig tree

    Ayutthaya, Thailand

    Nobody knows for certain how the Buddha's head became entwined in the roots of the tree. Ayutthaya was at one point the capital of the Kingdom of Siam. It was destroyed around 1767 and many believe it was when the buddha’s head was buried.

  • Looking up the carved red cliff to the Giant Buddha’s head, its huge stone feet in the foreground

    Leshan Giant Buddha China

    The stone statue is a 71-meter tall, built between 713 and 803. It was carved to appease the gods and the buddha can show emotions. If you rub your hand against buddha’s feet, it brings you good luck!

  • The tiered stone arches of the Roman amphitheatre curving around the open arena floor

    Pula Arena Croatia

    It is the Croatian version of the Colosseum. It is the only remaining Roman amphitheater to have four side towers entirely preserved. It was constructed between 27 BC and AD 68, and is among the world's six largest surviving Roman arenas.

  • The slurry wall and a memorial column covered in written tributes inside the museum’s cavernous hall

    Twin Tower Tridents and wall, NYC, US

    The tridents are from the base of the North Tower – the only two that remained from the dozens that flanked the perimeter of the building. The wall was the final one to be removed from Ground Zero.

  • A large bronze figure with one wing lying on the sand before the columned Greek temple

    Temple of concordia, Sicily Italy

    The Temple of Concordia is an ancient Greek temple in the Valle dei Templi in Agrigento on the south coast of Sicily, Italy. The temple was built c. 440–430 BC.

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