Category Archives: Places

Thoughts and photos from various places in the world.

Places

Walking along the Constanta wharf

Constanta, located on the Black Sea, is one of the main cities of Romania. It’s a busy port, and a city with a lot of history. I guess its equivalent here in the States would be Miami. I visited Constanta with Ligia in April of 2003 and took some photos on the wharf, which is a pretty famous spot. It, and the Casino built on it, have been featured in several famous Romanian movies.

The building that now houses the Casino was planned and drawn by a Romanian architect, and built in 1909 in the Art Nouveau style. The architect’s wife drowned in the Black Sea, and he wanted to pay homage to her memory through the majestic building.

Casino Palace

I’d walked along the same wharf as a child, with my parents, many years ago. Revisiting the spot was bitter-sweet, and the cold, damp spring day didn’t make it any sweeter. I’d watched the same concrete embankment as a child, and was fascinated by the fury of the waves breaking against it. That same embankment was still standing in 2003 — the very same stones — although they were now showing their age.

Waves splashing against the embankment

Embankment, embattled

A furious endeavor

Constanta wharf

Before reaching the wharf, we walked along the main street that leads from downtown to the beach, and visited the ruins of an old Roman building which was probably a public bath house at some point. On the hill, homes of the old aristocracy stood as a reminder of Romania’s monarchic past. I for one miss the monarchy. With a king, you know who’s in charge and who’s to blame. Politicians blame each other, blame circumstances, lie and steal — it’s a circus, and no one is ever held accountable.

Ruins of a Roman building

Old aristocratic homes

As we walked off the beach and back toward downtown, we saw this odd building, a mix of modern and old architectural styles.

City buildings

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Places

Passing through the Carpathian mountains

I dug up some old photos of mine from November of 2002, taken from the train as it passed through the Carpathian mountains in Romania. They’re posted below. I apologize for their graininess, but I took them with an old APS camera and scanned them years after they were developed. But they get the point across anyway, which is that those mountains are gorgeous.

Carpathian Mountains

Carpathian Mountains

Carpathian Mountains

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Places

Cabin John Regional Park

This summer, Ligia and I visited Cabin John Regional Park here in Potomac, MD. It’s a lesser known park, and it doesn’t really get as many visitors as it deserves, but it’s a pretty beautiful place. To discover that beauty, you need to get off the beaten path, as is the case with many things in life.

We did get off the beaten path when we visited it, so much so that we got lost, and getting back onto the path was an adventure in itself. At least we got some good photos out of it.

This tree almost looks like someone with their legs in the air.

Looks like legs

There was a nice little brook running through the forest, and some of its riverbed was exposed. Not only did we find beautiful pebbles, but we also found some great sand patterns.

Wet

Abstract sand patterns

Brook bed imprint

The light reflected beautifully off the water’s surface.

Water patterns

Leaves trapped among pebbles

Beautiful reflection

Lichen grew abundantly on a fallen tree trunk.

Lichen growing on tree bark

We also found thick moss, colored a deep green, growing on another fallen tree trunk.

Thick moss growing on tree bark

After almost two hours of wandering the forest, we were relieved to find the path once more.

Forest path

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Places

Fantastic fall foliage

If you live in a place where you don’t get to experience the wonder of nature called fall foliage, then you’ll probably enjoy the photos I took on two trips to Shenandoah National Park and its most prominent and well-known feature, Skyline Drive.

I wrote about our September trip to Shenandoah a few weeks ago. Ligia and I took a trip in October as well, and that’s when I got some pretty cool photos of the changing leaves. I think it’s pretty hard not to get good photos from Skyline Drive. The landscapes are just amazing. The road hugs the very mountain peaks, and you get to peer down into the valleys of Virginia and toward the peaks of the neighboring mountains. The overlooks are plenty and offer tons of scenic opportunities, although sometimes I wished I could just stop the car in the middle of the road to take photos.

It’s a gorgeous place! I’d like to take a week’s camping trip out there with a quality dSLR, batteries, lots of CF cards, and a good tripod, to see what photos I’d get. And maybe a good book to read in the quiet evenings, by the campfire.

Skyline Drive is shown below.

Skyline Drive

The road to color

What’s wonderful is that one can see little villages and houses in the valleys below the mountains. I took these photos from various overlook points on Skyline Drive, and as you can see, the valleys below are quite picturesque.

Little villages

Patches of green

Taking advantage of the wonderful zoom on my Kodak v610 point and shoot, I was able to get fairly close to the lake in this photo, even though it was quite far away.

Lake of color

Some of the slopes were just getting some autumn colors in them.

The colors of fall

Autumn starts

Some slopes were already fully colored, and they were quite a beautiful sight.

The colors of fall

Descent into the valley below

Shenandoah Valley

Barrage of color

A short walk through the forest yielded even more beauty.

Parallel lives

Trees on a mountain peak

A glimpse of the autumn sky

One of the other impressive sights was that of the lone peaks arising from the valleys adjacent to the mountain ridge. I found them quite unusual. In shape, they resembled hills, but they were as tall as the mountains we were standing on.

Peppered with gold

Overlook on Skyline Drive

And with that I close. The Shenandoah valleys and mountains are quite beautiful, and I invite you to visit them if you get the chance.

Incidentally, the Shenandoah Valley is part of the story in “The Howards of Virginia” (1940), a movie about a colonial family that played a part in the American Revolution. The title role there was played by Cary Grant.

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Places

White's Ferry and Edwards Ferry (part 2)

On 10/2, I wrote about our trip to these two sites along the C&O Canal here in Maryland. I couldn’t post the videos at that time. With the aid of YouTube, here they are, in chronological order, for your enjoyment.

I filmed this as the ferry pulled up to the Maryland side of the Potomac, and cars started to drive off:

This one shows the C&O Canal Trail near White’s Ferry. It’s a peaceful walk through the forest, with Ligia up ahead:

These next two show us driving through the Maryland countryside, on an unpaved road in a field somewhere between White’s Ferry and Edwards Ferry. I believe the road is River Road, although the map is unclear on this.

This is the launch point at Edwards Ferry, which has no ferry any more, but it’s a nice and peaceful place to visit. The fact that is has no ferry is actually a plus, since there are no crowds there. You can park your car and hike around, taking lots of photos. What’s also interesting about Edwards Ferry is that the C&O Canal’s water stops right there. The canal wasn’t maintained between it and White’s Ferry. So it’s kind of cool to see water on one side of the lock gate, and grass on the other. This isn’t depicted in the video.

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