Tag Archives: travel
Exploring
I have been busy revisiting and exploring new places and wanted to share some great places in Pennsylvania I have been to lately. Yesterday my daughter took me “Jeepin” on the back roads in Sullivan County. We took our dogs with us and enjoyed seeing the wild life which ran from us and in front of us as we went. We had lunch near World’s End in the little town of Forksville and had some wonderful sweet potato fries by the creek. We then went exploring and saw some great finds like an old Chevy truck in the the hedge row of an old farm and a covered bridge leading to more dirt roads we explored that were reopened after flooding. I love this part of Pennsylvania as my parents lived near here when I was growing up yet I had never been to the parts she took me to. We found ponds, camping areas, picnic areas and even an out house to make the day enjoyable in the state game lands. This is a beautiful area that has much to offer including my favorite park, World’s End. We actually needed sweatshirts due to the cool breeze that came into our Jeep through the open doors of the soft top jeep. Retirement is great to explore what you know and find during a simple ride through some wooded areas of Pennsylvania. Below is the picture from the passenger seat as we drove through the covered bridge and out the window of the covered bridge. Hope you enjoy the view as much as I did.
Orange you glad you visited.
“Orange offers emotional strength in difficult times. It helps us to bounce back from disappointments and despair, assisting in recovery from grief. The color psychology of orange is optimistic and uplifting, and rejuvenating to our spirit.” http://www.empower-yourself-with-color-psychology.com/color-orange.html.
Orange is the color that stands for the Northern Irish Protestants and has very strong religious and political significance in the United Kingdom. Orange has many hues and saffron is also a sacred and auspicious color in Hinduism.
In Barcelona Spain I visited the Sagrada Familia in which Gaudi used this color throughout the interior. The picture is of the suspended figure of Jesus on the cross with hues of orange in the lights above and the light coming from the stained glass window. The Sagrada Família is the unfinished masterpiece of Antoni Gaudí. It is one of Barcelona’s most popular tourist attractions because construction on this church will continue for at least another decade. Being one of Barcelona’s most important landmarks it changes each time you visit. The outside is very intricate with different interpretations of the life of Jesus. Gaudi chose the neo-Gothic style as his trademark and based the forms found in nature on the facade. He died in 1926 and only completed the Nativity Facade and one tower. Work on the cathedral slowed from 1926 to 1950 due to civil war. Gaudi’s work was slow and if construction were to be the same as when this project was started, it was to take over 100 years to build. Today’s technology now has it slated to be completed in 2026.
I was in awe as I took picture after picture of this magnificent work of art. I spent almost a whole day exploring, taking a tour and snapping every picture I could get of Gaudi’s work. There was many colors inside and much of the newest section had windows without the stained glass. The ones in the older section used a lot of Orange, blue and green. The colors were strategically placed to highlight different areas. I did not make it up one of the 8 towers that currently stand tall, however, I would like to return when all 18 towers are completed. It is the most awe inspiring building and work of art I have ever had the privilege of seeing in my lifetime. Knowing the psychology of the color orange helps one realize that it was used to help people get over the sacrifice of Jesus and see the hope his death brought.
Amafali Coast, Italy
Being very tired of the coldest winter in our part of the country since 1934, I found myself flipping through the pictures I took of the coastline in Italy. We were on a boat looking at this beautiful coastline built into a cliff. The greenery below the houses looked like gardens yet when we got closer we could see the lemons hanging like grapefruit from the trees of green. As we got to the town of Amafali we saw these lemons up close and the color very much resembled the color of the buildings on this coastline. I have never in my lifetime seen lemons as large as these were and found myself picking them up and smelling them. They even make wine out of them called Limoncella?sp. It reminded me of an old movie I watched on the television made in the fifties that did not do this coastline or the quaint village justice. The Limoncella however lived up to it’s name and was a mixture of the sweet and tart as if it were made of other fruit.
This was truly one place I could see myself going back to visit and do more exploring. The time we had there was way too short but I hear it calling my name to come back and enjoy the warmth, slow pace and people of Italy. After we left Amafali we went to the city of Pompei and walked in the warm summer sun of August. It filled your bones with the heat that only a beautiful summer day can. Getting lost in these pictures reminded me the cold can’t last forever and will break soon. I sure could use some of that Limoncella to warm me from the inside out…….ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
In response to The Daily Post’s weekly photo challenge: “Scale.”
I took this picture on top of a mountain in Toulon, France as a side trip to the cruise I took. I was fascinated by the cross on the edge of the cliff closest to me. I wondered the scale and thanks to my telephoto lens I was able to capture a second picture. In that there was a man standing in front of the cross and it towered over his height. From the perspective of this photo the cross looked small. To the naked eye it was larger than in the photo.
From the top of the mountain the island in the background looks small yet we know distance does this to our perspective. It also makes one wonder how our eyes view depth and perception of depth. Be it the lens in our eyes or our camera’s depth perception is all about scale.
Cross from telephoto lens.
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