Puigcerdà (Catalonia)
Silence
In Silence…
Absorb the silence around
Know the silence and it messages
Connect with the inner self
At rest is the soul and mind
Moments that reveals the truth
Silence douses the flames of uncertainty
Rendezvous with silence
As silence is there to be deciphered
Cemetery of Portbou
Silent
There is no more silent place.
Silence is everything there.
the end of a life of noise,
a noise many times unbearable.
Silence fills the atmosphere.
There is no more silent place.
Cemetery of Portbou
Cemetery on the shores of mediterranean sea, in the town of Portbou, in the north end of the Costa Brava, Noth Catalonia and today a border place between Catalonia and France.
La Albufera. Valencia
The Albufera is a freshwater lagoon and estuary on the Gulf of Valencia coast of the Valencian Community in eastern Spain. It is the main portion of the Parc Natural de l’Albufera (“Albufera Natural Park”), with a surface area of 21,120 hectares (52,200 acres).
La Albufera
The natural biodiversity of the nature reserve allows a great variety of fauna and flora to thrive and be observed year-round. While once a saltwater lagoon, dilution due to irrigation and canals draining into the estuary and the sand bars increasing in size had converted it to freshwater by the seventeenth century.
City of Arts and Sciences
This is my second contribution to this Week Photo Challenge: Curve
The City of Arts and Sciences (Ciudad de las Artes y las Ciencias) is an entertainment-based cultural and architectural complex in the city of Valencia, Spain. It is the most important modern tourist destination in the city of Valencia and one of the 12 Treasures of Spain.
The City of Arts and Sciences is situated at the end of the former riverbed of the river Turia, which was drained and rerouted after a catastrophic flood in 1957. The old riverbed was turned into a picturesque sunken park.
The City of Arts and Sciences
Designed by Santiago Calatrava and Félix Candela, the project underwent the first stages of construction in July 1996 and the finished “city” was inaugurated April 16, 1998 with the opening of L’Hemisfèric. The last great component of the City of Arts and Sciences, El Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia, was presented on October 9, 2005, Valencian Community Day.
The City of Arts and Sciences
The City of Arts and Sciences
More in Wikipedia.
Puigcerdà Lake
The lake of Puigcerdà is an artificial lake located in the northwest of the town of Puigcerdà.
Puigcerdà is the capital of the Catalan comarca of Cerdanya, in the province of Girona, Catalonia, near the river Segre and on the border with France (it abuts directly onto the French town of Bourg-Madame).
Montserrat. Catalonia.
Weekly Photo Challenge. Earth
I liked the words of this Weekly Challenge: “As far as we currently know, our planet is unique in its ability to sustain life. We are an island in an unimaginably huge universe… I have always regarded nature with reverence…”.
In my opinion, our planet deserves all our respect. We live by what the Earth offers to us. It is extremely unwise to continue mistreating our planet. Our future and, above all, those who succeed us, depends on it.
Montserrat. Catalonia.
Montserrat is a multi-peaked mountain located near the city of Barcelona, in Catalonia. It is part of the Catalan Pre-Coastal Range. The Caribbean island of Montserrat was named by Christopher Columbus after the mountain.
It is well known as the site of the Benedictine abbey, Santa Maria de Montserrat, which hosts the Virgin of Montserrat sanctuary and which is identified by some with the location of the Holy Grail in Arthurian myth.
“Montserrat” literally means “saw (serrated, like the common handsaw) mountain” in Catalan. It describes its peculiar aspect with multitude of rock formations which are visible from a great distance. The mountain is composed of strikingly pink conglomerate, a form of sedimentary rock.
Montserrat. Catalonia.
Central Park from the Rockefeller Center
Weekly Photo Challenge. Landscape: Central Park
Central Park is an urban park in middle-upper Manhattan, within New York City. Central Park is the most visited urban park in the United States as well as one of the most filmed locations in the world, with 40 million visitors in 2013.
The Park was established in 1857 on 778 acres (315 ha) of city-owned land. In 1858, Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, two soon-to-be famed national landscapers and architects, won a design competition to improve and expand the park with a plan they titled the “Greensward Plan”. Construction began the same year and the park’s first area was opened to the public in the winter of 1858. Construction continued during the American Civil War further south, and was expanded to its current size of 843 acres (341 ha) in 1873.
Central Park from the Rockefeller Center
Central Park was designated a National Historic Landmark (listed by the U.S. Department of the Interior and administered by the National Park Service) in 1962. The Park was managed for decades by the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, and is currently managed by the Central Park Conservancy under contract with the municipal government in a public-private partnership. The Conservancy is a non-profit organization that contributes 75 percent of Central Park’s $65 million annual budget and is responsible for all basic care of the 843-acre park.
More in Wikipedia
The Empire State Building
The Empire State Building views from the Rockefeler Center.
The Empire State Building is a 102-story skyscraper located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on Fifth Avenue between West 33rd and 34th Streets. It has a roof height of 1,250 feet (381 m), and with itsantenna spire included, it stands a total of 1,454 feet (443 m) high. Its name is derived from the nickname for New York, the Empire State. It stood as the world’s tallest building for nearly 40 years, from its completion in early 1931 until the topping out of the original World Trade Center‘s North Tower in late 1970. Following the September 11 attacks in 2001, the Empire State Building was again the tallest building in New York, until One World Trade Center reached a greater height in April 2012. The Empire State Building is currently the fifth-tallest completed skyscraper in the United States and the 29th-tallest in the world. It is also the fifth-tallest freestanding structure in the Americas. When measured by pinnacle height, it is the fourth-tallest building in the United States.
The Empire State Building
The Empire State Building is an American cultural icon. It is designed in the distinctive Art Deco style and has been named as one of the Seven Wonders of the Modern World by the American Society of Civil Engineers. The building and its street floor interior are designated landmarks of the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission, and confirmed by the New York City Board of Estimate. It was designated as a National Historic Landmark in 1986. In 2007, it was ranked number one on the AIA’s List of America’s Favorite Architecture.
The Empire State Building and Downtown Manhattan
The building is owned by the Empire State Realty Trust, of which Anthony Malkin serves as Chairman, CEO and President. In 2010, the Empire State Building underwent a $550 million renovation, with $120 million spent to transform the building into a more energy efficient and eco-friendly structure. The Empire State Building is the tallest Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED)-certified building in the United States, having received a gold LEED rating in September 2011.
More in Wikipedia
The Empire State Building and Downtown Manhattan
Downtown Manhattan
Lower Manhattan, also known as Downtown Manhattan, is the southernmost part of the island of Manhattan, the main island and center of business and government of the City of New York, which itself originated at the southern tip of Manhattan Island in 1624.
Photographs taken on september 4, at 19:47
More info: Wikipedia
Downtown Manhattan
Manhattan, New York
Manhattan, New York, view from the Roosevelt Island. Different time and exposure.
You can see the Chrysler building in the middle of the photography.
Manhattan, New York
Same photo using a telezoom.
Manhattan, New York
The United Nations building on the left. Also from the Roosevelt Island.
Brooklyn
Brooklyn
Brooklyn is the most populous of New York City‘s five boroughs, with a Census-estimated 2,621,793 people in 2014. It is geographically adjacent to the borough of Queens at the western end of Long Island. Since 1896, Brooklyn has had the same boundaries as Kings County, the most populous county in the State of New York and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, after New York County (Manhattan). With a land area of 71 square miles (180 km2) and water area of 26 square miles (67 km2), Kings County is the fourth-smallest county in New York State by land area and third-smallest by total area, though it is the second-largest among New York City’s five boroughs.
The history of European settlement in Brooklyn spans more than 350 years. The settlement began in the 17th century as the small Dutch-founded town of “Breuckelen” on the East River shore of Long Island, grew to be a sizable city in the 19th century, and was consolidated in 1898 with New York City (then confined to Manhattan and part of the Bronx), the remaining rural areas of Kings County, and the largely rural areas of Queens and Staten Island, to form the modern City of New York.
More info: Wikipedia
Brooklyn
Barcelona Marina
Barcelona Marina
Marina Port neighborhood is around the current Paseo de la Zona Franca next to the harbor.
The Port of Barcelona has a 2000-year history and great contemporary commercial importance as one of Europe’s ports in the Mediterranean, as well as Catalonia‘s largest port, tying with Tarragona. It is divided into three zones: Port Vell (the Old Port), the commercial/industrial port and the logistics port (Barcelona Free Port).
The Port Vell area comprises two marinas or yacht harbors, a fishing port, a maritime station for ferries travelling to the Balearic Islands and other destinations in the Mediterranean and other stations or landing areas for cruise ships, and it abuts the industrial port.
More info: Wikipedia
bCL Photography 