As a tiny bit of catch up, for those that don’t know, I did sell my house last month!   Happy day for me and a happy day for the new owners!  Their dream to buy my house was my dream to move on and I wish them much happiness.  In the interim, I’m hopping across the pond for a bit at the end of December.  Yes, I’ve made plans for my 6th New Year celebration outside of the US.  I will be leaving for Ireland the day after Christmas!  Ringing in the New Year’s in Killarney on a 6 day organized backpacker tour. After that I’m staying in Ireland for a while longer, bit over three weeks all told.  And then flying over to Paris for 5 nights before coming home for the rest of winter.  If anyone has some Ireland suggestions for must-sees after the tour, let me know!  I still need to research that part, although I want it to be leisurely travel, not rushed.  I don’t have to see it all.

Anyway, on to the meat of the matter, wanted to let everyone know that I’ve lowered the mark-ups on my prints and cards that are sold through my website!  The mark-up on everything has been lowered at least 12%! So, if there’s something you’ve had your eye on for yourself or for a gift for someone else, now’s a great chance!  The mark-down remain in effect throughout December!

If you are buying for a Christmas gift, then you’ll need to know the deadlines for holiday shipping through Redbubble who fulfills my print orders.  No coupon or code needed, the price you see has been marked down already!

Also as an FYI, here are the order by dates if you’re using this opportunity to buy a Christmas Present!

• United States
  • T-Shirts: 17 December
  • Prints & Cards: 13 December
  • Calendars: 13 December
• United Kingdom
  • T-Shirts: 13 December
  • Prints & Cards: 13 December
  • Calendars: 13 December
• Australia
  • T-Shirts: 13 December
  • Prints & Cards: 17 December
  • Calendars: 17 December
• Europe and Canada
  • T-Shirts: 11 December
  • Prints & Cards: 11 December
  • Calendars: 11 December
• Rest of World
  • T-Shirts: 9 December
  • Prints & Cards: 9 December
  • Calendars: 9 December

Mark Tisdale Photography Prints

I’ve also reduced my margin on all the prints in my Zazzle Store by 10% – Zazzle is also having daily offers for things like bigger mark-downs and free shipping!  So, there’s a good chance that with some savvy shopping you can take advantage of my reduced margins and Zazzle sale at once!

Mark Tisdale Photography On Zazzle

Any of the Zazzle daily deals you’ll see on the top of the page!

So there’s your chance to save!

I’ll close with a few popular images!

Ruins Of The Lost

What'll Ya Have? Framed Print

London Calling Framed Print

Unknown Horizons Framed Print

El Castillo Framed Print

Please feel free to pass this along to friends and family!  Thanks and have a happy holiday!

First off, my book Egyptian Dreams, which you may recall is available through Blurb, is entered in a contest at Blurb.  I would MUCH appreciate if you could take a few moments to go and vote for it if you have not already done so!

Vote for my book in the
Best Blurb Books Contest!

Voting ends Nov. 9

For those who have already voted, thank you so much!  For those who haven’t yet, there’s less than 2 weeks, what are you waiting for!?

As long as I’m shamelessly self promoting, I felt like I should point out that there’s currently a special running at Zazzle, another online Print on Demand shop where I host some of my work.  It runs through 10/31 and is appropriately 10.31% off any purchase.  So, a great time to start or finish your Christmas shopping and save some money on the way.  To take advantage of this special, enter the code TRICKORTREAT
at checkout.  Here’s all the lovely tiny print for the offer.

Mark’s Zazzle Store

* 10.31% of the net sale price will be deducted when the coupon code TRICKORTREAT is applied at checkout. For most products, the net sale price is the price of the product (excluding shipping and taxes). For Zazzle Custom Stamps, the net sale price is the difference between the price of the Zazzle Custom Stamps (excluding shipping and taxes) and the face value of the postage. Offer is valid from October 19, 2009 at 12:01am PT through October 31, 2009 at 11:59pm PT. This promotional offer may not combine with any other Zazzle promotional or discount offers.

A little less self-promotion but partially so is reminding everyone that this weekend is Montezuma’s annual Fall Festival, known as the Beaver Creek Festival.  Keep your fingers crossed for good weather because I’m told that the 15th annual festival should be a good one!  And I will have a booth there – that’s all my self promotion for one post!  Here’s a quote from one of the organizers about what to expect this year.

There will be GREAT children’s games, yummy food, cool art, excellent musicians, and worthwhile prizes! Don’t forget the Duck Doodle: $300 would come in handy for Christmas Shopping!

Okay, now for a few photos!  I completed editing and uploading photos from my brief stop in Savannah last month.  I still have to work on the NYC photos, but at least some progress.  Savannah was beautiful and I hope you’ll all enjoy some photos!

Savannah River Sunrise

From my first morning in Savannah, Sunrise on the River near Battery Hamilton.  It was a bit subdued by the clouds but pretty nonetheless!

Tybee Light at Dawn

Tybee light was beautiful in the morning and I love the cottage that the lighthouse keeper lived in back in the day.  It’s been restored inside.  All in all a very well kept monument to the history of the area.

East River Street

I didn’t get a lot of photos of the town itself.  Spent so much time out on the coast or on the bus that I never really explored like I’d like to, but this photo from East River Street gives you a bit of a feel.

Cathedral of St. John The Baptist

Savannah’s lovely cathedral – simply gorgeous – be sure to check out the gallery for some interior shots as well!

Moon River

The natural beauty near Savannah actually inspired several Panorama shots.  It’s hard to pick just one to show here, but this is Moon River near dusk and the colors were very special!

Angels of Bonaventure

In case you’re unaware the statue on the front of the book, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, was photographed in Bonaventure.  Not the oldest cemetery in Savannah but a lovely one!  The statue from the book had to be moved to protect it but there’s still some incredible statuary there!

Sunset Sea

My last evening in Savannah was back out to Tybee Island where I enjoyed strolling the beach.  It was a subdued sky with a lot of clouds, but the colors and light was still pretty perfect.  The above is a long exposure shot.  I’ll pick one more, but I hope you’ll go check them all out.  It’s hard for me to pick out my own favorites never mind yours!

Tybee Blue

One of the last from that evening on Tybee, the sun had sunk down and twilight was almost a solid cast of blue from the sky to the reflecting water on the beach.

For more of Savannah, check out the Savannah gallery.

Tate Modern

This is a view of the Tate Modern from the opposite side of the Thames.  The Tate Modern actually occupies what was formerly the Bankside power station, a massive post-war building that embodies much of the modern in its blocky architecture.  The power plant was shuttered in 1981 and in recent years converted into a wing of the Tate musuem, housing modern and contemporary art from 1900 and forward.  Seen also in this view is the Millennium pedestrian bridge built to celebrate the 21st century.

Turbine Hall

The interior of the museum is as much a work of modern art as the extensive and revolving collection it houses.  Stripped of much of the original and mammoth machinery this building once housed, you get massive spaces such as this, the Turbine Hall, in the middle of the structure.  The lines of this place have to be seen to truly be experienced but I feel this print goes a long way towards conveying the proportions.

If modern art is not your thing, you’ll be forgiven for seeking out other places if you visit London with limited time, but if you have time to spare, or you are a fan of modern art, you must check out this place.  As with many of the galleries and museums in London, the Tate Modern is free (temporary exhibitions are the exception).

New York Rhythm

It’s always funny to meet people in other parts of the world who have been to cities in your own country that you’ve never seen before.  I’ve often felt I was saving those for later years when I might be less able or willing to endure 8 to 12 hour flights, or maybe I just needed an excuse.  An excuse finally entered the picture for New York City, a place until recently that I had seen out the window of a plane a few times but in which I had never set foot before.  But having two friends from a past trip (Costa Rica and Nicaragua) in town was all the excuse I needed to finally wet my feet in the city that never sleeps.

I flew out of Savannah’s airport.  For some mystic reason known only to the airlines, it was the cheapest place relatively nearby to fly directly to New York.  Atlanta’s only cheaper flight involved a connection in Fort Lauderdale – c’mon that’s not even in the right direction!  And I have to say, if you ever have reason to use Savannah’s airport, it’s really nice.  I mean, like the resort spa of airports, clean and new with rocking chairs in the terminal!  Now, there aren’t a ton of options for eats after you’ve cleared security but security is so short, you could grab  a meal before!

New York’s Laguardia was the antithesis of Savannah’s airport.  While it was no dump, it was pretty much just another airport, and the only public transit connection to Laguardia is the bus.  There are a  few Queens buses, but I had to jump aboard the only Manhattan bound bus, the M60!  This is almost an experience on par with chicken buses in Latin America!  I could never understand the driver’s communications regarding stops and as it was peak travel time, the bus got more and more crowded as we made our way across the top of Manhattan.  I ended up getting off several stops early – a bit of confusion over where I thought he said we were combined with the maddening crush of people entering through the rear door of the bus (thus avoiding paying a fare).  It was only after I walked to the nearest station that I realized I either had a long jumble of trains and stations to make my destination on the upper West side or a walk to the correct train station.  I guess hypothetically joining another M60 bus was an option, but I was having none of that, so I proceeded to walk along 125th Street in, yes, Harlem.  Now, I’ve heard Harlem is far and away not the place of our collective historic memory today, but I can tell you I was a bit out of place.  Still, I was pretty much ignored as I beat the street with my bloody heavy pack (my camera stuff probably weighed as much if not more than my clothes).

I spent only 5 nights there, and that’s not nearly enough time to even begin to take in all there is to see and do in the Big Apple.  The first night I had dinner and caught up with Lenny and James, who had both been before.  This of course meant that I was doing a lot of my own stuff since I was a newbie there.  And I definitely think I squeezed in as much as I could, not even having time to blog about it while there – very unusual for me while traveling!  If I hadn’t had my iPhone, I wouldn’t have even checked email, etc.

The first full day I had a late start but made my way to an office near Times Square to trade in a voucher I pre-purchased for a few bus loops around the city to get my bearings.  I’ve done similar tours in other cities and found they were a pretty good way to see a city, getting to hop on and off a pre-calculated route.  In retrospect, I definitely bit off more than I could chew, having paid for ALL of their bus loops plus a boat tour!  This all had to be completed in 48 hours, which means a lot of my first two days were spent on buses!  If you’re ever going to NYC and you think you might do a bus trip, just get one loop, my advice would be the downtown bus tour.  Save Brooklyn and the upper end of Manhattan for either another trip or your own wanderings.  I felt obligated to take the bus rides but just didn’t have time to get off in either place.

The boat ride was probably one of the highlights for me.  We saw the city from the water and it’s here that you can really appreciate how unreal New York is.  With every square inch bustling with towering buildings, it feels like something computer generated.  Maybe a New Yorker wouldn’t feel this way, but when you grow up in a town with nothing over 2 stories, anything this big seems impossible!  The boat tour also included a run out to the Statue of Liberty where we could appreciate her from the water and get some photos.  This would turn out to be my only really good view of the statue the whole week I was there!  But you could almost imagine seeing it as all those people processed through Ellis Island must have.

I definitely felt like I saw all the highlights, either from the bus or on my own two feet.  I walked across the Brooklyn Bridge three times!  And no one tried to sell it to me even once!  Darn it!  I went to the top of Rockefeller Center – The Top of the Rock as it’s known to see the sunset with Lenny and James.  The view was phenomenal, more of that vast city stretching to the water on one end and vanishing past the green tranquility of Central Park on the other.  If you can only pick one building to go up, I’d probably make it this one, but I also went up to the 86th floor of the Empire State building one cool and blustery evening.  I skipped the chance to shell out more $ to see the 104th floor as I was already blown to bits by the wind on the 86th!  The view from way up is still magical even on a not so pretty night, I have to say!

The morning I had planned to go see the Statue of Liberty in person turned out to be a rainy morning.  I decided that despite having paid the handsome sum of $12 for my tickets, seeing it in a driving rain didn’t make my heart go pitter pat and instead decided it was museum day!  There are enough choices to make your head spin in NYC, but I ended up going with the venerable MoMA – Museum of Modern Art.  It was an excellent choice even though my appreciation of modern art varies.  I love the photography exhibit.  They had a lot of quite old examples of photography with all sorts of mystical methods of creating the shots on up to examples of photos taken to document the times in the 1930′s in the US.  I spent the bulk of my time right there before doing a, by comparison, world wind tour of the rest of the building.  Where in the photography area, I pretty dutifully looked at every photo, once I got loose in the rest, it didn’t bother my conscience to bypass the works that didn’t call to me.  I was at least impressed when I did like something enough to check it out to see the names of Picasso, Matisse, van Gogh, Dali, and Warhol.  I guessed if I was picking those artists works I wasn’t a complete cretin.  Maybe I have a little taste after all.  LOL

During my time in NYC, although meals were not cheap, they were certainly varied, I had some good New York style Pizza at Grimaldi’s in Brooklyn (supposedly the best there is and I can attest it was good – and there was a line stretching down the block even for take out!).  I had scrumptious cheesecake at the Junior’s in Time’s Square, and I ate Brazilian food at Rice n Beans!  While I am and always have been terribly finicky, New York is definitely the place to go for any of you foodies out there, I suspect you could live there for years and keep finding new foods!  I mostly sampled the “must tries” but thanks to being there with friends also scored a few new things such as the Brazilian place.

The last day in NYC was reserved for a group activity since the weather, which turned gloomy mid-week was better and most of the trip was us catching up over dinner since I was off doing my own thing.  We took a bus out to East Hampton to see where the rich and famous like to spend their holidays.  The Hamptons weren’t all about celebs, but the property prices in East Hampton certainly seemed to be aimed at folks with above average means.  So, of course, it goes without saying that all the buildings were fairly gorgeous, the shops were high end, and my favorite part was still walking on that long beach, even if sand was blowing at us pretty much the whole time.  It was a nice laid back way to end a hectic week.  In fact, we even had Mexican at lunch, my favorite comfort food.

By contrast, my dinner that night was an Italian chicken sandwich and, oh my gosh, real gelato!  I had tried some in Savannah, and it was okay but this was definitely the real deal.  And of all  places to find it, the food court at Grand Central Station (a phenom place to visit even if you aren’t going to board a train).   Grand Central was very much a microcosm of the US.  Gorgeous old architecture, renovated not so long ago, many dining options including sit down restaurants and a food court, plus something akin to a high end farmer’s market, and I got to watch homeless people dig through the trash for the left overs.  Sad to say, this is America.

In the grand scheme of things, NYC was quite a fun place to visit, and ironically I’ve felt more ill at ease in many places in Atlanta than I felt anywhere I went in New York.  Yet still, I’m going to have to say that it was not a place that spoke to my heart the way some others have.  I may well go back one day but I also don’t feel an urgent need to just now.  If you ever decide to visit, don’t overload on the bus tours (book one maybe and then get a good subway/bus map and do the rest yourself), and be prepared not to do everything you thought you would do, because even if the city never sleeps, you will!

Checkmate

In my opinion, a couple of the most recognizable buildings in Atlanta will be familiar to any commuter on the north side of the City.  These towers, officially Concourse Corporate Center V and VI, are known to the locals as the King and Queen towers due to the stylized decorations at the pinnacles of each building.  These buildings are located in Sandy Springs just north of I-285 and east of Georgia 400.  They were completed in 1988 and 1991 and have the distinction of being the tallest towers in a suburban setting in the USA.  This photo captures them against a vibrant winter sky just before dusk.

Fabulous Fox

There’s a joke that every street in Atlanta has the word “Peachtree” in it.  And it’s no joke that there are a lot of Peachtree courts, and avenues, and boulevards named for Georgia’s official fruit, but there’s only one Peachtree Street and only one Fabulous Fox.  The Fox Theater was one of several old movie houses in the city and one of the last of the grand ones left.  It opened in the 1920′s and came close to being destroyed in the 1970′s.  But the local populace, having watched one movie palace after another razed, fought to save the Fox for future generations to enjoy.

Fox On Peachtree

One photo of this old dear on Peachtree was not enough!  This one, taken with a fisheye lens, allows you to really take in the full street scene and almost feel as if you’re standing there right in front of the marquee for the Fabulous Fox.  This was actually taken not long before I bid farewell to Altanta on a final walk through the city.

Atlanta Roxy

The Roxy Theater in the Buckhead neighborhood in Atlanta started life as the Buckhead Theater in 1930, so it’s a bit younger than the Fox, but in that same general age range.  It, however, was built for movies with their own soundtracks rather than subtitles and organ music.  It changed names a few times over the years and eventually settled into life in the Buckhead Bar district that grew up around it, becoming a venue for live music.  The city eventually squashed the bar scene in Buckhead when the headlines around it became a bit too big.  The last I heard the Roxy was being renovated and possibly redeveloped for other uses.

The Future Is Today

I’m not sure if everyone would put this into the icon category, but for me the title fits.  This is the rooftop lounge at the Atlanta Hyatt Regency Hotel.  It’s been diminished by the buildings surrounding it, but when it was built, this space age restaurant sat at the top of Atlanta’s skyline and its said that it was the place to gofor noon meetings.  The building was designed by John Portman, and this modernist gem features the first use of a full atrium in a hotel – a now common feature of hotels all over.  Much of Atlanta’s modernist architecture has met with the wrecking ball, but one hopes this one will stick around.

The High

Atlanta has a pretty long history of supporting the arts.  What we know today as the High Museum began life in 1905 as The Atlanta Art Association. It came to be known as the High when the High family donated their home on Peachtree Street to house the growing collection in 1926.  It’s changed a lot since and continues to evolve.  The current modern buildings began in 1983 and were expanded upon in 2002.  The High continues to be one of the leading museums of the Southeastern US having a diverse and growing collection as well as working with museums around the world to bring temporary exhibitions such as works from the Louvre and the Terracotta Army from China in recent years.

To see even more of Atlanta and prints from other cities around the USA, please check out my Urban America Prints.  For part one of this series, please check out Atlanta Icons – Let’s Eat.

What'll Ya Have?

Without a doubt, my most popular print from the series is this of the sign for Atlanta’s Varsity Restaurant.  This striking sign is visible from the I-75/85 Connector that bisects Atlanta’s downtown.   The original Varsity (it’s now a chain) was opened by Frank Gordy in 1928 to serve students at nearby Georgia Tech.  It eventually became the world’s largest drive in restaurant at more than two acres in size!  If you go inside ot order, the inside is a bit of a madhouse as the cashiers are all yelling “what’ll ya have, what’ll ya have?”

This photo won an award for Best Use Of Color in the 2006 Atlanta Celebrates Photography‘s annual competition – the theme for that year was “My Atlanta.”  It was a perfect marriage of their theme and the series I had just started.

The Big Chicken

Next on the menu, one of the best known landmarks in Atlanta’s suburb of Marietta is The Big Chicken.  Directions around Marietta tend to include the relative location of your destination as compared to the Big Chicken.  For instance, turn right at the Big Chicken, or  1 mile north of the Big Chicken, etc.  The Big Chicken came into being as the signage above Johnny Reb’s Chick, Chuck and Shake restaurant in 1963.  It features a moving beak and rolling eyes.  In 1974, it was bought out by KFC and despite one time thoughts of moving it, the public uproar quelled that idea and the Big Chicken seems to be there to stay.  This photo was processed to appear like a vintage Polaroid image.  I felt the vivid colors from the afternoon sun fit this take on Marietta’s Big Chicken.

Open Wide

Atlanta’s oldest bohemian neighborhood is Little Five Points where Moreland Avenue meets Euclid.  When I moved to Atlanta, it was a place I had to see, and it’s a wonderful place for people watching.  One of many colorful restaurants is the Vortex, which makes a mean hamburger and one of the few places I would rarely think of getting a plain jane burger.  The main entrance to the Vortex in L5P is the mouth of a giant Skull. It’s truly one of the most unsforgettable sights on Moreland.  This ismage captures the feeling of entering the skull.

For more of Atlanta’s Icons and images from around the states, please check out my Urban America Prints.

Crossing Over

This photo was taken from the pedestrian bridge that connects Bankside with the City of London.  It’s taken at a very shallow depth of field in order to accomplish the dreamy feel of this image.  The only thing in focus at all is the dome and the mass of humanity before it become little more than a blur.    This church was built after the last was destroyed by the great fire in 1666.  The fire leveled the city but remarkably took no human life.  The fire shaped everything about the city we know today, built in stone to lower the risk of fire consuming it.  The dome was a point of much debate.  The architect, the renowned Sir Christopher Wren was determined that the new St Paul’s would have a dome like St. Peter’s in Rome.  Several iterations of the design were rejected before Wren decided not to show any more models to the public for criticism.  When it was completed in 1708, some loved it, some hated it, and others couldn’t care either way.  Today it’s hard to imagine the sky line of the old city without it.

Old And New

Another view of St. Paul’s From Bankside.  The view is much changed since WWII.  The buildings adjacent to the Thames were destroyed in the war and newer generations of buildings have grown up between the River and the cathedral.  And more recently, the millennium bridge was built as a pedestrian walkway to connect the City of London with Bankside on opposite sides of the River Thames.  London as a city has never gotten stuck in a particular style.  As a growing metropolis, new and exciting architecture is always fighting for space beside the classics.  Much as the classics, these are sometimes met with mixed reactions.  When the Millennium bridge  was completed in 2000, there was a noticeable wobble and the bridge was closed, repaired and reopened in 2002.  This led to its nickname The Wobbly Bridge.

Iconic St Paul's

Another black and white image of St. Paul’s.  The depth of field and processing was intended to provide a little of the feel of the old images of St. Paul’s amidst the smoke from the Blitz of WWII.

To see more of London and Great Britain, please check out my Britain Prints Gallery.

Kings From The Cam

The Backs is the view of the colleges from the River Cam.  The chapel on the right is quintessential Cambridge.  This Chapel is both the symbol of Kings and the logo of the city council of Cambridge.  Although locally the college is simply referred to as  Kings, this is King’s College of Our Lady and St. Nicholas in Cambridge. Established in 1441 by Henry VI, the gothic styled chapel took a hundred years to complete.

Kings

This is the street side view of Kings – you can really feel that gorgeous gothic style in this black and white print.  The exterior height of the chapel is 94 feet tall and the interior ceiling contains the largest fan vaulting in the world.

Emma

This college is known as “Emma” locally – it is Emmanuel College.  It was established in 1584 and intended to be a place of religious training for puritans.  It’s scope has broadened over the years, but it had strong ties to the Puritans of New England.  In fact, Harvard University was named for an alumni of Emma, John Harvard.  The baroque building in the center is the chapel and was designed by the renowned English architect, Sir Christopher Wren in 1677.  The care of the lawn here is apparent down to the little green garden tractor you’ll see waiting parked in front of the chapel!

This is only a taste of Cambridge.  It would easily take days to document all the colleges never mind the rest of the architecture in this city.  I hope I get the opportunity to some day.  To see more of England and the UK, please check out my Britain Prints Gallery.

This is my third night here and I consider it little more than a taste but I understand why people have so often spoken kindly of Savannah when they heard I was from Georgia. The irony always was I’d only seen Georgia’s coast once and Savannah only from I-95 at night.

My trip has shown me I must come back! The funny thing is it’s not the city I’ve enjoyed so much as the coast. There’s something in the sea air that has always agreed with me. I think my brain protects itself when I get away from the ocean and blots it out, but it’s the same reason I have always enjoyed storms that blow inland from the sea. There’s something markedly different about the air.

I’ve been out to Tybee Island every day I’ve been here and out to Skidaway Island as well and saw Moon River of Johnny Mercer fame. I took some panoramas of Moon River – fingers crossed that they turn out as planned!

Got here late afternoon on Friday and after dinner took my first turn out on Tybee after a wander through downtown in my car. I saw the sun set behind me as I made my way out and dusk on the tidal marshes, my first moment of really getting the beauty of this place. I ended the night with a few night shots of Tybee Lighthouse.

The next morning I tried my best to make it to Tybee fir sunrise but missed by a bit, but I managed to get to a few spots in the marshes as people started to head out in their boats. Then on to Tybee and got a few early photos if the lighthouse and wandered on the beach until the opened the light.

I climbed the 170ish steps to the top. Think I may have been the first of the morning, but at least there was no one up there to see me spazzing at the height! I have never like bridges and apparently the little metal walk projecting out at the top is close enough! I clung to the wall and inched around for the view! At this point I was glad they had a sign up allowing no big bags as pulling out my point and shoot was more than enough for me. By the time others showed up I had chilled out a little but I still didn’t want too many people on it and headed down Toured the rest of the restored buildings and headed back to Savannah to finally see the city!

And I didn’t see a lot! If you’re planning to do a trolley tour my suggestion is to start first thing! I only got off at two stops of the dozen or so offerred and before I knew it, it was time to get on the last trolley back to the visitor center. I considered riding back in and wandering now that I had my bearings a little but decided instead for the ride to Skidaway Island.

There’s not a lot to say about the island from what I saw of it. It’s entirely possible that there’s something great out there, but all I found to take photos if was the view from a fishing pier at Moon River, but it was a great way to end the day.

Sunday was an incredibly lazy day. I had planned to check in and see if I could get on a ghost tour and walk around the city. The alarm went off and I decided not an early morning day which was probably just as well because it was a very overcast day – sunrise was probably disapointing. I finally got out and had lunch.

Over lunch I decided I’d go see Bonaventure cemetery and then back downtown to wander the historic district. Found Bonaventure fairly easily. At first I was disappointed. It was pretty but nothing super special. For those who don’t know Bonaventure is where the cover for Midnigt in The Garden of Good and Evil was photographed. I had wandered fir a good while before looping around to the much older part of the cemetery and it is quite beautiful in the way a lot of basically Victorian cemeteries are, massive monuments to death and egos but hauntingly lovely especially cloaked I. The canopies of live oaks. I wish I had found that area first, but maybe it’s good I was walked out! I started back fir the parking lot and sudenly realized it was a few minutes after 5pm! Not only was my car on the other side of a six foot fence, the gate was locked! Before I could panic and call the “emergency” number on the gate, I saw someone drive up to a gate about 25 feet away and made a mad dash to get there before she locked it! LOL. The fun thing was as I sat in the car, I could see people still driving around inside… I guess they have to let a lot of people out (there was a caretaker’s house).

At this point, it seemed too late to go downtown again so I decided that will wait for another visit. Instead, yes, I drove out to Tybee once more. I spent over two hours wandering the beach with my camera and soaking in the sea air and ocassionally wishing I had a beach towel with me but walking with the camera and just breathing the air was incredibly relaxing anyway!

Thus ends my first journey to the coast, not my last I trust! Tomorrow, bound for the airport for the next leg of this trip! Stay tuned!

Punting On The Cam

This photo was taken while punting on the River Cam.  Punting is simply gliding on the River in a flat wooden boat while someone propels it with a long stick pushed against the river bottom.  I say simply because it can be very amusing to watch an amateur try it and since boats can be rented without pilot, you can do this yourself.  My London Walks group gladly allowed someone else to do the piloting.  The views on the river are pretty gorgeous.  As pretty as Cambridge is, there’s no doubt some of the best of the architecture is reserved for what they call The Backs.  This view is most likely one of the many colleges that form Cambridge but I’m not sure which one.  Loved the lone duck in this one.  He had been attempting to solicit food from us.

Streets of Cambridge

This is another little slice of Cambridge, a fairly typical street view of this storied city.  Gorgeous architecture from across the centuries.  And a ubiquitous bicycle!  Cambridge has the highest level of bicycle use in the UK, with over 25% of residents using a bicycle to commute.  This photo for me really reflects what you’d gather of Cambridge from your average day trip.

Fields Of The Lost

Now, my fellow Americans can feel free to tell me if this was my personal ignorance or not, but I had never heard of the American Cemetery near Cambridge.  One of our early stops, this is the place of burial for over 3,000 members of the American forces who died during WWII.  There’s also a memorial wall with the names of the missing and a chapel.  As most war memorials tend to be, it’s both a sobering and beautiful place with row upon row of white crosses in a park like setting.

For more prints from England and the rest of the UK, please visit my Britain Gallery.