Last day

It was pouring when I woke up yesterday morning, but by the time I'd had breakfast and dressed it was steady rain, and by the time I'd finished my Starbucks latte, it had stopped.

But it was gray and gloomy all day -- here's a view I couldn't resist while walking along the Seine to the Orangerie. It wasn't cold enough to stop me going to the Île Saint-Louis to buy an ice cream at Berthillon, so I had sustenance on the way and my personal Paris food trifecta was complete (baguette with butter and jam, croque-madame, Berthillon ice cream.)

I've eaten at many fine restaurants here on previous visits and they're amazing but this is the food I crave in Paris.

One more

Geometries

Another view of the Harbour Bridge in Sydney.

Geometries

Another look at the Harbour Bridge, through the prism of a globe light by the Opera House.

The other icon on the harbor

Sydney's Harbour Bridge is often paired with the Opera House in pictures, but it's a beautiful piece of engineering in its own right. Here's a twilight image of the bridge on its own, taken from the Rocks.

And yet another bridge

I believe -- believe -- this is a bridge over the same stream as the previous post, taken in the afternoon light when we'd circled back around to the Cuillin hills overlook.

Not that it really matters -- Isle of Skye. Scotland. Pretty.

A slightly older bridge on Skye

I don't know the name or history of this little bridge -- it was near an overlook of the Cuillin hills and Glen Sligachan where we stopped in the morning when the peaks were still covered with mist, and again in the afternoon when it was clearer.

Skye bridge

The design of the bridge was supposedly meant to suggest a seagull in flight, but the history wasn't nearly so poetic.

Until the bridge was built in 1995, ferries were the only transport to and from the island. When the bridge opened, the closest ferry, between Kyleakin on Skye and Kyle of Lochalsh on the mainland, was discontinued, so residents had no choice but to use the bridge. And pay the tolls.

The company that built it had funded the construction themselves, with the agreement that they would also operate the bridge and charge tolls to recoup their costs. But the fare, more than five pounds each way, made it (or so the protesters claimed) the most expensive road in Europe. After years of controversy and protest, the Scottish government bought the bridge in 2004, and there are no more tolls.

Khaju Bridge

This bridge is built atop a dam. The steps by the sluices are apparently a popular place to hang out.

The Bridges of Isfahan County

One of the things Isfahan is famous for is the many bridges crossing the Zayandeh River.

We walked down to the river after dinner to enjoy this view, the Si-o-seh bridge by night.

Farewell Istanbul

I know, I know -- a sunset. How obvious.

But this is the view from the hotel terrace, where I had the last glass of wine I'll have for at least the next couple of weeks, and I think it's a fitting goodbye to this magical city. I'm off to Tehran.

Bosphorus Bridge

Here's a daylight view of the bridge I see from my hotel room. It was the first bridge to span the Bosphorus, and was completed in 1973.

Those zigzagging cables to the left are LED lights that blink and shimmy and sparkle at night, so the bridge looks like a sequined bra on an exotic dancer.

Urban poetry

Cooling off in the heat wave on one of the bridges spanning the Willamette River in Portland.

Another view from the bridge

Same bridge, different direction.

There is no pain, you are receding....

...a distant ship's smoke on the horizon.

Tonight we sailed under the Great Belt bridge, cutting through Denmark on our way back to Sweden. I had never heard of it before, and probably wouldn't have paid any attention except that the captain made such a point of mentioning it in his daily update.

And after having been confined to my cabin for two days, any excuse to leave it seemed like a good idea, so at ten pm I grabbed my camera and took the elevator up to the top deck.

There were already fifty or sixty people up there -- the best positions at the front railing were already taken -- and more arriving every minute, in formal dress from dinner, carrying cocktails. It was all very giddy and giggly, like a party where the guest of honor was running late. The sun had set and the evening was foggy, and there was no bridge to be seen but that didn't stop everyone from taking pictures of the nothing that was not there and the nothing that was, as my pal Wallace Stevens used to say.

At first the bridge seemed like a trick of my eyes: it was there and then it wasn't and then it was, a thin slice of fog growing darker and more substantial. As we approached we could see the cars and trucks flashing their lights in greeting. The top of the ship seemed to clear it by mere inches.