Sights that have left a lasting impression

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Rikkitic

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Topic # 229108 7-Feb-2018 21:45

The world is an amazing place. Many of us have seen things that remain with us forever. Modern media make these miracles available to everyone, but nothing beats being there.

I have experienced many things I will never forget. The Grand Canyon. The Painted Desert. Uluru. The Great Barrier Reef. The Kimberley. The high country skies of South Island. The Golden Triangle. The Scottish highlands.

There is so much. Any choice is necessarily arbitrary. But one thing that stands out in my memory is watching the sunset over Golden Gate Bridge in the Presidio in 1969 in San Francisco, where I had the privilege to live for some years.

That is my lasting impression. What is yours?

I reject your reality and substitute my own. - Adam Savage

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Reply # 1953343 7-Feb-2018 21:57

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I visited the Vasa Museum in Stockholm a few years ago. I was blown away. If you're ever there I can't recommend it highly enough.

While I was in town I also spent best part of a day walking around Old Town (Gamla Stan), one of the best preserved medieval town centres in Europe. Also highly recommended, it's an insanely cool place to wander around and get lost in.

MikeB4

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Reply # 1953355 7-Feb-2018 22:20

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we were in our boat off Boom Rock on Wellingtons Makara Coast. We had spent a quiet morning fishing when suddenly a pod of Ocra broached right beside the boat. The fantastic creatures stayed around us for about 10 minutes. Sadly I did not have a camera on board but its a sight captured in my mind .

Mike
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Reply # 1953373 7-Feb-2018 23:13

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Way too many to limit them to just one. I could not begin to do that.

Just a few random ones

Sitting on the summit of Mont Blanc aged 16 gazing across the French Alps and feeling like I had climbed Everest
Watching the sun set and rise at Angkor (several times)
Giza Plateau
Numerous places in the UK with no particular name I encountered when hill walking in National Parks with a tent and just pitching wherever the mood took us, then sitting out as it got dark and feeling like our party was all that was left in the world
Diving in Indonesia and having a deadly sea snake just idly swim past about 5 feet in front of my nose
Wandering the Tower of London and imagining all the famous and infamous people and events who trod the same stones before me
Punting on the Cherwell in Oxford and along The Backs in Cambridge
Standing in a frosty wood on a cold winter day, hearing the beaters coming towards you through the woods and waiting in silence for the pheasants to burst out over your head, Labrador resting at heel
Standing in Mandalay and trying to imagine Kipling there
Wandering the battlefields of Agincourt, Crecy, Waterloo, D Day and so on

I could go on all day...!

allan

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Reply # 1953378 7-Feb-2018 23:29

Bryce Canyon National Park in Utah - https://www.nps.gov/brca/index.htm. Totally blew me away with the colours and size of the hoodoo pinnacles.

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Reply # 1953382 7-Feb-2018 23:44

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allan:

Bryce Canyon National Park in Utah - https://www.nps.gov/brca/index.htm. Totally blew me away with the colours and size of the hoodoo pinnacles.

Crater Lake did that when I visited that as a kid. I also remember feeding the chipmunks!

networkn

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Reply # 1953389 8-Feb-2018 00:10

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Wow, no way I could limit to one.

1) The Maldives in General. Sleeping in an overwater bure, with glass floors and watching the fish swim around underneath, then in the morning, walking to the edge of our unit, and stepping off into.. Fish Soup.

2) Whale Shark snorkelling in the Maldives. I have NEVER been that close to something that huge that was alive, in my life, nor since. I have *never* felt so utterly insignificant.

3) Probably the most amazing thing I'd seen to that point in my life, was winning a trip to Italy, a place I had wanted to go my whole life, and seeing St Peters Basicilla. Words escape me. The Vatican in it's totality.. Finally understanding the attraction of Europe.

4) Sagrada Familia in Barcelona. I haven't felt peace like I did inside that building, for many years.

5) The birth of both my kids. (I was at the head end staring at the wall, speaking encouraging words to my wife and holding her hand. Seeing my premature daughter for the first time and asking the midwife, where the rest of her was.

6) Front Row at a Celine Dion Concert, an upgrade I still don't know how I got, from 12 rows back - after beating cancer. My wife buying me a Breitling watch I'd been joking about buying, afterward. A night I'll never forget.

7) Second row at Phil Collins in Paris, a place I waited my whole life to get to, and an artist I waited my whole life to see.

8) The first time my son smiled at me, that wasn't induced by gas.

I have been unbelievably fortunate to have experienced these things, and many many more.

jarledb

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Reply # 1953397 8-Feb-2018 01:14

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gehenna:

I visited the Vasa Museum in Stockholm a few years ago. I was blown away. If you're ever there I can't recommend it highly enough.

While I was in town I also spent best part of a day walking around Old Town (Gamla Stan), one of the best preserved medieval town centres in Europe. Also highly recommended, it's an insanely cool place to wander around and get lost in.

That ship is the physical manifestation of what happens when you build something based on specifications of people that have no clue what they are doing, and the result of not having anyone with knowledge (or power) to do anything about the requirements.

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Reply # 1953411 8-Feb-2018 07:22

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Auschwitz for me. This came to mind as soon as I saw this topic heading.

Most of the trouble in the world is caused by people wanting to be important. (T.S. Eliot)

tdgeek

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Reply # 1953413 8-Feb-2018 07:30

Geektastic:

Wandering the Tower of London and imagining all the famous and infamous people and events who trod the same stones before me

I felt the same when at Alcatraz, quite a surreal feeling. Its like living inside a history book for a fleeting moment.

Grand Canyon I guess for me. Parked the car, walked past the hedge and wow. Must have just stood there for 10 minutes trying to take it all in

vexxxboy

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Reply # 1953414 8-Feb-2018 07:30

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Charged by Mountain Gorillas in Zaire.

the beauty of Isfahan in Iran

the silence of the Sahara desert and watching a Sand Storm approach.

Common sense is not as common as you think.

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Reply # 1953448 8-Feb-2018 08:34

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+1 Grand Canyon.

+1 painted desert - slightly ruined by Michael Bolton's eponymous song.

Zion National Park (near Las vegas).

The sheer scale and ostentatiousness of Las Vegas at night

Bruges at night

Anywhere in the back blocks of Fiordland

Anywhere >50 miles from land on a clear night

Molten lava flowing into the ocean near Hilo, Hawaii

Diving at the Simalan Island/Great Barrier Reef prior to coral bleaching

Diving at Pupu springs before it was banned

Snorkelling with manta rays in Hawaii

Opening morning when the pond is till with Finn (RIP) at my heels

I also rate the Alcatraz visit highly. Nothing visually spectacular about it but stepping inside one of those cells and knowing the guys spent pretty much all day in them, was chilling.

I visited a place called Acoma Pueblo in New Mexico. Visually unimpressive until you learn some of the stone buildings complete with mica windows have been occupied since around 400AD. The village survive raids by Navajo and colonisation by Spain and America. It's hard to find a moving and authentic cultural experience, but that is one of them

Seeing a huge whale (fin whale I think) surface off the BOP coastline one rough day. Incomprehensible scale.

Mike

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Reply # 1953521 8-Feb-2018 10:25

tdgeek:

Geektastic:

Wandering the Tower of London and imagining all the famous and infamous people and events who trod the same stones before me

I felt the same when at Alcatraz, quite a surreal feeling. Its like living inside a history book for a fleeting moment.

Grand Canyon I guess for me. Parked the car, walked past the hedge and wow. Must have just stood there for 10 minutes trying to take it all in

There are lots of castles in the UK, Roman sites and all that sort of thing and I get that feeling every time I wander around one. I remember standing in the Roman fort at Richborough and imagining I was standing in the same space as Vespasian, who commanded one of the legions in the Claudian Invasion before he became Emperor of Rome. Also, being at Waterloo and thinking that Wellington and Napoleon were here...or on the Victory and seeing where Horatio Nelson died.

Also, looking at statues from ancient Greece, Rome, Egypt etc and thinking of the mind-blowing fact that the genius that carved such lifelike works has been dead for perhaps 2000 years and yet I am still able to stand there and gaze at the result of their talent, the latest in a very long line that must number in the millions.

If anyone is heading to France and wants to see more recent living history, if you head east from the Cherbourg peninsular you will will come to Arromanches. It's the site of the Mulberry Harbour from D Day and you can still see the remnants of it in the bay. They are still quite substantial to this day and combined with a number of large coastal gun emplacements and forts along that coastline, will give you a very good idea what those tipping off the landing craft had to look forward to.

MikeAqua

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Reply # 1953536 8-Feb-2018 10:58

Geektastic:

There are lots of castles in the UK, Roman sites and all that sort of thing

Makes me laugh when people in NZ crap on about 'Historic' building. We don;t really have any buildings that will survive to any real age by global standards.

The only significantly old buildings I have seen in NZ are dwellings carved into a Tufa rock face near Rotorua, presumably Maori.

But you just reminded me of another amazing site: medieval buildings in Brussels (small and large).

I remember wandering along little street utterly confused by the sequences of numbers on the little building, then realising they weren't street numbers, but the years of construction of each building and being astounded by just how old some of them were.

Mike

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Reply # 1953544 8-Feb-2018 11:05

@jarledb yeah the story would be hilarious if there wasn't so much loss of life. Well, it's still kinda hilarious (statute of limitations on tragedy notwithstanding).

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Reply # 1953567 8-Feb-2018 11:46

The Viadotto Guerrieri or Modica Viaduct in Sicily:

I have been over it twice - Blew me away both times.

The second time I was on a bus and knew it was coming up and that the other people had never been over it before. I enjoyed their amazement!

Its like flying.

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