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Had i been down there, i may have never realized the true beauty i was surrounded by. Perspectives matter!
Le profil italien du Cervin n'est pas le plus sexy ni le plus spectaculaire. Nos amis italien de Cervinia ont toutes les raisons de jalouser Zermatt qui s'est développée de manière phénoménale grâce au profil spectaculaire du Cervin sur son versant suisse.
Son sommet, culmine à 4'478m alors que cette photo est prise à environ 6'000 d'altitude, en longeant la frontière naturelle italo-suisse. Derrière le petit nuage accroché au sommet du Cervin, au pied du Caillou, c'est Zermatt.
Here, you can see the italien side of the Cervin (Matterhorn), from an altitude of about 6'000m.
Visceral dystopia @Wall street, NYC
*2k! Thank you all very much! :)
More adventures on my Instagram
aerial view of the Scroby Sands Wind Farm off the Norfolk coast, captured at low tide when the shifting sandbank briefly reveals its sweeping, golden outline. The photograph shows the slender arc of Scroby Sands stretching northeast into the North Sea, surrounded by rows of towering offshore wind turbines rising from the shallows. In the centre stands a jack-up maintenance vessel, its red deck and tall legs contrasting vividly with the soft blues and browns of sea and sand.
Scroby Sands Wind Farm was one of the UK’s first commercial offshore wind projects, commissioned in 2004 and located about 2.5 km off Great Yarmouth. It consists of 30 Vestas V80 turbines, each rated at 2 MW, giving a total capacity of 60 MW—enough to power around 40,000 homes. Built on the constantly shifting sandbank that has long been a hazard to shipping, Scroby Sands is both a landmark of renewable energy and a reminder of the dynamic nature of the Norfolk coastline.
In this view, the light surf tracing the contours of the bank and the turbines aligned against the horizon create a striking juxtaposition between natural transience and engineered permanence.
Lancaster Castle in mid-winter, its wards and battlements softened by fresh snow while the city spreads out beyond the walls. The fortress began as a Norman stronghold in the 11th century, raised on earlier ground that had been occupied in Roman times. Over the centuries it grew into a complex of towers, curtain walls, courtyards and later administrative buildings, long tied to the Duchy of Lancaster.
Lancaster’s history is inseparable from justice and imprisonment. For hundreds of years it functioned as a major prison and court site for the North West. The castle is remembered for the Lancashire Witch Trials of 1612, when ten people were executed after the Assizes held here. The prison role continued into the modern era, finally ending when HMP Lancaster Castle closed in 2011.
Today the castle remains an imposing landmark above the River Lune valley and parts of it still serve the law courts, with other areas opened up for visitors. In this view you can also see current maintenance work under temporary covering, a reminder that places with a thousand years of hard weather need constant care.
Seen here from above, St John the Baptist Roman Catholic Cathedral sits quietly under a blanket of winter snow, its pale stone softened by the season and its long roofline emphasised by the surrounding roads and bare trees. With no traffic and no leaves, the scene feels hushed and almost timeless.
The cathedral was built between 1882 and 1910 for Norwich’s growing Roman Catholic community, following the restoration of Catholic worship in England during the 19th century. Designed by George Gilbert Scott Jr., it is one of the finest examples of Gothic Revival architecture in the country. Its twin western towers, soaring nave and richly detailed stonework were intended to echo the great medieval cathedrals of Europe, yet it remains firmly rooted in its Victorian origins.
Unlike Norwich Cathedral to the east, this building crowns a hill at the edge of the historic city centre, overlooking St Giles Street and the ring road below. From the air, its plan and setting become clear: a place of worship encircled by movement, yet standing apart from it.
In winter, with snow settling on roofs and branches stripped bare, the cathedral’s form feels especially sculptural — solid, calm, and enduring — as the city around it pauses and rests.
... Trade Center.
Sooc-ish @One World Trade Center, NYC
(Zooming in is half the joy of this picture! I think it's safe to say the Q saw more than I did at the time :)
From above, a snowfall turns Canterbury into a pale mosaic of roofs and lanes, and the Cathedral Precincts read as a great cleared island within the tighter grain of the city. The cathedral’s long rooflines and transepts take the snow cleanly, while the great central tower rises as the anchor point, a vertical statement in the middle of the plan. Even in winter, the building’s scale is unmistakable: a church designed to be seen from every approach, and to draw the eye in the same way it has drawn travellers for centuries.
Canterbury Cathedral is one of the oldest and most important centres of Christianity in England. The story begins in AD 597 when Augustine arrived and established a church here, laying the foundations of what became the seat of the Archbishop of Canterbury. After the Norman Conquest, a vast new cathedral was begun under Archbishop Lanfranc in the 1070s, setting the basic footprint of the medieval building. Over time, that Norman core was reworked and extended into the richly layered cathedral we recognise today.
Few events shaped its fame more than the murder of Archbishop Thomas Becket in the cathedral in 1170. Becket’s shrine quickly became one of Europe’s great pilgrimage destinations, and Canterbury entered the wider imagination as a place of journey and devotion, a reputation later echoed in Chaucer’s tales of travellers heading for the shrine. A fire in 1174 led to a major rebuilding of the choir, pushing the architecture forward into a new Gothic language that still defines much of the cathedral’s interior character.
The tower often called Bell Harry is the cathedral’s late-medieval flourish: the central crossing tower completed in the late 15th century, rising above the meeting of nave and transepts and giving Canterbury its distinctive skyline. In this aerial view, winter makes the geometry easier to read: the long nave, the broad transepts, the clustered chapels and courts of the precincts, and the city pressing close around the walls. The scaffolding visible in the scene is a reminder that a building this old is never truly “finished” – it is continually maintained, repaired and handed on, season after season.
Norwich Cathedral
Seen here under a blanket of winter snow, Norwich Cathedral sits at the heart of its close, the great Norman building clearly defined from the air by its cruciform plan and enclosed cloister. With trees bare and the city hushed, the geometry of nave, transepts and cloister becomes especially clear, revealing the careful order imposed on this landscape nearly a thousand years ago.
The cathedral was founded in 1096 by Herbert de Losinga, the first Bishop of Norwich, and largely completed by 1145. Built of Caen stone imported from Normandy, it is one of the finest Romanesque cathedrals in Europe. Its spire, rebuilt in stone in 1480 after earlier wooden versions, rises to 315 feet, making it the second tallest in England after Salisbury. The cloister, begun in 1297 and completed in the mid-14th century, is the largest monastic cloister in the country and the only one with a complete sequence of medieval roof bosses.
From above, the cathedral’s relationship with the surrounding Close is unmistakable: a self-contained precinct set apart from the streets beyond, originally housing monks of the Benedictine priory that once dominated this part of Norwich. In winter, snow softens the roofs and paths, but the structure itself remains unchanged — a place shaped by faith, continuity, and time.
Framlingham Castle, in the market town of Framlingham, Suffolk, is one of the best-preserved Norman castles in England and an exceptional example of medieval military architecture. The first stone fortress on the site was begun soon after 1100 by the Bigod family, powerful earls of Norfolk who rose to become some of the greatest barons in England. The present castle dates mainly from the late 12th century, when Hugh Bigod rebuilt it following his rebellion against Henry II. Its massive curtain wall, roughly 10 metres high and reinforced by thirteen towers, encloses a wide inner court that once held a great hall, kitchens, and service buildings.
In the Tudor period, the castle passed to the Howard family, Dukes of Norfolk, who converted parts of it into a comfortable residence. It achieved national significance in 1553, when Mary Tudor rallied her supporters here after the death of Edward VI and was proclaimed Queen of England within these walls before marching triumphantly to London. Later, in the 17th century, the castle was used as a poorhouse, and parts of its interior buildings were dismantled, leaving the great curtain walls largely intact.
Overlooking the picturesque Framlingham Mere, the castle commands a striking position in the Suffolk landscape. It has been managed by English Heritage since 1984 and remains a powerful reminder of Norman ambition, Tudor drama, and the long, evolving story of English fortifications.
I booked a flight from Tokyo Haneda to Osaka Kansai and figured I needed a window seat on the right side of the plane to see Mt Fuji. There it was! :)
The flight to Osaka Kansai was with with Japan Airlines in a 737.
The flight back from Osaka Itami to Haneda was All Nippon Airways with a wide-body 777 while the flight is only 80 minutes!
Shot from an aircraft on a bleak winter afternoon, this is the tidal River Deben in Suffolk, winding in soft bends between marsh and low farmland. The sky was almost solid grey yet for a few minutes a gap opened above the estuary and sent sharp shafts of light down onto the water.
The river surface turns to liquid silver where the light hits it, picking out one bright meander and a strip of meadow while the rest of the landscape sits in deep shadow. You can see moored boats resting in the channel at low tide, mudflats exposed along the banks and dark woodland blocks framing the fields.
The Deben runs past small villages and quiet farms before it reaches the sea, and from the air it feels like a sheltered world of creeks, saltmarsh and grazing land. On a day like this the weather does the composing, turning an ordinary stretch of river into a natural spotlight on winter Suffolk.
Night view over the Greenwich Peninsula, looking west across the River Thames towards the O₂ Arena with the illuminated skyline of Canary Wharf behind it. The white dome of the O₂ – originally built as the Millennium Dome and opened in 2000 – sits at the centre of the image, its yellow support masts lit up against the dark sky. Beyond it rises the financial district of Canary Wharf, with the towers of One Canada Square and many newer high-rise residential and commercial buildings now surrounding it. Numerous cranes are still at work – a reminder that this area is one of the fastest-growing urban developments in Europe.
Taken from the cable car crossing the Thames (the Docklands side of the IFS Cloud Cable Car, formerly the Emirates Air Line) which links the O₂ to the Royal Docks and the ExCeL Centre. The calm river below reflects the city lights and colours beautifully. On the left is the eastern edge of Greenwich Peninsula; on the right the Isle of Dogs leading into central London.
The O₂ is one of the world’s busiest entertainment venues, hosting concerts, sports and major events. The area around it has changed dramatically since the London Docklands regeneration began in the 1980s, transforming former industrial land and shipping docks into London’s second financial centre. Today it forms one of the most striking night skylines in the capital.
A sweeping night view of the Thames and East London – taken from the cable car on the Emirates Air Line.
In the foreground is the striking Thames Barrier Navigation Control Centre, an elegant circular building completed in 2003 at a cost of around £20 million. It houses the operational team responsible for monitoring all boat movements in this busy stretch of the river and coordinating navigation around the Thames Barrier. The curved glass façade gives the building its distinctive lantern-like appearance when lit up after dark.
Beyond it, the road curves towards the Silvertown Tunnel construction site and the approaches to the A102 / A2, which heads below the Thames into Greenwich. On the right are the lights of the Lower Lea Crossing, and further ahead the river bends past City Island and Canning Town. The cluster of tall buildings across the water is part of the huge Royal Docks regeneration area, where thousands of new homes have been built since 2012, with more planned well into the late 2020s.
This section of the Thames is one of the busiest stretches of water in Britain – both commercially and historically. The Thames Barrier itself, a little further downriver, cost £534 million to build (in 1982 prices) and has now been closed over 200 times to protect London from tidal surges. The Navigation Control Centre monitors the barrier, shipping movements, emergencies, and tidal data 24 hours a day.
On the far left of the skyline is the unmistakable silhouette of Canary Wharf, while beyond it, central London glows under the cloud cover. The red lights on top of the cranes mark ongoing redevelopment – a reminder that London is still growing at a remarkable pace. The reflection of aircraft lights in the clouds hints at the proximity of London City Airport, only a mile away to the east.
Happisburgh Lighthouse, Norfolk – Aerial view, 2023
Happisburgh Lighthouse, with its bold red and white stripes, stands on the crumbling cliffs of the north-east Norfolk coast. Built in 1790, it is the oldest working lighthouse in East Anglia and the only independently operated lighthouse in Great Britain, maintained by the Happisburgh Lighthouse Trust since 1990 when local residents saved it from closure. The tower rises 26 metres (85 ft) above the ground, and its revolving light, flashing three white beams every 30 seconds, is visible for 18 nautical miles (33 km).
There were originally two lighthouses at Happisburgh — the High Light, still standing today, and the Low Light, which stood nearer the shore. Together, they acted as leading lights guiding ships safely between the dangerous Haisborough Sands and the coast. When the two lights were seen exactly in line, one above the other, they marked a precise bearing that kept vessels on the safe course through the hazards. The Low Light was decommissioned in 1883 and demolished in 1884 as coastal erosion made it unsafe.
Just inland from the cliff edge is a World War II pillbox, built around 1940–41 as part of Britain’s coastal defences against possible German invasion. It would have been manned by local volunteers, watching over the beach approaches and forming part of a continuous line of defensive structures along much of the Norfolk coast.
The lighthouse achieved national attention in 1990, when Anneka Rice and the team from the BBC television series Challenge Anneka arrived to help restore it. The programme documented a major volunteer effort in which the lighthouse was repainted, refurbished, and landscaped in just a few days, helping to raise public awareness and support for the newly formed Happisburgh Lighthouse Trust. This community spirit was instrumental in keeping the lighthouse operational after the Trinity House decommissioning plan.
The rock armour now visible at the base of the cliff was placed in the early 2000s as an emergency measure by North Norfolk District Council to protect the foot of the Beach Road ramp after the old wooden revetments and groynes had largely failed. Despite these efforts, the soft glacial till continues to erode at an average rate of 1–2 metres per year.
This photograph, taken in September 2023, shows the lighthouse, the WWII pillbox, and the modern rock armour at the cliff base — a vivid illustration of the constant battle between human effort and the relentless sea along this dynamic stretch of Norfolk coast.
A winter aerial view of Walberswick, the small Suffolk village set on the edge of the Blyth estuary opposite Southwold. The roofs, lanes and marsh creeks form a perfect crescent along the riverbank, with the allotments and reedbeds stretching inland towards Dunwich. From above you can see how closely the village is tied to the water: the ferry point, the old harbour basins and the winding channels that define this part of the coast.
Walberswick was once a modest but active medieval port, exporting wool and grain through the Blyth. Repeated storm damage and the shifting river mouth brought decline by the late 1600s, and the grand parish church was partly abandoned in the 1690s when upkeep became impossible. A smaller church was built inside the shell of the old one, which still stands beside the village green. Today the population is a little over 450 people, living among fishermen’s cottages, Georgian houses and later Arts-and-Crafts homes.
By the late 19th century Walberswick had become a favourite retreat for artists and writers. Philip Wilson Steer, one of Britain’s leading Impressionists, painted many of his finest Suffolk landscapes here. George Orwell spent time in the village in the 1920s and 30s at his family’s holiday home, walking the marshes and writing letters from the coast. The wider artistic and literary world followed: visitors and residents have included E.M. Forster, members of the Alma-Tadema circle, and painters linked to the Camden Town Group.
In more recent decades Timothy West, Prunella Scales, Richard Curtis, Emma Freud, and Esther Freud have all had homes or long associations with the village or the immediate area. Walberswick’s quiet lanes and open marshes have long appealed to people seeking a retreat with a creative atmosphere.
The village is also well known for its crabbing traditions. Throughout much of the 20th century this became a defining part of local summer life, eventually leading to the British Open Crabbing Championships, one of Walberswick’s most eccentric claims to fame.
Seen from above, the balance of river, marsh, farmland and tightly grouped houses reveals the shape of a settlement that has barely shifted in centuries. It is a landscape protected for its wildlife and treasured for its character – a small community with a deep sense of place on the Suffolk coast.
This aerial photograph shows the Church of St Peter and St Paul, Exton, standing in open parkland near Oakham, Rutland.
The church has medieval origins, with the earliest fabric dating from the 13th century. Much of the present structure reflects 14th-century rebuilding, including the nave and chancel, with later 15th-century work to windows and details. The tall west tower, a defining feature of the church today, was substantially rebuilt in the 19th century, giving it its prominent vertical emphasis.
St Peter and St Paul has long been closely associated with the Noel family, Earls of Gainsborough, whose seat lies nearby at Exton Hall. The church contains memorials to members of the family and historically served both the estate and the village. Set within its churchyard, it remains a strong landmark within the designed landscape of Exton Park.
An offshore platform is shepherded into Great Yarmouth on the flood tide, pushed and pulled by the CPBS multicat Hound Dog and the TMS tug Christine. Their wake snakes up the River Yare between the packed streets of Southtown on the left and the wharves, silos and yards of Great Yarmouth’s modern port on the right.
Great Yarmouth grew on a long spit between the North Sea and the Yare and for centuries its wealth came from herring and coastal trade. Today the harbour has reinvented itself as a base for North Sea gas, offshore wind and marine construction with the deep-water outer harbour at the river mouth handling larger vessels and project cargo. The river that once served sailing wherries and steam drifters now brings in workboats and platforms like this one, keeping Yarmouth’s maritime story moving into the twenty-first century.
Southwold Pier stretches out from North Parade into the North Sea, seen here from above with the beach huts and promenade along the Denes and the town just inland.
A pier first opened here in 1900, created as a landing stage for visiting steamers and as a classic seaside draw for Victorian and Edwardian Southwold. The earliest pier was longer than today and it ended in a wider head. Over time, storms and changing coastal conditions reshaped what survived and what was rebuilt.
A major storm in 1934 destroyed the pier’s seaward landing stage. In the mid to late 1930s the familiar shore-end pavilion buildings were rebuilt and expanded to create the pier’s main enclosed spaces.
During the Second World War, a section of the pier was removed as a defensive measure and the structure was also damaged by a mine. Repairs and rebuilding continued after the war with a significant restoration completed in 1948.
Later storm damage shortened the pier dramatically, but a major modern reconstruction began in 1999 using new piles and modern engineering methods. The rebuilt pier reopened fully in 2001 and its present length is about 623 ft (190 m).
Who owns and runs it today: Southwold Pier is privately owned. It was purchased in 2024 by Amy and Charles Barwick, who operate it with the pier’s management and staff.
Visitors: the pier is often described as attracting hundreds of thousands of visits each year, commonly cited as around three-quarters of a million to close to a million depending on the year.
What’s on the pier: as well as the views and the walk to the end, the pier is known for Tim Hunkin’s Under the Pier Show with its interactive coin-operated machines. Other attractions include the Water Clock, the Wacky Walk of Mirrors, traditional amusements and a mix of food and drink options along the deck. Fishing is also a familiar sight from the seaward end when conditions allow.
Aerial image: Loganair Embraer ERJ145 flying over the Holt Road before landing at Norwich Airport
Aerial view of jet plane landing at Norwich airport in Norfolk
An aerial view of Southwold, the beloved Suffolk seaside town (population approx. 1,100) perched on the North Sea coast. Prominent in the centre of the image is the magnificent St Edmund’s Church, built mainly in the mid-15th century – considered one of the finest parish churches in East Anglia. Just behind the seafront stands the Southwold Lighthouse, built in 1887 and still operational today, guiding ships from 31 metres above sea level.
Along the shoreline you can clearly see the Victorian promenade, colourful beach huts, and the line of wooden groynes built as sea defences. Off to the right lies the Southwold Pier, rebuilt and reopened in 2001 after decades of decay – now home to Tim Hunkin’s famous eccentric inventions including the Water Clock.
Southwold has long attracted artists, writers and holidaymakers, partly thanks to its preserved historic character and tight town boundary which has prevented large-scale development. The settlement grew around its medieval harbour, and in 1879 the town gained its own narrow-gauge railway to Halesworth – the Southwold Railway, an 8-mile line that finally closed in 1929.
This photograph looks inland from the coast, showing the clear grid of streets built after two great fires (the worst in 1659) reshaped the town. The combination of church tower, lighthouse, pier, beach huts and wide sandy bay makes Southwold one of the most distinctive skylines on the East Anglian coast.