Gaudi’s architecture in Barcelona, especially the *Sagrada Familia *Cathedral. It makes all other cathedrals seem ordinary. I hope I get to see it completed in my lifetime.
A total solar eclipse. You don’t get that “OMFG!!!” feeling from a photo.
I have travelled quite a bit, and do find an element of fatique creeping in when I see something that is supposed to be really impressive. At different times I have looked upon the Berlin wall, Ayers Rock, the Great barrier reef, or St Pauls cathedral, and just thought “meh”. That is simply a result of a lot of backpacking.
But sometimes even I get caught from leftfield by something that takes my breath away.
Back in April I landed in Hong Kong. My first time in Asia, and I was instantly captivated by the city and the contrast between this eastern culture and the western culture I had been used too. What immediately struck me was the propensity of high rise buildings in the city. In my experience skyscrapers and the like are not all that prevalent in most cities, especially in Europe, and so it was a novelty to see a city that could easily rival manhattan. So I wandered about for a while, went to the night markets in Kowloon, walked around super rich Hong kong island and generally acted all touristy.
On the evening of my third day, for no particular reason, I went up to the Kowloon waterside and sat down looking out over the water at the spectactular skyline of Hong Kong Island. As I sat there crowds started to build, filling out along the promenade. I guessed they werent there to see me, so I hung about to see what was happening.
They were there to see the Hong kong Symphony of sound and light.
For those who arent aware of it, all of these skyscrapers along the Hong Kong shoreline have been outfitted with LED’s, spotlights, and other lighting devices I cant explain too well. And at about 8:15, there is a ten minute show in which the whole shoreline lights up in an exhibition of light, accompanied by commentary and music. There are videos of the exhibition on youtube, but they do not, and can not capture the majesty of seeing that exhibition in person.
I had never heard of the Symphony of sound and light, so to see it happen as if from nowhere inspired a sense of wonder in me that I thought had faded away a long time ago. When I think of all the things I have seen, Niagra Falls, Notre Dame, Whitehaven beach, The Lourve, Sydney Harbour bridge, and many more, it is Hong Kong I remember with the most joy.
(Just to add, I feel privilaged that I was able to go to the top of the Empire state building on the night of the Fourth of July. To see the fireworks exploding in the distance all around that wonderful city was just amazing.)
(In that same vein, its great to go to the top of the Arc de Triomphe, but its even better on a clear night)
I really envy you this one.
I have seen one in Kenya, but I was three and apparently spent the whole time on my potty reading a book. I was quite annoyed when someone turned the lights off.
I am determined to see one properly at some point, but it hasn’t worked out yet. Everyone I know who has (including my parents a couple of times) are blown away.
I saw a total solar eclipse in 83 or 84 in Tenn., I even got to see it with a welder’s mask so I got a real good view of it by looking right at it. It was nice but not a big deal to me.
It was closed the day I was in Moscow. Even though it’s an abhorrent chunk of Stalinism I would have liked to have gone in.
Well, all the bedrooms in Pompeii are cramped. That’s another “way more impressive in person” place, though, because you don’t get from the pictures that it’s a REAL CITY. When you go there, you can imagine these people’s real lives and how completely modern they were. We kept passing these little niches on the street with marble counters that had bowls carved out of them, and I laughed and said they must have been hot dog carts. And, essentially, finally the audio tour got around to telling us they pretty much were! The past seems so incredibly close there - it’s too bad that all the “stuff” isn’t there, and we didn’t have time to see the museum where it is, and I wish they had a few houses mocked up with furniture. But it’s amazing to see the whole thing as an organic whole city.
The dead sea. With all there is to see in Israel, the dead sea isn’t mentioned much and probably isn’t one of the top images on a post card. Most people know it just as a really salty sea that’s easy to float on.
But the whole area is amazingly exotic. The beach is just pure salt. The water itself feels almost like swimming in grease rather than normal water. And of course it’s not only easy to float, but it’s very difficult to not float. After going to so many beaches around the world, the dead sea seems like it belongs on another planet.
I’ve seen the Eiffel Tower, Vic Falls, Hoover Dam and the Pyramids. Amazing sights all, no question, but already mentioned several times, so I’ll list some more eccentric ones.
-
The view from the escarpment adjacent to Carlsbad Caverns. The terrain suddenly drops hundreds of feet, to a huge stretch of plain that goes off to the horizon. If you look to the left and right, all you see is straight cliff going away for miles. It’s even more amazing when you know that the massive cliff is the limestone face of an ancient oceanic reef structure, thus was formed organically over hundreds of thousands, if not millions of years.
-
A humongous steel railway bridge over the Monongehela River south of Pittsburgh. Built for (IIRC) the old Wheeling and Lake Erie, it positively dwarfs the fairly large structure built to carry parallel Interstate 70. It even supports a second level of railroad track at one end. A real symbol of the might of railroads in the early 20th century, and it’s extremely unlikely that anything quite like it would be constructed today.
-
The arrival of the the AN-225 Mriya, with the Buran space shuttle on its back, at the 1989 Paris Air Show (it flew right over the office I was working in), and its jaw-dropping aerial display on the last day of the show. Having been born much too late to ever see one of the great airships of the 1930s, this will likely remain the largest object I’ll ever see in the air.
There’s regular Pompeii bedroom cramped, and then there’s Pompeii brothel cell cramped. The smell must have been atrocious, no matter how much incense they were burning.
The whole place is a trip and a half, isn’t it? Those food counters (popinae) are so similar and interchangeable in their design and decoration that they really might as well be standardized hot dog carts. Strangely, practically next door at Herculaneum, they are quite different: much smaller and usually with only one or two sunken dolia (the big pots). Probably there was just a different family with a monopoly on popina construction in each town.
By the way, there are actually a few houses there with recreated furniture, but they’re mostly closed off the public except for special events. There are also houses with some surviving furnishings, such as very elaborate plumbing systems, but they are sadly also mostly closed. Did you see the casts of wooden furniture in the Villa of the Mysteries? There’s a beefy set of folding doors there that I found particularly impressive.
A particularly good example has to be the Kilauea Caldera in Hawaii (Big Island). What is it? Well, it’s a big, scorched hole in the ground. Photos don’t really show anything, and words can’t really express much about it. But when you actually go there and see it and experience it for yourself, it’s extremely emotional, moving, impressive and mind-blowing… and lots of other adjectives. I can’t explain it or say what it is that makes it so special, but it is amazing. It’s the sort of place where you just stand, transfixed, for half an hour, trying to take it in, and feel your mind reeling at trying to come to terms with something unlike anything else you’ve ever seen or experienced.
It’s the Earth as it was before life, and as it will be long after all life has ceased. As you gaze out over the Caldera, you see these small pockets and vents where steam is rising up through the rock - the result of underlying physical and chemical processes that began when the Earth was formed. And still going strong.
Another good example has to be the giant redwoods, sequoias and similar massive, tall trees you can see at places such as Muir Woods. By their very nature, it’s impossible for any of their true grandeur and spirit to be captured in a photograph - for one thing, there’s no vantage point that can show you what you would see with the naked eye, in person. Plus, it’s only when you go up to these trees and touch them that you sense how massive they are, and how magnificent. Then you realise… these are living things that don’t eat anything… these massive, gigantic structures grow themselves out of sunlight, air and water.
Here’s one I forgot to mention: sea ice and only ice as far as you can see, on the Bering Sea, as seen from a plane. It was completely unlike anything I had ever seen, and I had a hard time believing I was still looking at the Earth.