Category: travel

I spent a weekend in Sydney between work meetings. It rained much of the weekend but I got a few hours on Saturday afternoon to go and see the city. On the upside the rain left a bit of a rainbow and I was able to get a few shots of it from Harbor Bridge. The weather also made for some very dramatic clouds at sunset and a wonderful reflection of this buildings windows:

You can see the rest of the Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, June 2013 photoset on Flickr [flickr.com].

In June the family took a short holiday to the Gold Coast in Australia. Took the kids to Sea World and Movie World and whale watching. Not much for photo taking but the whales and the beach sunset on the first day were great.

During the whale watching we got to follow a few whales for almost 45 minutes, and we saw dolphins along side the whales and even a sea turtle. Unfortunately we didn’t see the whales breach but lots of surfacing for air – blow holes, humps and tails.

The beach was amazing, even in the southern winter the water was fairly warm – warmer than the air in fact. We played in the surf a lot, I think that Tori may have enjoyed the time at the beach better than anything else. The beach as Surfers Paradise — and in fact the whole town — reminded me of Gulf Shores and my granddads beach house when I was a kid. Wonderful shallow surf you could wade out in for a long way, sugar sand and all. It just had that small beach town feel, not like the mega tourist beach towns. I will have to take Tori and Livi back again just to play on the beach.

You can see the whole Gold Coast, Australia, June 2013 photoset on Flickr [flickr.com].

I spent some time at work in Tel Aviv in May. Not much extra time for sightseeing or photography but I managed one evening walking along the beach. Israel seems to have amazing sunsets daily. You can see a few more photos in my Tel Aviv, Israel, May 2013 photoset on Flickr [flickr.com].

I went to Prague for work. Just a few days for a conference, but I managed to slip out for an afternoon before the conference started and a morning before I flew off.

Prague is a beautiful city, and luckily the conference was in a hotel just outside the old town, so that even though I didn’t get much time I was able to walk around the most famous sites. It was an easy, 15 minute, walk from the hotel to old town square and the Astronomical Clock [wikipedia.org] — so hard to read, that’s why they had to put ‘normal’ clocks on both sides of it. When I stopped at the clock there were people talking wedding photos, and not just one couple, but several — one in a horse-drawn carriage and one in a fancy car. And then there was these girls sitting outside the old town hall [flickr.com] with their balloons looking sad, or maybe just exhausted.

A bit further from the hotel, down the cobblestone streets I visited Charles Bridge [wikipedia.org], unfortunately it was a hazy week and I was never able to get a good shot of Prague Castle [wikipedia.org] and St. Vitus Cathedral [wikipedia.org] up on the hill overlooking the bridge and river.

On the other side of the bridge I visited the Lennon Wall [wikipedia.org]. A colorful experience. The wall is interesting mostly in that it is an organic thing, not planned by anyone.

Later I made it up the hill to Prague Castle but only had time to see St. Vitus and take a few shots of Prague’s bridges over the Vltava River. The haze however was horrible, so the only shot that was really worth the hike up the hill was the one of St. Vitus, where the haze looks more like morning fog.

That was the extent of my sightseeing. I didn’t have time to really explore the old city’s sights and between jet lag, the conference and normal work I didn’t even get to go to any of the Jazz bars or pubs. The closest I got was a Pilsner with some of my coworkers one night in the hotel bar. Sad really.

You can see the full Prague, Czech Republic, November 2012 photoset on Flickr [flickr.com].