#landmarks

[nemfrog]

Belém Tower, Lisbon, Portugal. Fair Lusitania. 1874. Cover detail.

Internet Archive

[pratchettquotes]

There was a village tucked in a narrow valley between steep woods. It wasn't a large village, and wouldn't have shown up on a map of the mountains. It barely showed up on a map of the village.

It was, in fact, one of those places that exist merely so that people can have come from them. The universe is littered with them: hidden villages, windswept little towns under wide skies, isolated cabins on chilly mountains, whose only mark on history is to be the incredibly ordinary place where something extraordinary started to happen. Often there is no more than a little plaque to reveal that, against all gynecological probability, someone very famous was born halfway up a wall.

Terry Pratchett, Equal Rites

[wiley-treehouse-gardens]

The best picture I have ever taken through the windshield of a moving car from the back seat of said car.

[gemsofgreece]

The White Tower is a monument and museum on the waterfront of the city of Thessaloniki, capital of the region of Macedonia in northern Greece. The present tower replaced an old Byzantine fortification, known to have been mentioned around the 12th century, that the Ottoman Empire reconstructed to fortify the city's harbour sometime after Sultan Murad II captured Thessaloniki in 1430. The tower became a notorious prison and scene of mass executions during the period of Ottoman rule, earning the name “Red Tower” and “Tower of Blood” (Turkish: Kanlı Kule) . The tower was substantially remodeled and its exterior was whitewashed after Greece gained control of the city in 1912. The White Tower has been adopted as the symbol of the city.

Photo by pastelidis_greece on Instagram.

[mapsontheweb]

Landmarks chosen for the America the Beautiful Quarters Program (2010-2021)

by newcastle104

[cpleblow]

Landscape Arch

©Cpleblow Photography

[damn-these-eyes]

[o-link]

Germany’s Historic Landmarks by Winter Train

[fayrobertsuk]

Okay listen, because nothing was ever going to prepare me for this, but when I first came out*, I had no idea what a profound effect that was going to have on other people.

I thought I was braced for the bad stuff, how some people’s fear about what your simple existence means can dampen, darken, and corrode your joy, your sense of safety. I wasn’t prepared for the scale of that, but that’s not what this post is about.

I had no fucking clue that my existence as a queer person taking up space could mean so much joy and relief for others. And I was utterly unprepared for how that has only increased as I’ve aged, and as the world has become more connected. Eventually, a young trans man explained it to me, saying that seeing me just... living, 30 years older than him, brought him hope, a model for the future, that there was a future, for the first time. Several others chimed in to say the same and I felt airless for a dizzying second. I hadn’t been able to really understand, until that point, why various younger queer folk would thank me on Twitter, call me and others like me icons. We’d shrug: We’re just... being, we’d say. Exactly, they’d reply.

I thought that things were easier for young, queer folk now. That they have more access to information and vocabulary and acceptance than we did, growing up. Hell, I might never have worked out my gender stuff if younger folk weren’t out there being loud about their pronouns, breaking down microlabels, and sharing their feelings about their existence.

And that’s also true, but being visibly queer, and over 30, and it not being a tragedy? That gives people enormous hope. That’s a landmark to reach, a future to picture yourself in. My life is nowhere near perfect, but it exists.

And heavens, it’s good to know that these proliferating silver hairs and wrinkles are beautiful signs for those who long for the decades’ stretch between now and then.

_____

(*still not quite realising that it’s something you do again and again, and sometimes additionally, if - like me - you find yourself going “oh, and this thing too”)

[nemfrog]

Niagara Falls. Niagara : falls, river, frontier. 1903.

Internet Archive

[urbanicons]

Malaga, Spain

Crocheted street shade

[it8bit]

Pixel Art Landmarks

Series by Görkem Gülen

[wiley-treehouse-gardens]

[xscape-photography]

Tower Bridge.

[mapsontheweb]

Are you interested in Great Britain's landmarks? This heatmap shows the distribution of historic buildings in GB; including Castles, Estates, Cathedrals, and more.

by @OrdnanceSurvey