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I nearly didn’t take part in this weeks PhotoFriday challenge, “Photoshop Skills,” as I’m not a big Photoshop user. I tend to tweak images, enhance the colours, maybe a little dodging and burning, but nothing that would show my Photoshop skills — the whole point of my edits are normally that you can’t see them!

Then I remembered that I’ve spent quite a lot of time over the years trying to make the perfect panorama. The above image, taken in Siena, Italy, is perhaps the best that I’ve managed. (I’ve used a variant of this one before for PhotoFriday.)

Please also vote for my entry in last weeks PhotoFriday challenge, “Best Friend.” I’m entry number 173.

For the past few weeks I have spent almost as much time in Switzerland as I have at home. Unfortunately with business trips you can never guarantee that you see anything more of the place than the airport, and office and a hotel¹.

Fortunately I did finish “early” a couple of days though and the weather did manage to cooperate.

My first time in the city I arrived at the office in a taxi and walked five minutes to the hotel. Dinner wasn’t far away either. I had no impression of the orientation or size of the place. Well known for being next to a lake, I couldn’t have told you which direction to find it.

It turns out that it’s a very pretty, small city. When I did figure out the lay of the land I realised that nothing was very far away even on foot.

On the last day I went to Zeughauskeller for dinner.

Perhaps not the healthiest of options but, I am told, traditionally Swiss. (The yellow stuff on the right is called Rösti, basically a potato pancake.) A pretty good way to round out my three weeks in the city.

1. Since this was a business trip I didn’t have my regular camera with me and I had to shoot with my iPhone 4. It is surprisingly good for a phone but a long way from even my old “proper” camera in terms of image quality. [↩]

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It’s been a while since I got back from Paris but things have been so hectic since then that I’ve not found the time to document my trip.

The last time I was in Paris as a tourist I did most of the obvious stuff which meant that this time I was able to just hang out and wander around without any particular aim. That I also had great weather and some luck factored in to make a great weekend.

I started by walking by the Seine, near Îlle de la Cité, not far from where I waited for my train when I was in Paris a few weeks ago with work. While there I passed these roller-blading Policemen. Not something you see every day back at home.

My major concession to visiting the “obvious” sights was climbing the Eiffel Tower. Last time, expecting long queues, I looked around the base of the tower and went up the Arc de Triomphe instead.

Despite booking online beforehand there was still a fairly substantial queue. Still, it was a much shorter wait than for those who had not planned ahead.

Of course it’s a popular location. Even booking ahead I didn’t get my pick of time slots and ended up a little earlier than I might have chosen otherwise. No matter, the view from the top was very much worth getting even if the light wasn’t perfect.

Of course one disadvantage of the view from the tower is that the Eiffel Tower isn’t in it. I was quite pleased with myself for getting a good number of shots with the shadow across the Parc du Champs de Mars until I realised that pretty much everyone with a camera had exactly the same idea.

On the Sunday I found that the Champs-Elysees had been turned into a huge farm. On the Avenue de la Grande-Armée — on the other side of the Arc de Triomphe to the Champs-Elysees — everything looked normal. The usual Parisian chaos as traffic approached the Place Charles de Gaulle.

On the other, trees and plants, fruit and vegetables and people. Lots of people. I guess it shows the influence of the French farmers as I don’t think they’d ever manage to persuade the Mayor to give over Oxford Street for a few plants. It seems that there’s a fight just to hand over the place to pedestrians for a few weeks as Christmas approaches.

Overall it was a good weekend. Lots of walking. Lots to see and eat and do. It’s not often I get to be able to extend a work-trip to cover a weekend but it’s worth it when I do.

I know I say this every week, but I had difficulty picking my image for this weeks PhotoFriday theme, “The Coast.” And that’s because my first reaction was, well, any picture with the sea or ocean in it. Then I realised that “The Coast” is a little more specific than that; it may be where the water meets land but, to my mind at least, it doesn’t conjure images of a beach. Hence this picture take towards the end of my week in Corsica, in Porto.

Please also vote for my entry in last weeks challenge, “Sexy.” I’m number 159.

As I write this I should have just returned from a trip to Istanbul. Unfortunately the now infamous Ash Cloud put a stop to that before it even started. I spent a Friday evening going through cancelling my flights, hotels and tour.

Dispiriting doesn’t begin to cover it.

But I wasn’t going to let something like that completely ruin my week. Limited to the UK, I decided to go to Salisbury and the near by Stone Henge, two places that I’ve not been to for a long time.

After picking up the hire car and driving out of London, I realised that I was a bit early to check into the B&B and decided to head straight to Stone Henge. Probably not the best option photographically (since the sun was almost overhead) but it worked well time-wise.

One of the bizarre things about Stone Henge is that it’s right next to the A303, a major road. (In fact last time I was here I just drove past in the car and never progressed into the visitors centre!) There have been suggestions that the road should be moved under the monument but, given the proximity, wandering around was remarkably quiet.

It’s an impressive sight. Like Giza’s pyramids, even today it would be a reasonable engineering task to build but it’s almost unimaginable how they achieved it thousands of years ago.

As has been noted many times before, the location has a certain atmosphere that’s difficult to put into words. It must have been a magical place, at least in times where people believed in magic!

After walking about the stone circle I got back in the car and heading down to Salisbury. It’s a pretty, old town.

The historic centre is the Cathedral. Again, it’s incredible to think that, in a time when most people were living in poverty, it was possible to construct a building as large and intricate as this.

Inside it was much brighter than many churches I’ve been in. Towards the centre of the nave was an unusual cross between a font and a waterfall.

Elsewhere in the Cathedral is one of four original copies of the Magna Carta. No pictures allowed in that room, but it was fascinating looking over such an important document. Since it’s all in Latin I relied in the translation on the wall. The combination of fundamental human rights and seemingly trivial details makes an interesting combination.

But the neatest thing that I could take a photograph of was this medieval clock, one of the oldest working examples in the world. Much more detailed descriptions can be found elsewhere so I won’t say much here other than note its significance.

After visiting the Cathedral I took a wander by the river, had quick drink and meandered back to the car. It was only a short trip, but it was good to get away.