Once the epicenter of the Coronavirus, Italy has seen its popular cities like Venice deserted.
Check out these before and after photos of Venice from space prior to the lockdown caused by the pandemic.
Human absence is having an environmental impact on the city.
Dolphins are purportedly swimming through the city’s canals and the swans have returned.
One can see also little fish swimming in clear waters, also an unexpected side effect of the pandemic.
Dolphines are back in Venice! the upside of the pandemic….is the world getting a break of the virus HU-MAN OO pic.twitter.com/eTReNQOLAm
— Domenico Calia (@CaliaDomenico) March 20, 2020
Let’s look for the bright side of this virus……look at Venice after the Italian lockdown……nature returns to its space, 🐟 fish are back as well as 🦆 ducks xxx💗💗💗 https://t.co/u9JWx2ytxp
— fabfrankie1-italy (@fabfrankiee) March 18, 2020
There’s a road in the Netherlands that starts to sing the Frisian Folk Song when cars hit the right speed of 60 kph/40 mph limit.
The musical road resides in the village of Jelsum in the north part of Holland.
The structure of the strategically laid “rumble strips” was built in 2018 to celebrate the unique language and culture of the Friesland region. But the special ‘singing road’ also served as a warning to slow down speedy drivers.
However, the musical experience struck a chord (literally) with the locals who grew tired of hearing the notes 24 hours a day.
According to Dutch News, the €80,000 custom-built pavement markers were finally removed for driving (see what I did there) ‘psychological torture’.
In what looks like a scene from a fantasy movie, the ‘firefall’ phenomenon in Yosemite is spewing lava-like water again.
Called Horsetail Fall, the fiery waterfall makes an annual appearance for two weeks around February. The fiery orange glow of the waterfall emerges from the illumination of the setting sun over the 1500 foot flowing water.
The Yosemite Firefall phenomenon is a summer tradition that dates back to 1872.
People would gather at the eastern edge of El Capitan Yosemite to watch ember from the bonfires get pushed over the edge of Glacier Point, creating a man-made fiery waterfall.
Take a look at this photo of the ritual👇
As travel blogger James Kaiser notes on his blog:
For decades those words ushered in one of Yosemite National Park’s most famous spectacles: The Yosemite Firefall. Each evening in the summer, a roaring bonfire was built at the edge of Glacier Point , which towers 3,200 feet above Yosemite Valley. By sundown hundreds of spectators had gathered in Curry Village below. At 9pm sharp, a master of ceremonies in Curry Village shouted out, “Let the Fire Fall!” and the bonfire’s glowing embers were pushed over the edge of Glacier Point, creating a glittering “Waterfall of Fire.”
The National Park Service ended the Yosemite Firefall in 1968. But then nature magically took over to recreate the scene.
Today, the scientific miracle of intermixing chemicals including barium, aluminum and strontium mix together with the sunlight at dusk.
Writes Kaiser on the Yosemite Firefall website:
Then in 1973, within months of the 100-year anniversary of the first Yosemite Firefall, photographer Galen Rowell took the first known photo of the “Natural Firefall” at Horsetail Fall. That single photo ushered in an exciting new chapter in the history of the Firefall, and within a few decades the Natural Firefall had become as famous as the Manmade Firefall.
The firefall phenomenon only lasts about 10 minutes so you’ll need to be patient to catch it just as you would a solar eclipse. If you’re planning a trip to Yosemite, check out some of the best lodging sites here.
Video via Calia Domenico/tw
The Port of Amsterdam in the Netherlands is the 4th busiest port by metric tons of cargo in Europe.
As you can see in the time-lapse of traffic patterns, navigation looks nearly impossible to control on a daily basis. So we did some digging to find out if this sort of nautical chaos was normal.
As one Twitter user noted, this time-lapse was taken during the Sail Amsterdam event which occurs every five years. This would make sense given all the fleet of tall ships and masted sails rolling about.
It’s also worth mentioning that David Bowie recorded a song in the port’s name.
In the port of Amsterdam there’s a sailor who sings
Of the dreams that he brings from the wide open sea
In the port of Amsterdam there’s a sailor who sleeps
While the river bank weeps to the old willow treeIn the port of Amsterdam there’s a sailor who dies
David Bowie, Port of Amsterdam
Full of beer, full of cries in a drunken town fight
In the port of Amsterdam there’s a sailor who’s born
On a hot muggy morn by the dawn’s early light
Should the airport be the hub of the city?
According to photographer Giulio Di Sturco, the post-modern city is one of the aerotropolis, where the city, business, entertainment, and nature activities are all centered around the airport.
Di Sturco’s ongoing project Aerotropolis, The Way We Will Live Next explores the emergence of globalized architecture and generic spaces happening in Singapore, Bangkok, and Songdo, South Korea.
“These cities capture the breadth of themes running through civilization, from the re-appropriation of the natural landscape to our unquestioning faith in technology, set in the backdrop of architecture refined in elegance and logic,” writes Di Sturco.
“It is the post-modern city. A vision, or perhaps a mirage, it is a window of opportunities to solve the dilemma of modernity: reconciling economic development and sustainable growth.”
Melbourne, often ranked as one of the world’s most livable cities, is looking to construct neighborhoods where people will never have to use a car.
The city is creating “20-minute neighborhoods” that make going from home to the office, school, grocery, or doctor’s office no more than 20 minutes away.
Whether on foot, bike, or trolley, Melbourne residents will be able to get around the city to their most visited spots with even needing to dial up Uber.
From New York City’s Times Square to Barcelona and Hamburg, cities are reversing the automobile obsession for more traditional and healthier transportation needs.
The Pas-de-Calais department hired a creative agency to promote travel to Northern France.
After taking 350,000 photos, the result is a beautiful look in both timelapse and hyperlapse formats at the diversity of the Pas-de-Calais region’s environment with an emphasis on architecture, landscape, and sport.
This video project was commissioned by the Pas-de-Calais department to promote its territory. While waiting for an original and creative idea, we opted for a dynamic video only realized in timelapse and in hyperlapse.
Through various themes (nature, memory, sport, …) we have, for two months, crisscrossed the Pas-de-Calais to capture the best of this beautiful department.
3 intense minutes to make you want to discover or rediscover this space so rich, conducive to change of scenery and the meeting of a marked culture.