Lovely stuff.

Brilliant. Isn't burning carbon wonderful?

Some intriguing pictures there Mr Jennings - I would like to refer my students to this blog posting in a geography class next week - if that's alright with you?

On the Gold Coast last month?

Damn man, I could have bought you a beer.

Mike: Sure. Those of my movements that I admit to publicly are subject to no obvious security risk.

countingcats: Next time. My parents live there, so I do visit from time to time. (I was there until the day before yesterday, actually).

Can we have a breakdown of how much travel you have done in mileage please Michael, combined with statistics of how many heart attacks you have personally caused Greenpeace for the past 12 months?

Splendid stuff, keep it up in 2008!

I envy your globe-trotting. I also think the image of a computer book library in Mozambique is the most hopeful image of the lot.

Heheheh... I've been to Heidelberg (S. Africa), and stood at that very spot. Nice to see that "Verwoerd St" hasn't yet become "Patrice Lumumba St" or (even worse) "Joe Slovo St"... yet.

(FYI... just behind that church is a charming little cemetery, wherein are buried a couple dozen British soldiers from the Boer War. Pics on request.)

However, I was in Heidelberg (Germany) last month, and all things being equal, I'd rather go to that town than the South African one.

And by the way, Mr. Jennings: you kind makes me sick, with all that gratuitous carbon-burning and then boastfulness about the places you've despoiled on your travels.

The least you could have done was taken me along...

How can I get a job like whatever it is that you do? You are either a man of independant means or just get to travel a lot.

Mr. Jennings, ave you considered compiling a calendar and making it available online (for a modest fee) and either keeping the proceeds to fund further globe-trotting or donating them to a cause which you deem to be worthy. Some of those photo's are quite good.

Vaduz looks like the nicest place (although most of the places look nice) - is that a castle on that wooded hillside?

I'm with sfw . . . How the hell do I get your job or your trust fund . . . ;^)

Paul: Vaduz is little more than a fairly small country town, although in a beautiful location in the upper Rhine valley. It must be the least preposessing national capital in the world. (Liechtenstein is an about 20km stretch of half a valley. The Rhine is the border with Switzerland and the top of the mountains between the Rhine valley and the next valley to the east is the border with Austria). The other (Swiss) side of the valley is more densely populated and more heavily developed, which leads to Vaduz being probably the only national capital in the world that is served by a railway station in a different country.

The castle is Vaduz Castle (Schloss Vaduz), which has been the official residence of the Liechtenstein family since 1938. (They were resident in Vienna prior to that). This was a few years after Liechtenstein abandoned its traditional alliance and customs union with Austria, and allied itself with Switzerland instead. One has to say that in retrospect this appears to have been a smart move. Prior to 1938 the castle was used for various things at times, including a prison, a barracks, and a tavern, I believe.

A small country town in a beautiful location - and one that is also a national capital (thus reducing, although not eliminating, being messed about from "higher" powers).

And a castle with the family in residence.

Sounds like my sort of place.

To be fair to modern buildings - the one in L.A. does look like something Heinlein would have written a short story about.

For example, the house whose angles led bits of it to lead into other dimensions.

A reminder of a time when California was about new ideas.

Not overcrowding and an out-of-control budget.

Although even back in the late 1940s (when creativity was perhaps at its peak in California) the warning signs were there.