Travel Theme: Walls

This week, Alisa’s  challenge on her blog Where’s My Backpack is Travel Theme: Walls

A wall  is a vertical structure, usually solid, that defines and sometimes protects an area. Most commonly, a wall to a building protects its inhabitants from wind, snow, rain and even fire. Other walls, like the Great Wall of China, are a defense which keeps the enemies out and protects the people within the wall boundary.

When walls serve as a protection, their functions are fulfilled. Sometimes, walls like the Berlin walls, are not made for protection. They are seen  as restraints to freedom.

We are fascinated by walls of different kinds and have taken photos of some of them in our travels.  The collection of photos below, however, has not included building interior walls, curtain walls, boundary walls  and retaining walls.

We like the white colored or honey colored walls on Hvar island, Croatia. The photo below, with a bicycle in front of a wall imparts a very leisurely vacation feel.

On the same island, we were delighted by this wall which is the shop front with  colorful flowers, bench and window.

Walking along the shores of Hvar island, there are walls fronting the seaside walk. The wall looks ordinary. However, while travelling, some of the ordinary things do look impressive.

Climbing up to the Spanish Castle on Hvar island, we were impressed by the castle walls and the plants at the wall base.

We were fortunate to have included Split, Croatia in our itinerary. While many houses have limestone walls with smooth surfaces, for a change, the wall of the house below is built of rugged  stones jutting out.

At Split, we noted some of the old Roman buildings have been altered to house residents. The one below shows walls  added onto the ancient colonnades of the Roman structures.

The climb up the Dubrovnik walls in Croatia was interesting. The walls were built to keep the enemies out. They were so effective that, in history, the walls were never breached by their enemies.

The walk up on top of the Dubrovnik seawalls was just breathtaking. The photo below shows the zig-zag walls with a magnificent view of the sea and an island where Richard The Lion Heart have landed and resided.

While the above walls are all of early construction, the  photo below shows a modern building in Estonia, the Baltic area which is cladded in metal which seem to have rusted. It appears that the rust on the wall surface protects the underlying layer from further rusting.

Near Cappadocia, Turkey we saw the wall below which forms part of the buildings which served as accommodation for the early traders and merchants. The design is quite different from the walls we saw in Europe.

Back to Asia, we like these buildings in Hokkaido, Japan which were built next to the canal. We like the walls and reflections in the water.

Again in Hokkaido, we found this wall, with the exception of the doorway, was fully covered with maple leaves.

Below is a castle in Okinawa, Japan. Many ancient castles have walls which are very similar to one and other. By just looking at the walls, few would have guessed this, in fact, is in Okinawa.

The walls in China have never failed to impress us. Below is a historic building in Inner Mongolia with black and white walls.

In Fung Huang (Phoenix City), China, the houses have very distinct architectural features. The walls  gave us a very warm feeling when illuminated by the setting sun.

As part of our Three Gorges tour, we stopped by this historic city which has an ancient wall surrounding it.

We walked all four sides along the lake front of the West lake, China. There were many impressive buildings on the north shore. One of these has white walls as depicted on the photo below.

Late last year, we walked the MiuTianYu section of the Great Wall, China and were awed by the beauty and the length of the wall. There is a Chinese saying that unless one has walked the Great Wall, one cannot claim to be strong.

Although it is not true that the Great Wall is the only manmade structure visible from the space shuttle,  it is still one of the greatest structures ever built.

I am glad that Alisa has raised this theme. Given the many photos that I want to include, my first reaction was to split them into two posts. On finish drafting this post, I think I have done the right thing to  include all photos in one post as otherwise, it would be much less interesting.