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Marty’s photo of the day 4436: This is the Cathedral of Plasencia (Catedral vieja de Plasencia), located in Plasencia, Spain, built in the thirteenth-fourteenth centuries. When in Europe, I enjoy touring old churches. They all feature spectacular architecture, albeit a bit scary. If you enlarge this photo, you will see dozens of baby heads, mounted […]
Marty’s photo of the day #4785: I haven’t posted a creep-out photo for a while, so we’ll take care of that right now. This is one of the many masses, containing hundreds of daddy long-legs, that I found in a dry riverbed in western Spain.
Marty’s photo of the day #4750: When Deb and I were in Spain, some 20 years ago, we hiked an amazing valley in Parque Regional de la Sierra de Gredos (it was just us and the Spanish ibex). That valley rose like the tip of a canoe at the far end, and then abruptly dropped […]
Marty’s photo of the day #4609: Once Christians can set aside Jesus’s disdain for money as depicted in the Bible, the rest is easy to accept: The enormously wealthy Catholic Church declaring individual bankruptcies to avoid paying court-ordered penalties for child sexual abuse, mega churches and televangelists shoveling in the money while virtually ignoring the […]
Marty’s photo of the day #4608: A few years ago I publicly asserted that over 1 million children have been sexually molested in Christian churches. While I doubt I’m the first to make that claim, two things have surprised me: The first is that I haven’t seen the media ever make such a claim. The […]
Marty’s photo of the day #4398: I photographed this stork atop the remains of a decomposing church in rural Spain. According to superstition, a stork nesting atop a church brings good luck. While I don’t believe in any superstitions―whether organized or not―I appreciate superstitions that benefit wildlife. Other than the stork superstition, another favorite of […]
Marty’s photo of the day #4296: This is the Spanish town of Torrejón el Rubio. Some photos speak for themselves; others need a storyteller. So I’m going to be the storyteller for this one. The following comes from my sixth book, Hits, Heathens, and Hippos: Stories from an Agent, Activist, and Adventurer: By the time […]
Marty’s photo of the day #4215: As has become my tradition on Christmas, I present a photo from inside a church. I shot this one in Madrid, Spain (September 2003), where, as I wrote in my first book, Cool Creatures, Hot Planet: Exploring the Seven Continents, “The Catholic Church’s long history of wealth and power […]
Marty’s photo of the day #3942: White storks commonly nest on steeple-tops in rural Spain, where they are thought to bring good luck.
Marty’s photo of the day #3930: I shot this photo in Spain, but I think whoever lived here had the same spirit of defiance as the brave people in Ukraine: “Do you think sacking our castle is going to intimidate us into leaving? Fuck you! We’ll build a new one right next to it!”
Marty’s photo of the day #3846: As has become a tradition, each year around Christmas, I dig into my photos of the great old churches I photographed in Europe. That way Christians can enjoy them for their religious significance, creative people can enjoy them for their artistic beauty, and atheists can enjoy them for the […]
Marty’s photo of the day #3844: As has become a tradition, each year around Christmas, I dig into my photos of the great old churches I photographed in Europe. That way Christians can enjoy them for their religious significance, creative people can enjoy them for their artistic beauty, and atheists can enjoy them for the […]
Marty’s photo of the day #3828: In a glass add 2 1/2 ounces of gin or vodka, 1/2 ounce of dry vermouth, and ice. Travel to Spain, climb gate of olive farm located there, steal two olives and drop them into the glass. Run away when spotted (carrying the glass, of course) and hurry back […]
Marty’s photo of the day #3815: The other night, my wife, Deb, and I were talking about the different ways people travel. While some of our adventures, like to Antarctica, were only practical with guides, many of our best adventures happened when nothing was pre-planned. Many people go to places, like Spain, on trips where […]
Marty’s photo of the day #3798: Today we travel to the western side of Spain to hike with a Spanish ibex.
Marty’s photo of the day #3697: I always enjoy when I go through my photos and find one that I don’t remember taking. This is one of those photos: my wife, Deb, on our hike through La Garganta Divina in northern Spain.
Marty’s photo of the day #3689: I rarely post traditional vacation-type photos, but I hadn’t posted anything from Europe recently, and I was feeling a bit guilty about leaving the continent out. So here’s Deb and me in front of the Palacio Real de Madrid (the Royal Palace) in Madrid, Spain.
Marty’s photo of the day #3658: I took this photo in western Spain. This excerpt from my first book, Cool Creatures, Hot Planet: Exploring the Seven Continents, explains the shot: Where Deb and I were hiking, the valley floor was at approximately six thousand feet and the surrounding mountain peaks varied between seven and eight […]
Marty’s photo of the day #3615: The view from the balcony of Deb’s and my hotel room, on our anniversary, many years ago. We are looking at the Bay of Biscay, in Spain.
