City buildings and a river with sunset glow
Architecture,  Lens-Artists,  Themed galleries

Gallery: cities from on high

Margaret Mead

In another quote, Desmond Morris famously said that, ‘The city is not a concrete jungle, it is a human zoo’. Yes, the people make the city, but when it comes to appreciating a city as a whole, rather than its individual streets and buildings (some of which may be beautiful, others less so), nothing beats getting up high. When I travel to a city, if it has a tower or skyscraper with a viewing platform, or maybe a nearby mountain or just a hill, I have the urge to go up.

For Patti’s Lens Artists challenge on cityscapes I’ve been through my archives to find photos from occasions when I’ve been able to do just that. Some are quite recent and featured in earlier posts, others are older. Hopefully there will be at least a few that you haven’t seen before (or have forgotten that you’ve seen!) And tempted as I was to share multiple photos of the best views, I’ve restricted myself to a single photo from each city.

My feature photo is of my own city, London, taken from the top of the Shard, its highest building, and looking towards Docklands. Close to sunset on this bright winter’s day the layer of pollution above the city can clearly be seen, one of the downsides of city life.

I’m starting my gallery quite close to home too, in Paris, before venturing further and further afield.

Panorama of a city with a river and tall metal tower

Paris from the (tethered) Generali Balloon in the Parc André Citroën


View of a city with a large bullring

Seville’s bullring from the cathedral bell tower


City buildings with red roofs and a castle on a hill

View of Lisbon’s castle from a miradouro (viewing balcony) in the Barrio Alto


View over a city to a distant mountain

Naples and Vesuvius at sunset from the Belvedere di San Martino


View of a small city with old buildings, church towers and distant woods

Leipzig, Germany, from the Observation Platform of the City-Hochhaus


Panorama of a city with a river

View over city roof tops and a church with a spire to a bay

Tallinn from Toompea Hill, with St Olav’s church prominent on the left


Hazy view of a city

Panorama of a city with sports stadium

Antananarivo, capital of Madagascar, from the Rova (palace)


View of city buildings and a river

View from the Bitexco Financial Tower in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), Vietnam


View of a river in a city with a park on the banks

View of Pyongyang, North Korea, from the Juche Tower


View of a city and distant bridge

Downtown Rio de Janeiro from the Sugarloaf (scanned from an old slide)


Large city surrounded by hills

City view

View of a city in a valley with a cable car in the foreground

City with colourful buildings on a hillside

City skyscrapers and a distant mountain

View over a city at night with skyscrapers

City view with skyscrapers and a pink sky

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