Michael Moore Hitchin's favorite photos

The Stelling van Amsterdam (Defence Line of Amsterdam) is a 135 kilometers long ring of fortifications around Amsterdam. It was built between 1883 and 1920 and consisted of 46 armed forts and batteries, acting in concert with an intricate system of dikes, sluices, canals and inundation polders. It is a major example of a fortification based on the principle of temporary flooding of the land, aimed at protecting the Dutch capital against a possible foreign attack. The Stelling van Amsterdam is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site since 1996. The Fort bij Spijkerboor is the largest of the 46 fortresses, located in the Beemster Polder. The fort was built between 1889 and 1911 to defend the Northern Front. It was one of the most modern and heavily armed forts of the Defence Line of Amsterdam, equipped with an armoured turret with a double-barrel 10.5-centimetre cannon. The fort has two storeys because of the height of the dike to be defended. The fort was mobilized during the World War I. At that time there were 300 soldiers stationed. Although this defensive structure remained in the possession of the Dutch army until 1975, it has been mainly used as a prison throughout the years. Over the course of time, inmates have left their mark in the form of beautiful murals. At the heart of the fortress is a chapel, featuring these decorations. Fort bij Spijkerboor can be visited and is a kind of musuem, showing how the soldiers lived there with sleeping quarters, laundry rooms, an army kitchen with huge boilers and even a private loo for the officers !!

Nisi (or Nissi) is a small island - 800 by 500 meters - in Lake Pamvotis nearby Ioannina. It is one of the two lake islands in Greece, which are inhabited. There is only one village - with a couple of hundreds of inhabitants - on the island which with picturesque paved alleys and a lot of tourist shops and restaurants. The island is accessible by boat from Ioannina or by a ferry from a nearby shore. Nisi is well known for the Ali Pasha Museum and its monasteries. The first one was built at the end of the 13th century and the island was important monastic center. We visited one of them in 2018 (PiP1). A year later we went back to the island, for a lunch on the central square (PiP2). After that we made a walk along the banks of the lake, enjoying the flowers (PiP3), reed collars and lush vegetation, but a group of pretty aggressive geese (main image) almost blocked the road.

Gamla Kyrkogården (Old Cemetery), located in the former medieval city of Kalmar, is dating back to the first half of the 13th century. It is the oldest Christian burial ground in Kalmar. At the square of the Old Town stood the Bykyrkan (Village Church) and in connection with it the cemetery was laid out. The Village Church was blown up during the 1670s, when the whole city of Kalmar was moved to it´s present place on Kvarnholmen. Gamla Kyrkogården kept in use till the 1860’s and remained at its original place, till the South Cemetery, close to Kalmar Castle, was ready Several old gravestones can still be seen in the cemetery, many with unusual motifs and forms. The place where the old church stood is marked with a memorial plaque as well as stones that show where the foundation stood. There are tombstones from the 17th and 18th centuries and standing gravestones from the 19th century. Several of these stones were locally made, using limestone from Öland. Memorial crosses of cast iron became common in the middle of the 19th century One of the most remarkable gravestones (see first PiP) shows a knight (Christopher Andersson Grip) and his wife; both seem to be beheaded. According to a plaque they died in 1588 and 1599.

Scenes of a Wiltshire village one Thursday afternoon in September, 2015. Nikon D2Xs + Nikkor-P 105mm f/2.5 + Nikon Teleconverter TC-16A. The EXIF data shows '134.5 mm' because I set the camera for a 135mm focal length to compensate for using a teleconverter with the 105mm lens. 135mm is, of course, not 105 x 1.6 but it's close enough for metering.

Nikon D700 + Tamron 70-210mm f/2.8 LD SP (67DN) lens. Focal length 70mm.

The view is from inside a stationary train which had stopped at Castle Cary railway station.

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