Andy Rodker's photos with the keyword: La Bola del Mundo

Ok, this was nearly 24 hours after the Christmas dinner (which in Spain is on Christmas Eve), but just as welcome and necessary. The Sierra de Guadarrama on the skyline. At the right of the shot can be seen peaks with the wonderful names of The Evil One and The Dead Woman!

Granite scenery in the fore and middle ground. The higher mountains in the distance are of different rock but still metamorphic with gneiss predominating.

My first couple of years in these mountains and I hardly saw a cloud, whatever the season. I revelled in this blanket blue sky-ness at first (well I would, having come form England) but it began to pall and I started to look forward to weather forecasts predicting mixed sunshine and cloud and only then would I head for the hills! But I accept that blue sky has its place! Foreground lichen and distant hills want z, apparently. The Nokia N95 cameraphone was a superb camera and a sh.te phone and I much regret my dropping it in a bog. It performed well above expectations on autofocus from close up through mid-distance stuff right through to distant mountains. I didn't know how lucky I was. Subsequent cameraphones (Samsung and Moto) haven't been as good with regards auto focusing, imho!

El Pardo; originally a royal hunting lodge and park outside Madrid. Today; still a huge park and the royal palace, once home to Franco. The snow-capped La Bola del Mundo was once thought by Madrilenos to be the highest mountain in the world!