Today’s #CaminoTuesday theme put me in mind of my lifelong love of doors. They’re something I always seek out in my travels. For something so utilitarian, doors can be breathtakingly beautiful. I think that’s one of the reasons I love them so much. They point out the human desire to meld function and practicality with beauty. Doors are a sort of proof of humankind’s love of art.
I thought I would share some of my favourite door shots from my own personal life journeys. After sharing a few on the #CaminoTuesday hashtag on Twitter, I realized it only left me thinking of other doors in the world that I have run into and captured for safekeeping in my photos.
I should start with a Camino door. This one is from Monasterio de San Julián de Samos in Samos, Spain (the Galicia region).
Now, to move gently away from the Camino de Santiago…
I know this is hard to believe, but did you know there are also doors in France? Paris to be exact! This is one of the doors at Saint-Étienne-du-Mont, the church where Gil met the car that took him back into the 1920s in Midnight in Paris.
They have random doors in Paris too, no fooling…
And, low and behold, Quebec City here in Canada—-HAS DOORS!
They have doors literally all over China, and I captured more than just a few of them. We went from Beijing to Shanghai to Suzhou and places in between. Even Hong Kong. Doors…everywhere. Here’s a couple now…
I super aDOORed the doors in Brussels, Belgium! (see what I did there?)
Brugge, being, as it was, a medieval town, seemed to have quite an abundance of doors. You could say there were doors everywhere in Brugge…
Even my hometown of Toronto has some interesting doors to discover. This one is from the lighthouse on the island…
Not to mention our nation’s capital in Ottawa…you guessed it, also doors…
Jaipur, India? Yep…also doors!
Agra, India? DOORS…even the Taj Mahal has doors. Other buildings too…
My favourite city in India, Orchha, had a literal ton of doors…possibly more!
Varanasi, India had doors. The purple one? LOVE! But they had MORE THAN ONE…
We found doors in Pokhara, Nepal! I’m beginning to believe we’d find them ANYWHERE…
I found doors in Kathmandu, Nepal…
Lamu, Kenya had some beautiful doors…and some dangerous…and some furnished with cat coutoure…
Take a moment, wherever you be, and look at the portals around you. They’re not just functional. The doors of the world tell a lot about the world. We are creatures who appreciate beauty…all of us. If humans didn’t believe in love and art, all doors would look alike. We like to fill our spaces with beauty. I like that…
KEVIN CRAIG 