The nature is less exhuberant than in bigger continents, less extreme in one sense. if compared to the Scenery in the Americas, Europe could amost seem quite disappointing.
Hmm. I think it may be that we are simply conditioned to different tastes. Fredrik says that he likes European scenery because it is so "cultured". My thought upon seeing the scenery in western Europe was that it was charming and quaint, but not overwhelming, precisely because it was so "cultured" -- it seemed so tamed and so shaped by milennia of human hands and feet and plows and axes. So it was pretty and bucolic, but not majestic or stirring, like the wild, empty vistas of Alaska or Canada or the Rockies that I usually think of as stirring. Had I gone to a different part of Europe, I would probably have seen scenery that did match my tastes -- it's not that Europe doesn't have wilderness and mountains, just as North America has its long-settled, quaint rolling farmland -- but I bet Fredrik and I would view them very differently.
Of course , all tastes are individual -- there are plenty of Americans who hate the scenery where I live because they can't stand the starkness or the lack of greenery. So it's all relative to what you're used to. _________________ An apple a day....
I agree, the real beauty of European sceneries are its human history - the way the rural landscapes were formed and transformed together with the architecture of the cities and town over the centuries had created a diversity in a small area found no where else I think.
The European nature alone is less impressive maybe that the one of the Americas, but most of the time is not "alone" and has a specific human historic presence which has given to the landscape a specific taste.
What really would bother me in the Americas, is that there are really impressive sceneries, but they are generally VERY far to each other for European scale. In Europe you can pass from a flat continental plain to a cool high snowy montain area to a mediterranean region of palm trees in only two hours of driving - And you are accompagnied by the change of architecture and language in the same time.
In that sence the Americas would seem quite boring, unless to have its own plane !
What is good in the European countries which we have talked about so far is the people's acute sense of history and the responsibility they have towards the preservation of their cultural legacy.
We hardly see it in rapidly changing Asia where the authorities have no qualms about tearing down ancient buildings for the sake of progress. I am very disappointed with China, for example. They could have planned Beijing where they would have retained the bulk of the old buildings in the centre while erecting skyscrappers only in the outer periphery.
Unfortunately, it was not to be. At the height of of the Cultural Revolution, destructive change was on the top of their agenda. Anything 'old' was deemed to be anti-revolutionary. Many temples were ransacked and burnt; imposing edifices owned and built by the landlord class were vandalised and neglected. It was a sorry thing to have happened and this is a gargantuan blotch on the already defiled record of the Chinese Communist Party. I am a bit of a sentimentalist and I think modern buildings are ugly and do not have a character. Anybody can build a modern skyscrapper if they have enough capital; not anyone can lay claim to a structure that is genuinely old and worthy of veneration.
But oh well, the prevailing mantra of all contemporary architects: function over form.
PS: I like to mention that China is a place where money can make a person sell his soul. When I first visited the Forbidden Palace in 1999, it was already commercialised. When I paid a second visit two years ago, it was commoditised. Starbucks has a franchise in the Palace. I am a huge supporter of globalisation, but I can make a rare exception in this instance and support any Jose Bove-like figure in ransacking that outlet. _________________ Hillary Clinton is an acquired taste which I have clearly yet to acquire.
Location: San Francisco, Noord-Kalifornië, Noord-Amerika
Posted: Wed Feb 07, 2007 11:36 am Post subject:
fab wrote:
I agree, the real beauty of European sceneries are its human history - the way the rural landscapes were formed and transformed together with the architecture of the cities and town over the centuries had created a diversity in a small area found no where else I think.
The European nature alone is less impressive maybe that the one of the Americas, but most of the time is not "alone" and has a specific human historic presence which has given to the landscape a specific taste.
Yes, I love the somewhat "manicured" look of a lot of the European countryside. In so much of the US, the wild outdoors looks very wild (which I also love).
Quote:
What really would bother me in the Americas, is that there are really impressive sceneries, but they are generally VERY far to each other for European scale. In Europe you can pass from a flat continental plain to a cool high snowy montain area to a mediterranean region of palm trees in only two hours of driving...
I think you can do that in southern California.
Quote:
- And you are accompagnied by the change of architecture and language in the same time.
You can probably find places in southern California where everyone speaks Spanish...
I have heard in Washington state you can go skiing in the mountains and lie on the beach, all in the same day. It depends on where you are -- there are vast tracts of one type of landscape in some parts of the country, and places where there are lots of different environments rubbing shoulders. A trip up the west coast would take you from dry, sunswept Mediterranean/desert climates in Southern California to rolling farmland and then to the cool, wet, heavily forested temperate rainforest of the Pacific Northwest.
And if you are well-attuned to a landscape, you can see the variations in similar environments as you drive -- on the way from here to Tucson, Arizona -- only a four-hour drive -- you can see the vegetation change from spiky yuccas to tall, otherworldly saguaros, even though both are desert states, because you are dropping some 3000 ft (1000 m) in altitude and going from the Chihuahuan Desert to the much hotter Sonoran Desert. _________________ An apple a day....
I have heard in Washington state you can go skiing in the mountains and lie on the beach, all in the same day. It depends on where you are -- there are vast tracts of one type of landscape in some parts of the country, and places where there are lots of different environments rubbing shoulders.
I tend to think that geographically the western coast of the USA are more similar to Europe:
- first climatically - western Europe and western USA have similar climates(due to the fact that the dominant winds are from west to east).
In western Europe and west coast the climates are either oceanic or mediterranean when you go at south, while on the est coast it variates from Continental-types to "chinese-types" in th "old south" (subtrpical but with inversed dry/wet seasons compared with mediterranean)
-second; the presence of relief along these coast creates more microclimates and different landscapes in different altitudes.
But Europe has more (a lot of) peninsulas and island that creates again more climatic diversity in small area.
Location: San Francisco, Noord-Kalifornië, Noord-Amerika
Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2007 9:05 pm Post subject:
I first went to Europe when I was in college in North Carolina, and the land and weather in France (not the southern part) reminded me of North Carolina.
I did not spoke about the kind of lanscapes created by humans. In that case the east coast having been Europeanized since longer time has more similarities - Especially with England. Nor really the vegetation which is tipical to North America.
But the corespondance of types of climates. The climates of the east coast of the USA are actually very different from the Western European ones ; continental on one side and oceanic on the other; and chinese-type for the south US, while mediterranean on the other.
Location: San Francisco, Noord-Kalifornië, Noord-Amerika
Posted: Sat Feb 10, 2007 4:04 am Post subject:
fab wrote:
I did not spoke about the kind of lanscapes created by humans. In that case the east coast having been Europeanized since longer time has more similarities - Especially with England. Nor really the vegetation which is tipical to North America.
But the corespondance of types of climates. The climates of the east coast of the USA are actually very different from the Western European ones ; continental on one side and oceanic on the other; and chinese-type for the south US, while mediterranean on the other.
I wasn't talking about landscapes created by humans either. I was talking about how the weather & climate feel, regardless of how the climate has been officially labeled.
On your map, there's a line connecting what appears to be Seattle and Paris. I can assure you, they do not feel the same.
Well, I was talking more about how the landscapes look -- the American East Coast looks much like Western Europe.
Quote:
But the corespondance of types of climates. The climates of the east coast of the USA are actually very different from the Western European ones ; continental on one side and oceanic on the other; and chinese-type for the south US, while mediterranean on the other.
Perhaps we are defining our terms differently, but I associate a continental climate (drier, with hot summers and extremely cold winters, unmitigated by ocean currents) with the inland Midwest -- not with the East Coast, which has an Atlantic climate (milder in both summer and winter and more humid, due to its proximity to the ocean). _________________ An apple a day....
Perhaps we are defining our terms differently, but I associate a continental climate (drier, with hot summers and extremely cold winters, unmitigated by ocean currents) with the inland Midwest -- not with the East Coast, which has an Atlantic climate (milder in both summer and winter and more humid, due to its proximity to the ocean).
Yes, I agree that there are levels of "continentalness" in climates. And it seems that the east coast of the US are much less continental than the north-central states. There are of course some oceanic influences - But on the east US coast the dominant wind and sea currents make that the climates of the coast still have quite strong contiental characterisitc in comparision with the climates of the same latitudes in Europe: that is to say such as big temperature variations between summer and winter.
We can compare with Lisbon for exemple - and its counterparts at about same latitude on the east and west coast of the US:
Average of winter maximum daily temperartures:
LISBON 14°C / 60F
SAN FRANCISCO 18°C / 68F
WASHINGTON 5°C / 42F
Average of winter minimum daily temperatures:
LISBON 7°C / 46F
SAN FRANCISCO 7°C / 46F
WASHINGTON -4°C / 24F
Average of summer maximum daily temperatures:
LISBON 28°C / 88F
SAN FRANCISCO 24°C / 80F
WASHINGTON 30°C / 92F
Lisbon defenitly has a more similar climate to San Francisco's than to washington's.
The problem with using San Franciso as a point of reference is that its position on a peninsula in a bay puts it in a unique microclimate -- the rest of California isn't that much like it. It tends to be much colder, foggier, and wetter than the surrounding areas -- as the saying goes, "The coldest winter I ever knew was the summer I spent in San Francisco." _________________ An apple a day....
The problem with using San Franciso as a point of reference is that its position on a peninsula in a bay puts it in a unique microclimate -- the rest of California isn't that much like it.
it seems that San Francisco is about at the transition between oceanic and mediterranean cliamtes. It seems that the interior of San Fransciso as a more mediterranean climate, much less wet - But actually that more or less the case of Lisboa, which is also a sort of intermediary between mediterranean and oceanis climates on the European façade. The summers can be surprisingly cool in Liboa, while a few kilometers in the inland it is much drier and hot.
But we can take an other exemple, more tipically oceanic. For exemple Nantes, in north-west France, known for its timical oceanic climate.
The equivalent of Nantes in terms of latitude on the west coast would be
Seattle, while the equivalent on the east coast would be Newfoundland, Canada (US don't go as much north on east coast).
Average of winter maximum daily temperartures:
NANTES 8°C / 48F
SEATTLE 8°C / 48F
NEWFOUNDLAND 0°C / 32F
Average of winter minimum daily temperatures:
NANTES 2°C / 36F
SEATTLE 2°C / 36F
NEWFOUNDLAND -6°C / 20F
Average of summer maximum daily temperatures:
NANTES 24°C / 80F
SEATTLE 26°C / 84F
NEWFOUNDLAND 18°C / 68F
It seems also clear that the temperature of Nantes are much more similar to Seattle's than to the same latitude on the east coast, which is much colder and do not provide the warm influences of the oceanic climates.
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