Knock, Knock
I love taking pictures of doors. This is the second part of an ongoing series, my adventures through doors.
When exploring a new city, looking for doors encourages me to travel more by foot and takes me to neighborhoods or parts of a town that one simply does not find when sticking to the tourist areas. I get to see where people live, where they walk their dogs, what kind of flowers they have on their window sills and where they take their children to play. It’s really a chance to see the people who actually live in the city instead of fellow tourists obsessed with finding the right wall for that Instagram pose and post.
When referring to personal favorites from these trips, I refer to specific doors by ROW (A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H) & COLUMN (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8).
2017
Edinburgh, Scotland
I was very excited for my first trip to Scotland that I researched “bagpipe lessons Edinburgh” for a few days. There are actual schools of bagpipe playing there but no one was willing to give just ONE lesson until I found the website of a very kind man by the name of Allan MacDonald. For my lesson preparation, I downloaded his app, watched a few videos and memorized the fingerings for a few scales. It turns out that one cannot simply play the instrument at the first lesson. I started out with the chanter (that part that looks like a recorder) and thought my eyeballs were going to pop out of my head from all the pressure it takes to produce sound. I thanked the man for the tea, the lesson and the chat about Scottish Nationalism and continued wandering around this charming city for a few days. Here is what I found…
Personal Favorites
B8 A door from the Royal Yacht Britannia, the former yacht for Queen Elizabeth from 1945-1997.
E5 A curved door for a restaurant located at an awkward curve. I love how they decided to put the door there anyways.
E8 Did you know there is a “Wild West” in Edinburgh? In the Morningside neighborhood, there is an American-style ghost town that is now home to several private businesses.
There are several Georgian Doors (A1, A2, etc). If you like these doors, please check out my doors from Dublin in “Doors: Part 1”.
2017
Bruges, Belgium
This cozy and charming city is one place that I would love to visit again…and again.
Personal Favorites
H6 Door from the Markt (main square) where I climbed the 366 steps up the bell tower. I love climbing steps in old buildings and monuments
G8 Also located in the central Markt.
E4 I am always happy to see double doors and there are 4 double doors in this picture! Variety is the spice of life…
E7 Door in front of the Liberty of Bruges, gorgeous façade built in the 16th-century that used to house the local courts
In order to get that perfect picture, I am sometimes forced to stand in the street. It was in Bruges that I took a picture of a door and found keys on the ground to a very expensive car. I had to knock on several doors to find a local who knew what to do with the keys
2018
Leiden, Rotterdam, Düsseldorf, Bonn, Berlin, Frankfurt, Ghent, Bergen
Personal Favorites:
F8 I found this door in a random park while lost in Ghent
D4 The walk from the train station to the city center was incredibly long but I found these gorgeous Art Nouveau doors
D5 I love Art Nouveau
F3 This one might be my favorite
A7 Door in Ghent. I loved how the paint was fading off of this door. Or maybe it was intentional
B2 Doors in Leiden, Netherlands which I learned was the birthplace from Rembrandt
C3 The walls of this city are covered in poetry in multiple languages.
A1 I attended a friend’s concert in Leiden. Afterwards, my friend gave me his flowers so I returned to the restaurant where I had lunch — a small family-run Vietnamese restaurant — to give them the flowers. Their daughter, the waitress, had great dreams of being a musician and spoke to me quite passionately during lunch. Because of her enthusiasm of meeting a professional musician, her entire family came out of the kitchen to talk to me. They loved the flowers. I ended up being stranded overnight in Den Haag after this concert so it was a great idea to give these flowers a proper home.
G1 A random door on a street filled with restaurants and businesses in Berlin. I love the color
A6 Door to the Beethovenhaus Museum in Bonn
C5 Doors in Bergen, Norway
D2 I learned while I was there that it rains 239 days of the year in Bergen
H7 Door at a fortress
2018
Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Berlin, Bonn, Köln, Würzburg, Düsseldorf, Wiesbaden
This was the year I ran 4 half marathons — Bonn, Würzburg, Duisburg and Berlin. There have been many times while I’m running that I want to stop and take pictures of doors but I never let myself do that. The doors in Bonn and Würzburg were discovered before while traveling to the place to pick up my number or afterwards when looking for food.
Personal Favorites
A2 and F4 These two doors are part of one building in Amsterdam, Netherlands
D2 Church door in Wiesbaden, Germany
D3 Door to the National Socialist Documentation Center Museum in Köln, Germany
H2 Door in Rotterdam, Netherlands
H3 Würzburg, Germany
E2 Door in Bonn, Germany. I love the red metal roses that adorn the framework
E8 Door to the Schumannhaus and Music Library of Bonn, where Schumann died in 1856