Portugal has some pretty cool bridges!

First up is the Arrábida Bridge over the Douro River in Porto. The bridge is 493 metres long, and at the time of its construction in 1963 it had the largest concrete span of any bridge in the world. If you look closely on the eastern side you can see the curve of the arch underneath the bridge (compare with the image on Wikipedia to see what I mean).

Next up is the Ponte 25 de Abril, which crosses the Tagus river in Lisbon. It was originally named Salazar Bridge but after the Carnation Revolution, the bridge was renamed to 25 April Bridge, the day when the revolution occurred. It’s interesting to have a look at the north side of the shore, where the bridge curves spectacularly over loads of buildings before it eventually touches down (Wikipedia page). We couldn’t work out what this monument on the south bank was though… This monument on the south bank is the Monumento do Cristo-Rei, an imitation of the more famous statue in Rio.

Finally we have the spectacular Vasco da Gama Bridge, which also crosses Lisbon’s Tagus river, but at a much wider point! The Vasco da Gama has a total length of over 17 kilometres and is the longest bridge in Europe. Again, there’s a rather cool curve visible in this one and some cool shadows too (Wikipedia page).

Thanks to Manuel Freitas, Bodo Möller, Jan Brasna, grufo and Joao Ramires.

This is a cracking shot of a plane coming into land at Haneda Airport (AKA Tokyo International Airport). By sheer passenger throughput, Haneda is the busiest airport in all of Asia and the fourth-busiest airport in the world, handling over 60 million passengers a year.

Thanks: Yoann & Temptationx.

This is the Lovell Telescope at the Jodrell Bank Observatory, Cheshire, UK. Apparently it’s the largest radio telescope in Europe and has been in operation since 1957, which was just in time for the launch of Sputnik 1, the world’s first artificial satellite. Jodrell Bank was the only installation in the world able to track Sputnik’s booster rocket by radar (Wikipedia page). You can also see the smaller Mach II dish just to the south east.

Thanks: Fred Bobardo, Peter Bindon, Oscar Blanco, Scotto, Andrew Kowalski and Chris Palmer

I think this is downtown Tokyo. It almost looks like an isometric view because of the angle that the photo was taken at. You often can’t tell the height of buildings when looking at them on Maps but this view illustrates just how tall these buildings really are.

Thanks: Eric & Andros.

Here is a great shot of Miyakejima Satsuma-Iwojima Island off the coast of Japan. It is volcanic in origin and the big volcano is Mount Oyama. This has erupted several times in recent history. A lava flow in 1940 killed 11 people, and other eruptions occurred in 1962 and 1983. In 2000, Mount Oyama began another series of eruptions and the island had to be evacuated. The residents were only allowed to return permanently in February, 2005! (I suck)

Thanks seamus & Tomoya (for the corrections).