Necessity Over Beauty

The bridge in the above picture is  built over a busy, major city road connecting a tower complex (Azrieli) on one side, and a military base (Hakyria) on the other side. The bridge is 100 m long ,10 m wide, and has three sets of stairs:  regular stairs in the middle, and two escalators (up/down moving stairs), placed one at each side of the regular stairs. There's also a small elevator nearby, but not always functioning.

stairs to and from the bridge

walking on the bridge to the Mall entrance

The tower complex itself is comprised of three impressive towers: a circular shaped one, a triangle one, and a square one; the geometrical shapes make the tower compound one of the most photographed  in the country.

the three 'Azrieli'  towers

There's security checkup at the entrance of the towers; also at the entrance of the military compound. No security check at the steps leading to the bridge, but I've seen a guy with a gun patrolling near the stairs and along the street segment. Not that it helps much, once a terrorist decides to take some lives and on the way his own too; but ,still, we wish to believe the presence of security people might prevent such terrible acts.

bottom figure: gunman near the stairs to the bridge

gunman patrolling with female colleague

The Towers and some adjacent buildings, belong to the canadian-israeli entrepeneur  David Azrieli and his family, and bear the name of 'Azrieli Center'. In the lobby of the shopping mall (circular tower) there's a bronze statue of the owner sitting on a bench. People (me included) are usually tempted to take a selfie 'with Azrieli' on the bench. Not a bad idea, as in this way he's immortalized in everyone's photo album.

Azrieli on the bench - bronze statue

touching his shoulder

sitting 'with Azrieli' on the bench

The Azrieli towers are not the only towers in the area, and the above pedestrian bridge is not the only one connecting the two sides of the tel-avivian Begin road. I suppose that after the erection of several towers , it has become  necessary to build bridges to ease the congested traffic and find adequate solution for pedestrians. This is what I would call 'necessity over beauty.'

                                                     view of the under road from the bridge

The lonely fisherman

catching fish

See the red spot on the steep rock? That's a young man dressed in a red shirt catching fish in the Bistrita (Bistritza) river in north east Romania. The name Bistrita has its origin in the slavic word 'bystrica' meaning serene water. Serene indeed, and not only the water, but the whole landscape surrounding it. It's not the same serenity one experiences at the Dead Sea, for instance, but still ,serene enough for a relaxation vacation and for catching fish.

Anyway, I saw the fisherman from the back and wanted to capture him from the front. So I went up the bridge, but I coudn't see him at all from there. I stretched my arm in the proper direction (where he was supposed to be) with camera face down, and clicked. Got him. (Who says I have no photographic skills? LOL). When enlarged , it is quite a nice picture with a cute , lonely fisherman. I like it.

It so happened that on that day, we had fish (good source for Omega3 oil) and mamaliga (polenta porridge) for dinner. With the local sparkling mineral water , it all tasted great.

road bridge over Bistrita seen from below

the road bridge

the serene waters of Bistrita