Film photographs from a fourteen-week tour, scanned from the original prints.
In 2000 I travelled alone across Western Europe for fourteen weeks, shooting on 35 mm film. The pictures below are scans of the original prints; many have since been re-scanned directly from the negatives at higher resolution, and those replacements are being added in as they become available. They are arranged by country. Use a country card below to jump to the full photograph list.
A canal in Venice with gondola (3888×2592, 24-bit · 26 MB); Giardino del Boboli, Florence (3.6 MB); Lord Kelvin statue, Glasgow (3.3 MB).
Also available as high-resolution re-scans by request: Potsdamer Platz and a satyr in the Uffizi.
Rome (Foro Romano, Palatine, San Giovanni, catacombs), Pisa, Naples (Pompeii, Herculaneum), Venice, Verona, Padua, Milan (The Last Supper, Duomo), Florence (Duomo, Uffizi, Giardino di Boboli), Siena, San Gimignano, Gaeta, Terracina, Sperlonga.
Italy was the longest leg of the tour. The Venice canal above is the favourite of the set — printed large, it makes a plausible poster.
St Peter’s Basilica (dome, tombs, Alexander VII), the Vatican Museum (Egyptian rooms, Sala degli Animali, map room), and several photographs of Pope John Paul II at a general audience.
Included separately from Italy because they are an independent state, and because the mummy alone draws enough web traffic to deserve its own page.
Paris (Notre-Dame, Arc de Triomphe, Eiffel, Louvre, Père Lachaise — Chopin, Wilde, Morrison, Proust — and Disneyland Paris), Chartres Cathedral, Strasbourg (astronomical clock), Nice, Lille, Cherbourg.
The Notre-Dame picture is from before the 2019 fire. The Chartres stained-glass and Strasbourg astroclock sets are the most historically interesting.
Munich, Berlin (Brandenburg Gate, Reichstag, Königsplatz, Potsdamer Platz under construction), Leipzig (Bach), Wittenberg (Luther’s Ninety-Five Theses, Luther’s and Melanchthon’s tombs), Füssen (Neuschwanstein and Hohenschwangau castles, Marienbrücke), Oberammergau.
The Wittenberg set is unusual: Luther’s castle church, the famous doors, and the university’s teaching hall. Potsdamer Platz has been re-scanned at 23 MB.
Salzburg (Mozart’s birthplace, a full Sound of Music location tour with the gazebo) and Vienna (Beethoven’s and Schubert’s tombs, Stephansdom, Schatzkammer Reichskreuz, the plague monument).
Vienna alone has more than twenty composer-related shots, useful for music-history readers.
Antwerp: the Cathedral of Our Lady with Rubens’s Elevation and Descent from the Cross altarpieces, and Rubens’s grave in Sint-Jacobskerk. Brussels in transit only.
Utrecht (Fort Rhijnauwen, refectory meal) and Amsterdam (canals, bicycles, the King Billy statue).
Luxembourg City and the Pétrusse valley, plus a river view in the Moselle valley. Small country, small set — but the Pétrusse picture above is one of the site’s surprise hits.
Basel (Erasmus’s tomb, Basel Minster), Montreux (Château de Chillon), and Geneva (St Pierre Cathedral, Jet d’Eau, Reformation artefacts including a 1545 Institutes and 1560 Bible, the giant chess set).
Barcelona only: La Sagrada Família (pre-current-towers), the Cathedral, Parc Güell, Casa Milà, Casa Batlló. A useful before-and-after set for anyone tracking the Sagrada’s progress toward its planned 2026 completion.
London (Parliament, Westminster Abbey, St Paul’s, All Souls Langham Place, the Millennium Dome in its first year, Madame Tussaud’s, Lord’s), Guildford, Dover cliffs, Stonehenge, Canterbury Cathedral, York, the Surrey Hills, Birmingham, Stoke-on-Trent (Wedgwood), Oxford (Christ Church, including the Dodgson Alice associations), Tanners Hatch YHA, Winchester (Cathedral, Jane Austen’s house).
The Christ Church set is notable for being allowed full access — dining hall, croquet green, Kilcannon.
Glasgow (Cathedral, the Kelvin statue, Knox monument, the University), Edinburgh (Castle, Holyrood Palace, St Giles’, Arthur’s Seat, Walter Scott monument, Dene Bridge), the Highlands (Kyle of Lochalsh, Inverness, Mallaig, Oban, the Isle of Skye), Aberdeen.
The Highland landscape sequence and the Isle of Skye picture above are the strongest of the Scottish set.
The Shrewsbury–Aberystwyth railway line (Cambrian line) and Aberystwyth itself — seafront, university and town.
Dublin (River Liffey, Parnell statue, Trinity College, the James Joyce House), Galway, Tralee, Killarney (transit), Cork (Blarney Castle, with obligatory kiss), the Dingle Peninsula (Annascaul, Dingle, Dunquin, Inch Beach, Ryan’s Daughter stone).
Photographs taken on the way: Moscow from the air (Aeroflot transit), the Irish Ferries Ireland–France crossing, and the SeaFrance Channel ferry.
These were the most-requested pictures between August 2004 and September 2005, in order of hits: Milan Gucci store, Leonardo’s Last Supper, Barcelona Cathedral, Madame Tussaud’s wax figures, Notre-Dame, Vatican Museum mummy, Pétrusse valley, Strasbourg Cathedral, Beethoven’s tomb, Disneyland Paris shooting gallery.
These photographs are shared for personal, educational and editorial use. If you would like to use one in a publication or need a higher-resolution scan, please get in touch via the homepage.
