The largest brick-built cathedral in the world is in Albi. It's absolutely massive and dwarfs everything around it. It was originally built as a fortress in the 13th century. The exterior may be fairly plain but inside it is very ornate. Stunning.

This is a view of Andermatt seen from a train. It seems to lie in a cradle of mountain slopes. After a heavy snowfall you can imagine that it might become completely engulfed.

Known as Village de Bories in southern France, this dry-stone commune provided a temporary home for seasonal farm workers during the 17th and 18th centuries.

A huge garden with a difference: everything in it is box! Umpteen thousand box plants grown in many different forms and layouts. The saying about 'eggs and baskets' comes to mind since, in recent years, box has been severely affected by box blight, a disease caused by a fungus. This doesn't kill the plant but can make it look very unsightly.

A great view from a hotel window. This time from one in Brig, Switzerland. The scene varies from day to day as the mountain weather changes.

A solution for those who prefer maintenance-free gardening? A huge flattish limestone area near the Enchanted City, eastern/ central Spain. It features many wonderfully shaped rock formations.

This photo of an alpine chough was taken in April 2009 at Gornergrat railway terminus on the Matterhorn Railway. By chance, the bird was flying past a sign that shows its altitude: 3089 metres (10132 feet).

Brace yourselves, here they come!
The arrival of this boat-load of tourists completely changed the landscape. Hundreds of coffees and photos later and they will have all disappeared and tranquillity will resume. I'm sure the cafes and bars of this Greek island appreciate the business but the sudden deluge must also be a brief nightmare.

When surrounded by a deep layer of snow you don't expect to see cyclists! Presumably a lot of effort has gone into clearing a long enough system of pathways to make it worthwhile.

This is a roundabout at the approach to Mont Ventoux in Provence. This gruelling climb of nearly 2,000 metres is often featured in the Tour de France. The ascent seems to tax the car let alone a bike-rider.

This is a view of the top of Mont Ventoux. The building there resembles a lighthouse but is actually a weather station. The area around it has been stripped of trees and the bare surrounds make it look even more foreboding although cyclists must be relieved to arrive at the summit. It is where Tommy Simpson came to grief many years ago and there is a memorial to him by the side of the road.

Here's a plucky lady ascending the steep sides of the Gorge du Verdon: the deepest in France. It's about 15 miles long and up to 0.4 miles deep. The scenery is terrific and so is the wildlife.
There are plenty of enthusiasts who tackle this climb. Personally I'm happy enough to just watch and let my hands get clammy.

A sunset lover is called an opacarophile, from 'opacare', Latin for 'dusk or sunset', and 'philia', Greek for 'love'.

It seems that there are 3 stages to a sunset. They depend on how far below the horizon the sun is. Up to 6 degrees below the horizon it's known as civil twilight; between 6 and 12 degrees below, it's nautical twilight and between 12 and 18 degrees below it's astronomical twilight.

When the sun is more than 18 degrees below the horizon it's night-time.

This is a view of the town of Millau on the banks of the River Tarn. During the summer months this town was often a bottle-neck for holiday traffic. The solution to this problem is the magnificent Millau Viaduct. The town itself may now be quieter but many visitors are attracted to the area by the sheer size and beauty of the bridge.
This is the highest road bridge in the world, at a maximum height of 890 feet over the river. A feat of engineering genius, it took 3 years to build and was opened in 2004.

Presumably the way the light falls was pre-conceived. It works well.

It takes a while to decide what's real and what isn't. This trompe l'oeil is a brilliant piece of art work. The upper picture of the multi-storey building shows reality; the lower one shows what has been done to fool the viewer into believing there are many more apartments in this block.
This is described as 'illusory geometry'. It exists in Montpellier, France.

An ocean of sunflowers always has its admirers. They are actually native to the Americas and are used for food, seeds and oil. It is often said that they turn their heads to face the sun as it moves across the sky but this is mainly true of young plants rather than the fully grown (5 to 12 feet) giants.

It started as a simple photo of a mountain stream gently flowing over a bed of pebbles. A software picture editor was used to produce this artistic version that could grace any wall.

Rocamadour is a cliff-top village in SW France and is a magnet for visitors. Hardly surprising given this wonderful setting.

For many years I have followed the Tour de France on TV. It regularly includes a stage visit to Alpe d'Huez and I've often wondered what it must be like at the top. This view from a hotel balcony tries to convey how commercialised it is and the amount of building work that is ongoing. Surprisingly this mountain top resort gets over 300 sunny days a year and is busy all year round.

The Matterhorn, near Zermatt, has a similar shape to how a young child might draw a mountain. It sits near the Swiss-Italian border and rises to about 15,000 feet. This photo, taken in perfect weather, suggests that climbing it might be a doddle but plenty of folk have died in the attempt.

By chance I happened to get this perfectly in frame as we whizzed by in the car. Would you be attracted to it? Or would the name put you off?
Hypothetically, if a hotel had great ratings but was called Hotel Laryngitis, would you go there? I think names do have some pulling-power; others can be complete turn-offs.

Unbelievably this is a view from someone's garden. It covers a few acres and is open to the public. There are alpine views from just about anywhere you stand. And there are lots of nice plants, rills, ponds, rockeries ... as well as marmots and other wildlife. So if you're wondering what to do one weekend, here's the address: Lautaret Alpine Garden, Hautes-Alpes, France.

This bizarre photo shows the original Museum of Fine Arts (in Lille) reflected in the window of the new building of the same name.

This highly colourful church tower stands proud above the small town of Sos del Rey Catolico in the Spanish Pyrenees.

The Picos de Europa are part of the Cantabrian mountains in Northern Spain. They extend for about 12 miles and offer the most amazing scenery. The people on the narrow windy path are totally dwarfed by their surrroundings.
I was spoilt for choice about which picture to choose.

A fine day in the Alps where the patterns of surviving snow look as though they have been daubed with a brush.

The lady waits patiently at a Swiss railway station. Their trains usually run to schedule so it shouldn't be long.

Some villages go overboard for a carnival/ festival. These aerial streamers almost cover the entire village square. It would have been fascinating to see it all erected. I wonder how you start.

A view which looks down on the commune of La Roque-Gageac, alongside the Dordogne River. Voted one of the most beautiful villages in France.

I love plane trees and always appreciate the way they are used to create a shady tunnel along a main road.

The magnificent Ely cathedral, founded in AD 673 as a monastery. The nave alone took about 100 years to build. Over the centuries many extensions, additions and restorations have been carried out. It has been used as a location for many major films and TV productions.

An incredible structure to facilitate storks' nests. It looks like a combination of cars and aircraft parts - I would love to have seen it being built.
It sits in the grounds of a cafe on a nature reserve south-west of Cacares, Spain.

An unusual aerial arrangement of umbrellas to celebrate a village festival in Spain. Appropriately it was raining when this photo was taken.

Isaac Newton discovered that a beam of light becomes refracted into its constituent colours when passed through a glass prism. This spectrum is also produced when light hits raindrops.
The colours have their own wavelength which means that they travel at different speeds through the raindrop and emerge slightly displaced from one another. The blue end of the spectrum has a shorter wavelength than the red end and as a result shows a bigger change of direction.
Although we refer to rainbow colours as red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet, there are actually an infinite number of intermediate hues.

To produce the rainbow, sunlight has to hit the back of raindrops at a critical angle (42 degrees) before re-emerging. This is known as 'total internal reflection'.

Each of us each sees a rainbow that is unique to us.
Apart from the presence of raindrops, the sun also needs to be behind us and be less than 42 degrees above the horizon.

A rainbow may appear to be an arc but it is actually circular. This is verified by views taken from high up in the sky. Sometimes a weak, double rainbow appears with the spectrum of colours in reverse order. This happens when light is reflected twice within the raindrops,