Europe 1957-58, by my father

[plrh]

https://www.google.ca/maps/@52.49433...7i13312!8i6656

Volendam canal street.

My office is slow today.

[James Bond Agent 007]

Originally Posted by Crawford

West Germany was just a few years old at this point, and there were probably still vacant lots and scars from the war in these cities.

Funny you should mention that. Here is Nuremburg, which, if you look closely, you can see was still being rebuilt.



Now, on to Paris for a few shots ...

Here is the view from the opera house.



This is my father (on the right) and a friend in front of Montmarte



Notre Dame from the Seine



Notre Dame from the front



And here he made an attempt to take a night shot of the opera house



41 shots of Rome (at Christmas time) will be next.

[MonkeyRonin]

Awesome, I think I like these even more than the Boston photos! Certainly an interesting time to be in Europe.

[James Bond Agent 007]

Originally Posted by James Bond Agent 007

Some local girls, two of which are named Sandy Burday & Irene Landmesser.

I was curious and did a search on Irene Landmesser. Guess what I found? I wonder if it's the same person, I should ask my father:
http://mentalfloss.com/article/28461...schande-family

[James Bond Agent 007]

Here is the first half of the Rome pictures.

I'll start out with my favorite: This is a Vatican coachman taking a nap.



Trevi fountain



Trevi fountain through a window



Tiber River looking toward St Peter's



St Peter's Basillica

[James Bond Agent 007]

A fountain in front of the Vatican



St Peter's Square



St Peter's Square again



Spanish Steps



Santa Maria Maggiore



Santa Maria di Loreto

[James Bond Agent 007]

Saint John's Laterrn



Railroad station



Piazza Venizia & Mussolini balcony



Piazza Navonna



Same thing, different view

[James Bond Agent 007]

Piazza del Popolo



Pantheon



Pantheon piazza



From the Forum



My father in front of the Trevi Fountain



The rest of Rome will be tomorrow.

[OhioGuy]

So great viewing these!

[the urban politician]

This and your Boston thread are a treasure! Easily among the top photo threads in this forum. Thanks for showing, I want to see all of them!

[James Bond Agent 007]

And here's the rest of the Rome pics.

Vatican gardens



A side street off the Vatican



Via Barberini



Via Della Quattro Fointana



Via Nazionale

[James Bond Agent 007]

My father in front of the Castel St Angelo



View from the Forum



The Forum



Fontana Del Esedra



Constantine Arch



Colesseum



Capitol steps



Capitol museum



Capitol museum fountain



Borghese Museum



Apostles St Peters roof



View toward Victor Emmanuel



View toward St Peter's



Via Veneto



American Embassy



And that's it for the Rome pics.

[James Bond Agent 007]

Last group in this series is going to be an ad-hoc mixture of a few pics of Bremerhaven in the the winter and a few army shots, just for the heck of it (and some of which look a bit interesting). I won't post all of those here but will put them all in my Flickr album which I linked in the first post. Most interesting stuff has now been posted.

[FREKI]

Really great stuff mate - thanks for sharing!

[mousquet]

Originally Posted by James Bond Agent 007

Now, on to Paris for a few shots ...

Here is the view from the opera house.

Ha ha, may sound like - ouais, bon, allez... Can't avoid it.

Was it a pain already back then? Idk. It was messy anyway. Looks like Bordeaux before the large-scale cleaning up, or Clermont's volcanic dark stone, but it doesn't feel the same since it's only natural over there, not caused by pollution.

Rome looks cleaner and better on these pictures.

[James Bond Agent 007]

OK, here's the last batch. Lots of army pics, only a few of which I'll post here. Again, if you want to see them all you can check out my album here, which has bigger versions of all these pics anyway.

This is on board the USS Buckner, looks like it was docked at Bremerhaven.



Train in Bremerhaven



Port of Bremerhaven



Bremerhaven from the train



Looks like a tugboat on the river in Bremerhaven

[10023]

Great photos and nice find.

The Festspielhaus in Bayreuth is the opera house. It was commissioned by Richard Wagner specifically for the performance of his operas. The annual Wagner festival there is one of the premier events on the German social calendar, so those were not necessarily locals.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by mousquet

Ha ha, may sound like - ouais, bon, allez... Can't avoid it.

Do you think that's RER construction in the background? I was guessing that's the Auber RER station, which (I think) dates from the 60's.

Originally Posted by mousquet

Rome looks cleaner and better on these pictures.

Rome looks amazing! Practically no tourists. Spanish Steps are totally empty. And no noisy motorbikes.

[James Bond Agent 007]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Rome looks amazing! Practically no tourists. Spanish Steps are totally empty. And no noisy motorbikes.

As I noted, these pics were taken in December (hence the Christmas tree in front of the American embassy). So it was the off-season for tourists.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by James Bond Agent 007

As I noted, these pics were taken in December (hence the Christmas tree in front of the American embassy). So it was the off-season for tourists.

Yeah, but Rome is a year-round tourist destination. I've been there in November, and the Spanish Steps and Fontana di Trevi are as insanely mobbed as in mid-summer. And Rome is a big Christmas draw being the center for Christianity.

I think the difference is that the world was much poorer then. Really only the wealthy were flying around the world to visit places like Rome. You didn't have mobs of American and Chinese and German tourists everywhere like now. Europe was still in postwar recovery, Asia and the Middle East were poor, airfares were expensive.

Thanks so much for posting these pics. One of the most interesting photothreads in SSP history.