On night flights, there's more to see than airline movies

The orange starfish stretched wide and large below me as I looked down from a great height...It was a reminder of how the view from an airplane window can sometimes be quite remarkable. In this case, it was a different perspective on the city of Winnipeg.

In the surrounding blackness, urban centres from the air look like crystalline decorations on the vast expanse of our planet. Despite the internal glare from a plane's lighting system, night views are not only possible, but frequently satisfying, if you happen to have a window seat.

During daylight hours we forget how widely developed our lighting systems have become. At night the grid structure of the streets and buildings look like lit-up circuit boards with capillary tentacles reaching to the outlying regions.

Many European cities, having evolved from walled enclosures, castles and market squares, spread out from a central hub evenly in all directions. I remember one night looking down on Dublin and being amazed at the symmetry of the radiating pattern. It looked like a perfectly-designed citadel or spider web.

Interesting night views are not limited to cities. Natural features like lakes and rivers are visible under clear skies and moonlight. Mercury snakes twist and turn under aircraft wings.

Clouds are equally fascinating. Flying south under a Caribbean moon one time, the clouds looked like dark gray cotton balls. They left darker shadows over the ocean below. At first I thought I was looking at islands in the water, but after a minute of looking down under the brightness of the moon, I realized the black shapes were patches of cloud shades on the water. Like herds of elephants slowly crossing a savanna, they marched in silent formations over the waterscape. It was a surprising and stunning sight.

If this is what we can see from our small oval windows along the fuselage, imagine what pilots see up front.

If you've had similar experiences, why not a add a comment below. I'd really like to hear about yours.

Notes:

To get a sense of how our cities look from outer space, see this illustrative YouTube video: "Cities at Night: An Orbital Tour Around the World."

Night strolls

"At night they would go walking ‘till the breaking of the day," Coldplay, Viva La Vida

Some random thoughts about exploring cities in the dark...

When you're walking you really get a feeling for a place; its rhythms, sounds, its aromas, its nooks and crannies. In many ways, walking is a better way to see a city than driving. One of my favourite things to do is to roam at night. I've been fortunate to have walked under the light of the moon in many famous places: Paris, Rome, Venice, and Toronto, to list a few. Walking at night is a different experience. In many ways you're seeing a city after its work mask has come off and the city has put on its comfortable clothes and getting into relaxation mode.

After the sun goes down, the sun's reflections disappear off windows and for a visitor the focus of attention moves naturally from outdoors to indoors: lights are turned on inside buildings, and suddenly you can see through the glass barriers and see people in their private spaces: working in offices, preparing dinner, watching television, having people over or getting ready for a night out on the town.

Like Charles Dickens, that incessant walker who used his nightly strolls around London to assemble great stories in his head, exploring a city at night provides a different perspective. It's more intimate, but also more anonymous; in the dark, details are lost, people move in the shadows and only become recognizable when they come under the light.

The night brings its own character. Lights create pools of colour and shadow. Couples huddle close, groups of people laugh and line-up at restaurants and night clubs, freed temporarily of their schedules and deadines, everyone putting their best foot forward.

Streets are uniformly black, dirt and stains not visible. If it has rained, then everything takes on a reflective sheen; a freshly-washed tableau.

In Vancouver bridges have their own special allure. The lamps over the darkened water create reflections, and the lights from buildings and boats move like brush strokes of colour on the water.

"I often think that the night is more alive and more richly colored than the day." ~Vincent Van Gogh

Cities in blogs

Blogs offer interesting perspectives on people and places in an infinite variety of ways.  

People live and see the character of cities in unique frames of reference.  I've enjoyed, for example, reading Seattle Sketcher, a blog by Seattle Times illustrator Gabi Campanario.  As the name suggests, he sketches scenes of the Seattle area, where he lives.  He provides an original viewpoint on the city which I find very refreshing.

Here in Toronto, photographer Sam Javanrouh, originally from Tehran, does the same thing with photographs.  His blog, Daily Dose of Imagery, is a great way to experience the city.  Browsing through his photographs is a bit like watching a movie. It's a creative, awakening experience that is open to interpretation, and so becomes a dialogue between artist, subject and viewer.

Thanks to Duilio Zane for his photo of BCE Place in Toronto.

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