BEST PLACES TO SEE MAGNIFICENT SHADOWS NOW

Visit the most beautiful places to see shadows cast upon the land. Featured here: the Palouse Loess, in the northwestern United States, the Gardens of Marqueyssac, in France, and the dunes of Namibia.

1. MARQUEYSSAC --- FRANCE

The gardens of Marqueyssac, overlooking the Dordogne River, in the Perigord region of France, offer a plethora of botanical sculptures, each catching the changing light and shadows of every passing day.

Marqueyssac is one of France's listed Jardins Remarquable. These gardens were designed by a student of André Le Notre, designer of the gardens at Versailles.

Shadows highlight sculpted shapes of over 150,000 boxwood, rosemary and santolina topiaries.

Les Jardins de Marqueyssac are especially magical at night when candlelight casts warm gentle flickering shadows.

2. PALOUSE LOESS & PRAIRIE -- WASHINGTON

“... there are shadows because there are hills.”

--- E.M. Forster, A Room with a View

Some of most beautiful and unique hills in the world are in the Palouse Loess, in the northwestern region of the US. They cast incredibly beautiful, almost poetic shadows in the changing light of day.

Loess is a loosely compacted yellowish-gray deposit of windblown sediment, built up over many thousands of years, to create sculpted mounds and bowls.  

The Palouse Loess covers the surface of over 50,000 km2(19,000 sq mi) on the Columbia Plateau in southeastern Washington, western Idaho, and northeastern Oregon. 

The Loess forms a mantle -- a mixed blanket of non-glacial Pliocene fluvial sediments and Pleistocene glacial outburst flood sediments. At its thickest, the Loess rises 75m (246’).

The older, deepest layers of loess accumulated between 2 and 1 million years ago. The uppermost layer of Palouse Loess accumulated over the past 15,000 years.

Although they look a bit like sand dunes, they are made up of alternating layers of loess and calcrete, with ancient rock that got ground to dust by glaciers, as they advanced southward, from Canada. The dust, known as glacial flour, then got blown and deposited to create the unique hills.

As the hills roll, they don’t connect to make continuous valleys and ridges, as they would if they were created by rivers and streams. Rather, the settling prehistoric dust created dimples that catch the light and shadow in graceful undulations. It took approximately 25K years to build hills up to 80’ high.

The hills and climate in the Palouse are ideal for growing wheat and barley. Vast areas are farmed here, using special tractors designed to navigate the hills’ steep sides without tipping over.

In springtime, cool shadows sculpt the hills, all lush and green from newly sprouted crops of wheat and barley. Shadows warm, as the landscapes turns golden and brown, as the grains dry and ready for harvest.

Today, the Palouse is the world’s leader in production of soft white winter wheat. And recently, the Palouse hills near Walla Walla, WA, have sprouted vineyards, as the terroirs and climate has also proved ideal for wine grapes. There are now over 800 vineyards here.

3. SOSSUSVLEI -- NAMIBIA

Shadows cast drama around the mammoth red dunes in the Namib-Naukluft National Park, in Namibia. They are some of the highest dunes in the world, reach upwards of 400m. 

Carved by artistic winds, over millions of years, the dunes change shape constantly, catching light and shadow differently as they go. They are known as “star dunes,” as the wind has shaped them from all directions. 

The dunes surround Sossusvlei, the large white salt/clay pan formed where the dunes come together. It forms a dead-end, preventing the Tsauchab River from reaching the Atlantic Ocean.  

While it’s usually completely dry, in an exceptionally heavy rainy season, the pan fills, and shadows are replaced by reflections in the glassy lake.

Read more about Beautiful Shadows in New Books & Music That Illuminate the Beauty of Shadows Now, The Art & Science of Earth’s Shadows Now, Drink in Beautiful Shadows: Lemonade in the Shade and The Experimental Art of Shadows Now.

And check out more beautiful things happening now in BN Arts/Design, Nature/Science, Food/Drink, Place/Time, Mind/Body, and Soul/Impact Daily Fix posts.

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IMAGE CREDITS:

1. Image: by Lemoussu. Gardens of Marqueyssac. Vézac, France.
2. Image: by Adrian Scottow. Gardens of Marqueyssac. Vézac, France.
3. Image: by thierry ben abed. Fantassins. Jardins de Marqueyssac. Dordogne Valley. Vézac, France.
4. Image: by Radomir Cernoch. Gardens of Marqueyssac. Vézac, France.
5. Image: by Andy Tolsma. Steptoe. Palouse, Washington.
6. Image: by hip_shooter. Untitled. Palouse, Washington.
7. Image: by Robert Ashworth. Palouse. Palouse, Washington.
8. Image: Courtesy of George Wesley & Bonita Dannells. Exploring Palouse Falls and Vicinity. Palouse, Washington.
9. Image: by Cody McComas. Palouse, Washington.
10. Image: by Bill Young. A Post for St. Patrick. Palouse, Washington.
11. Image: by hip_shooter. Untitled. Palouse, Washington.
12. Image: by Robert Ashworth. Sky and Barn. Palouse, Washington.
13. Image: by Luca Galuzzi. Dune 45 in Sossusvlei region in the Namib-Naukluft National Park. Namib Desert, Namibia.
14. Image: by Eric Bauer. Namibia. Sossusvlei, Namibia.
15. Image: by Eric Bauer. Namibia. Sossusvlei, Namibia.
16. Image: by Eric Bauer. Namibia. Sossusvlei, Namibia.
17. Image: by Schnobby. Dune in Sossusvlei. Sossusvlei, Namibia.
18. Image: by Unknown. Big Daddy. Sossusvlei, Namibia.
19. Image: by BN App - Download now!
20. Image: by Thomas Becker. Big Daddy. Sieben-Länder-Tour Namibia. Sossusvlei, Namibia.