There is a Twitter meme that occurs each Friday called #FriFotos.  The idea, created by the UK’s @EpsteinTravels, is for travel lovers to share travel photographs each Friday around a selected theme.

This week’s theme is symbols.  According to the dictionary in my iMac, a symbol is “a thing that represents or stands for something else, esp. a material object representing something abstract“.

If you think about it, travelers come across all sorts of symbols as they roam the world.  San Francisco has the Golden Gate Bridge, Paris has the Eiffel Tower, and Rio de Janeiro has their famous statue of Jesus overlooking the town.

If you look on a smaller scale around you, you’ll find placards affixed to automobiles that have become symbolic of their brand, as well as a myriad of symbols representing restaurants, churches, cities, and much more.

I shot the photograph above peering through a telescope that we found in our room at the Ritz-Carlton Battery Park in Lower Manhattan. Sidebar: I’m always goofing around looking for unusual ways to capture my subjects.

For the United States of America, one of the great symbols of our country is Lady Liberty standing out in the harbor offering shelter to the world’s oppressed.

She cries:

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!” 
(quoted from a poem graven on a tablet within the pedestal on which the statue stands by Emma Lazarus)

So, for our contribution to this week’s Twitter #FriFotos meme, we offer up the Statue of Liberty.

How about you?  Do you have a favorite travel symbol?  Share it with us in the comments below!

If you enjoyed this article, come follow us on Facebook and Twitter to keep abreast of our continued roaming.