Travel Sights: Walkway Biscuits

You may have walked a thousand miles in a city... but do know it inside out? When you looked around, you would have looked up, too...

But have you looked down?

Early morning buzz on a Parisian street...

Have you noticed those metal "shields" that popped up every now and then as you walked?

They are manhole covers... and they have little stories of their own to tell...

Some are round, others are square or rectangular... Some are cast-iron, others are concrete... But they all come in various sizes! And colours!



A rectangular one in Como, northern Italy...

We trampled over them, some even spat at them unknowingly... And some had their heels stuck in their gaps!


This one must have been here since they first set foot on the island of Mykonos.

Nicknamed "biscuits", these manhole covers are to prevent us passers-by from falling into deep, dark, labyrinth-like networks of tunnels... They hide passages to sewage chutes, gas pipes, and drainage trunks away from our prying eyes.

I always find them fascinating... I can spend hours tracking each one down and photographing them... I like how they put in some elements of design to make them functionally presentable... They look like pieces of artwork intentionally embedded into our walkways as if to make the streets look decorated...

But above all, they are a testimony of what have been laid under, sometimes decades ago... And in London, it isn't difficult to see one which could easily date back to the reign of Queen Victoria...

They have been some which are so cute-looking; and as they dot the street, they look like a handsome string of shirt buttons from afar...

A cute small one...






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