For this week's #FriFotos: STAIRS

For a few months now, I've been enjoying the weekly #FriFotos travel photography round-up every Friday on Twitter...

Since this week's theme is 'stairs,' I thought I'd gather a few far-flung scenes for a blog post--from France to Korea, Canada to Guatemala, and a few Desert Southwest locales as well.

From last summer,

in the Rennaissance tower of the 

Château de Montaigne in the SW of France:

Literally, in the worn steps 

of the 16th-century

essayist and humanist,

Michel de Montaigne.

From my current desert hometown,

a detail of Tucson's

St. Philip's Plaza

Back to France,

to the Loire valley--

one of the spiral stone staircases

at the Château de Chambord:

Further south,

on the legendary Pont Valentré bridge in Cahors,

the time-eroded stairs from the 14th-century: 

Traveling far to the east,

to the stairs leading up to 

Seoul's Joseon-dynasty 

Altar to Heaven:

From one of the world's largest cities

to a 'lost' city in the Guatemalan jungle--

the steep access stairs built to protect

the original stone stairs 

on this Maya temple in Tikal:

Up to Montréal--

some of the city's iconic 

curving exterior stairs:

...and elsewhere in the city,

 to the stairs reserved for 

pilgrims climbing on their knees

up to the Oratoire St.-Joseph:

Speaking of St. Joseph,

and heading south now,

some believe in a legend that says 

that St. Joseph is responsible for these stairs:

The 'miraculous stairs' of the Loreto Chapel in Santa Fe, NM

Closer to home again:

--one of my favorite architectural spots

in Bisbee, AZ,

just off 'Brewery Gulch'

And back to the Tucson area for the most recent scene,from just down the road--the utilitarian military stairs that descend to the underground control bunker of the only Titan Missile silo now open to the public:

A sobering relic of the Cold War--

nothing like thoughts of 

an nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missile

to end with...