Teotihuacan, the Pyramid of the Moon and the Street of the Dead September 28, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Destination, Egypt, Geographic, Guatemala, Hotels, Map, Mexico, Museum, Round The World, San Juan, Tickets, Tour, Travelling Bag, Trip , 3commentsThis great and urban and religious centre, 30 miles (48km) northeast of modern Mexico City, was given its present name by the
Aztecs who encountered its awesome ruins. In Nahuatl, the language the Aztecs spoke, Teotihuacan means ‘place of the gods’, or, ‘the place of the creation of the gods’. This great site, dominated by two pyramids, was ‘regarded by the Aztec as the original source of civilization and government, and the place where cosmic order was established.” In Aztec myth, Teotihuacan was where Nanahuatzin, a dying god, jumped into a ceremonial fire which the four creator gods (representing the Four Directions) were too fearful to enter. (more…)
A Visit to Dominica continue… September 1, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Africa, Dominican Republic, London, Restaurant, Tour , 3commentsSome way below the garden a man stood quietly washing himself in the hot water from the spring; it was channelled down there in a homemade aqueduct of halved bamboo stalks resting on forked twigs. ‘For every improvement to the guest-house, I make something for the local people,’ Anne said. ‘It’s their island.’
I wanted to see the rainforest I’d read about, a place where vast trunks rise up like the pillars of a gloomy cathedral, where lianas hang down, where bright parrots chatter in the sunlight of the tree canopy. (more…)
A Visit to Dominica September 1, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Caribbean, Hotels, Rail Pass, Restaurant, Sightseeing, Tickets, Tour, Trails, Trip , 3commentsA strange thing happened this year. A man I’d met only twice, a bit of a loner, invited me to go with him to the West Indies. I fancied him so I said yes.
I knew of Dominica only as the birthplace of Jean Rhys, a writer I deeply admire. Now when I read about the island I discovered that it is volcanic and mountainous and is the last refuge of the Carib Indians, the descendants of proud cannibals who starved to death rather than accept the fate of slavery. It is one of the wilder places on earth and contains rainforest, and boa constrictors. (more…)
Airline/ Flight Travel Jokes August 29, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Africa, Air Tickets, Airlines, Cuba, Embassy, Flight Schedule, France, Las Vegas, London, Scotland, Tour, Trip , 3commentsI took my wife to France by airline travel last year. You know how it is — you always take something with you that you don’t need.
Florida has two main industries, tourists and alligators, and they skin both of them.
Travel broadens one — so does sitting at home in an armchair.
This is a wonderful town. When I arrived here I couldn’t walk, I couldn’t speak, I had very little hair and people used to lift me from my bed — I was born here. (more…)
Huis ten Bosch: The elegant ‘House in the Wood’ of the Dutch Royal Family May 4, 2008
Posted by dodo in : England, Nassau, Netherlands , 4commentsThe seventeenth century represents one of the most interesting periods in the architectural development of the northern Netherlands. The Dutch had challenged the Spaniards for their freedom, but it was not until the reign of Frederik Hendrik, a son of Prince William of Orange, that Holland attained political and cultural unity.
The Princes of Orange had at first been modest in their residential requirements. Frederik Hendrik, however, after assuming the Stadholdership in 1625, ushered in a new period and began his architectural activities by rebuilding the old castle at Honselaarsdijk, soon to be followed by the Huis ter Nieuburch at Rijswijk and the wings of het Oude Hof (the Old Court) in the Noordeinde at the Hague. Finally, the Oranjesael or Huis ten Bosch (` the House in the Wood’) was planned by Pieter Post at the wish of Princess Amalia van Solms-Braunfels. Countess van Solms, a maid-of-honour at the court of Frederik V of the Palatinate, had married Frederik Hendrik of Orange in 1625. (more…)
The Renaissance April 4, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Accommodation, Dominican Republic, England, France, Italy , add a commentThe 14th century saw a new spirit of intellectual inquiry, which was democratized by the invention of printing and radicalized by the Reformation in religion and a Renaissance, first in literature and, afterwards, in architecture. In England the new wealth of the laity led to the development of domestic architecture, which was encouraged by Henry dissolution of the monasteries. In Italy, the seat of Roman antiquity, the scholarship of Dante Alighieri (1265-1321), Petrarch (1304-74) and Boccaccio (1313-75) was celebrated by a national interest in classic literature, which paved the way for a revolt against medieval art.
The fall of Constantinople to the Turks in 1453 led to an influx of Greek scholars to Italy, especially to Florence, a city of great military and political power. Florence had conquered Pisa in 1406 to gain a valuable seaport, and had gone on to take Milan and Lucca, becoming a powerful republic, the centre of European Renaissance art and a place of religious intrigue, from where the pious and indefatigable Dominican friar Savonarola (1452-98) simultaneously challenged the papal authority of Alexander VI and the tyranny of the powerful Medicis. Rome meanwhile awoke from the poverty of medieval feudalism to welcome the return of the popes from Avignon. Nicholas V (144755), Julius II (1503 - 13) and LeoX (151322) became great patrons of the arts. (more…)
