Cahokia Mounds, the Late Woodland Culture September 28, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Air Tickets, Cars, Europe, Museum, Rail Pass, Sightseeing, Tickets, Tour, USA , 2commentsThis 2,200-A0 (890HA) site is situated just to the east of St Louis, in southern Illinois, close to Collinsville (not, confusingly, near the town of Cahokia). It is the remains of a large city and ritual complex which was first occupied around AD 700, developed, flowered, declined and was abandoned by AD 1500. At its peak it covered some six square miles (1,550ha) and had a population of about 20,000. It was certainly the largest community in prehistoric times in what is now the USA, and its influence extended for great distances. (more…)
Disappeared Inca Empire Supremacy CUZCO part 1 September 19, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Cars, Chile, Cuzco, Destination, Flight Schedule, Sunblock, The Nile, Travel Clinic, Travellers Cheque , 2commentsMore than merely the capital of the Inca empire, the very name ‘Cuzco‘ in Quechua, the language of the Incas and still spoken today, means navel. It was the navel of the Inca world, the omphalos of their empire which at its height stretched over 2,000 miles (3,200km) from Chile in the south to Colombia in the north. It was both an administrative centre and holy city, and is said to have been conceived in the shape of a puma, with its head at Sacsahuaman, the great fortress of cyclopean stonework on the northern edge of modern Cuzco. (more…)
Pass by German Aachen Cathedral September 16, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Cars, Destination, Dubai, Europe, France, Germany, Hotels, Museum, Netherlands, Rail Pass, Sightseeing, Travel Gear, Trip , 2commentsThe location now was occupied by Aachen, adjacent to the modern borders of France and Holland, was resorted to even in prehistory because hot springs occur there. Exactly how far back into antiquity the place had importance is unknown, but the Celts were certainly established in the area by the time the Romans discovered the springs. The waters were sacred to the Celts and dedicated by them to the healing god, Granus. The Romans called the site Aquis Grani. They built bath complexes and shrines. Some houses edging the Hof, a triangular space a stone’s throw northeast of the cathedral, were built on first and second century AD Roman masonry, and part of a well sanctuary was uncovered. (more…)
One day in Germany Speyer Cathedral, World Famous Heritage continue… September 10, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Air Tickets, Cars, Destination, Europe, Hotels, Museum, Rail Pass, Tour , 5commentsThese geomantic stones had associations with certain alignments and the axial centres of towns. The Domnapf location not only had typical Blue Stone connotations with ancient judicial rules, as indicated above, but also expresses this geomantic role as its presence on this alignment attests. Furthermore, it was from this spot that the layout of the streets of Speyer was arranged. The omphalos point.
Maximilianstrasse was created at the time of die cathedral in the eleventh century as a Via Triumphalis, linking the west gate — the Old Gate or Altportel — and the west porch of the cathedral. The German Emperors and the newly appointed Bishops of Speyer used it for their ceremonial entrances into the city. (This is a medieval continuation of the link between kingship and straight alignments.) (more…)
London Sightseeing Pass: Westminster Palace and Abbey & St Margaret’s Church continue… August 25, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Air Tickets, Cars, Destination, Ireland, Library, London, Museum, Rail Pass, Scotland, Sightseeing, Tickets, Tour, Trip, Wellington , 5commentsA cult developed around Edward. There were accounts of him healing the sick while he was alive, and rumours of cures at his tomb continued. In 1102 it was opened and his body found incorrupt. After a campaign lasting for decades, Edward the Confessor was canonized in 1161. His body was raised from the tomb before the high altar and replaced in a richly ornamented shrine, the key, sacred focal point of the Abbey. (more…)
London Sightseeing Pass: Westminster Palace and Abbey & St Margaret’s Church August 25, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Accommodation, Air Tickets, Cars, Destination, Hotels, London, Rail Pass, Sightseeing, Tickets, Tour, Trip , 5commentsIt is at the first sight difficult to imagine any ancient, geomantic mysteries to be present in the teeming modern metropolis that is London. There is no doubt that what may be there is well submerged both actually, beneath accretions of buildings and earth, and metaphorically, beneath layers of time. We have to look to legend, history, archaeological glimpses and the barely discernible lineaments that have survived in the present layout of streets, sites and place-names. (more…)
Not on the Itinerary August 8, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Accommodation, Air Tickets, Cars, Destination, Hotels, Moscow, New York, Round The World, Russia, Sightseeing, Tickets, Tour, Travel Clinic , 5commentsAlthough my churchgoing is confined usually to weddings and funerals, there are times when I am certain that one guardian angel at least has been detailed to watch over my welfare.
Such an occasion occurred halfway through my holiday in Russia. I had taken a package tour to Moscow and Leningrad primarily for the White Nights Festival of the Arts in June — an annual event of Soviet cultural life when the sun hardly sets for a fortnight and old men sit in the public gardens for half the night playing speed-chess. (more…)
Greece Delphi: the Sacred Centre, the Navel of the World continue… August 8, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Accommodation, Airlines, Cars, Europe, France, Hotels, Motel, Museum, Rail Pass, Tickets, Trails, Travelling Bag, USA , 3commentsThe village of Kastri was built over the site of the sanctuary and this proved a problem in the nineteenth century when archaeologists wanted to examine the famous oracle site. International rivalry developed over the excavation rights. France won, but at the expense of rehousing all the villagers of Kastri at another site, New Kastri (now the modern Delphi), just over 1/2 mile (1km) to the west. French archaeological investigation has gone on to a greater or lesser degree ever since. (more…)
Greece Delphi: the Sacred Centre, the Navel of the World August 8, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Accommodation, Air Tickets, Cars, Destination, Greece, Museum, Tour, Trails, Trip , 4commentsWorld Heritage List Number 157 Archaeology, Consciousness, Energies, Gemancy, Myth
This is the site from which the term originally derives: in myth, Delphi is the sacred centre, the navel of the world. Plutarch, the famous priest of Apollo at Delphi, recorded that the legend was that Zeus sent out two eagles (the birds associated with Zeus) from each extremity of the Earth. Where their flight paths crossed, at Delphi, was the centre of the world. In other versions, it is swans or ravens (Apollo’s birds) that are sent out to find the geomantic centre. This legend is the reason archaic depictions of omphaloi often have two birds perched on them facing in opposite directions (although Robert K. G. Temple has argued that they refer to a pigeon- carrier message system between chief oracles of the ancient world‘). (more…)
Historic Areas of Istanbul August 5, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Accommodation, Air Tickets, Cairo, Cars, Istanbul, Museum, Rail Pass, Sightseeing, Tickets, Tour, Trip, Turkey , 3commentsLittle modern research seems to have been done (or, at least, published) with regard to the ancient geomancy of the Islamic world. We note the occurrence of mosques on a much older alignment in ancient Thebes, and a dramatic alignment of mosques and tombs in medieval Cairo has been recorded,’ but greater contemporary appraisal of Middle Eastern geomantic patterns needs to be carried out. The alignment in Istanbul described here was initiated as a result of preliminary observations made by architect Patrick Horsbrugh,2 and it is presented merely in the spirit of experimental research, to bring previously unconsidered material to the reader’s attention. (more…)
A Slice of Big Apple August 2, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Accommodation, Cars, Destination, Hotels, Italy, Motel, New York, Restaurant, Travel Clinic, Travelling Bag , 6commentsSix gritty months of fumbling with biros and over-read text books in a level tedium were wiped out. Wiped out by a five-hour flight to a city where riding the subway is an act of hedonism, and where the pollution on the streets works on the brain like speed, driving people scrambling to the summits of New York City’s towers of granite and power. (more…)
The Gulf of Finland on Ice July 29, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Air Tickets, Cars, Destination, Estonia, Finland, Flight Schedule, Sightseeing, Trails , 6commentsPerhaps they’re penguins, I thought. But they were too far away for me to be certain, and the blinding light could have been playing tricks on the two of us. It doesn’t help your orientation one bit when the land is indistinguishable from the sky, nor indeed when you’re not quite sure whether you’ve left the land yet. Very soon we would not be able to see the line of tall evergreens that parted beach from cloud. (more…)
Mount Tai Shan, Five Peaks, one of the Nine Sacred Mountains of China continue… July 27, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Air Tickets, Airlines, Cars, Destination, England, Greece, Hotels, Malaysia, Sightseeing, Sweden, Trails, Trip, Venezuela, Wales , 4commentsShortly after midnight, a monk with a lantern awoke them with the cry: ‘The Bodhisattva has appeared!’ They threw on their clothes, their teeth chattering with the cold, the excitement, or both, and they scrambled across the temple courtyard and mounted to the tower. As they entered they found themselves facing one of the windows looking out on the vastness of the space beyond. Everyone gasped in surprise — none of them was prepared for what they saw. Numerous orange spheres of light where floating ‘majestically’ through the darkness of the mountain night beyond the window. (more…)
Boating in Eire Dolmens and Blarney, feeling of plunging Water, eXhilaration Adventure continue… July 25, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Africa, Air Tickets, Airlines, Asia, Cairo, Cars, China, Round The World, Sightseeing, Thailand, The Nile, Tokyo, Tour, Travel Gear, Travelling Bag, Trip, Victoria Falls , 3commentsLooking nervously over his shoulder in case the priest should hear, he scratched his head and rolled his eyes, all the time muttering that terrible word. Then suddenly he clicked his fingers and spat the word out.
“Pagans! Dere’s an old Protestant graveyard, overgrown now, you understand, up dere, by de old crossroads, as used to be dere.”
I waited patiently while he told me forty different ways to get there. Then, thanking him, I beat a hasty retreat to the sacristy door and knocked. (more…)
The EXhilaration Adventure, real Hiking Mountain Trail, Kebnekaise Mountain Station continue… July 18, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Air Tickets, Beach Resorts, Cars, Flight Schedule, Hostels, Hotels, Lodges, Motel, Restaurant, Sweden, Switzerland, Wellington , 2commentsIt was soon clear that the man had no idea what he was doing. He shouldn’t have been in the mountains. I asked him where his gear was. “Over there,” he said, pointing to the corner of the room. There was a tiny rucksack, a summer sleeping bag and a pair of Wellington boots. “Is that all?” I asked.
“Shit man, I didn‘t expect this. I came straight down the path from Abisko. It was beautiful the first two days. Which way did you come?”
“Over the mountains through Lapporten.”
“What was it like up there?”
“Cold and too much snow.”
“Where are you going?” (more…)
The EXhilaration Adventure, real Hiking Mountain Trail, Kebnekaise Mountain Station July 18, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Accommodation, Air Tickets, Airlines, Art Gallery, Beach Resorts, Cars, Coliseum, Dolphinarium, Hostels, Hotels, Lodges, Motel, Museum, Norway, Oceanarium, Planetarium, Restaurant, Round The World, Sweden, Trip , 2commentsThree of us got off the train at Abisko in the mountains of Swedish Lapland: two men and a dog. I sat on my rucksack while the dog and his friend strolled over to the station building. When they were out of sight I stood up, glanced at my map and took a compass reading. It’s difficult to look confident in the mountains, so I always check map readings when there’s no-one to question my judgment.
I was going to walk south through Lapporten to Kebnekaise — Sweden’s highest mountain, 7,000 feet above sea level — and on to Nikkaluotka, a Lapp settlement by a beautiful ribbon lake. If the weather was good, it would take about a week. If not, I told myself that ten days would do. (more…)
Not Memsahib July 14, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Accommodation, Air Tickets, Airlines, Beach Resorts, Cars, Destination, Europe, Flight Schedule, Hotels, India, Lodges, London, Motel, Museum, Oceanarium, Planetarium, Rail Pass, Restaurant, Sightseeing, Tickets, Tour, Trails, Trip , 3commentsEvery time I heard the word memsahib I wanted to take an ice-pick to the user. I’d gone on the Hindu trail clutching my libertarianism to my bosom, a cosy cocoon from which I could rationalise and contain the INDIAshrieks from the inferno — not that Dante, I’m sure, ever went to Calcutta. Very right-on. Very arm’s-length. But keep your liberal sensibilities Gandhi-pure? Emerge unscathed? Forget it.
Sympathy, empathy, had long since given way to simmering hysteria, cringing shame and a seething, at times uncontrollable rage which was generalised in its target but oh so localised in its pain. It wasn’t even a consolingly righteous anger at the pulverising poverty, the callousness of caste or the stalinisation of women — more a deep-seated disgust and hatred welling up from deep down and spewing out over all humanity, most of all myself . . . Well, OK, you try and make sense of the matchstick people of Madhya Pradesh, the execrable excrement of Bombay and Dehli, the obscene opulence of Jaipur jewellers, the blinding, vivid hues of Rajasthani women’s skirts — and all of it sinking in one great ubiquitous quicksand of suffocating, strangulating bureaucracy. (more…)
Getting High in the Yemen Question: how can you see London, Paris and New York simultaneously while sitting in a Remote Corner of the Arabian Peninsula? July 9, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Accommodation, Africa, Air Tickets, Beach Resorts, Cars, Europe, Hostels, Hotels, Lodges, London, Museum, Oceanarium, Round The World, Tour, USA , 3commentsAnswer: adopt the national pastime of North Yemen and devote the entire afternoon to chewing the narcotic qat leaf. Our host, his eyes dreamy and his cheeks bulging with the drug, rocks with laughter at his own joke.
We had landed that morning to find ourselves catapulted into a medieval Manhatten, a confusing world of centuries-old mud skyscrapers and lavish exteriors that make a mockery of the Middle Eastern practice of living behind blank facades. Resting in a secluded courtyard we watch a veiled face peer out from behind a half-opened shutter high up on a crumbling wall. A basket lowers itself to the ground from a distant rooftop. A train of three camels, loaded down with bundles of qat, squeezes through a tiny alleyway and lurches past the massive studded door of a mosque. (more…)
A Fair Show, happy Travelers Diaries July 6, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Accommodation, Aquarium, Cars, Cash, China, Destination, Dolphinarium, Ireland, Library, Museum, Restaurant, Round The World, Tour , 3commentsThrough Leinster and Munster, along Connaught lanes and highways there’s a movement. Brazenly on verges, tucked behind hedges, parked in laybys there are caravans. Not tourists but the homes of the Irish Travellers, the Tinkers. Herds of their horses hold up the traffic. Greys, chestnuts, roans, bays and the especial pride, the batty mares: great coloured, patched horses, piebald and skewbald, hooves swathed in shaggy hair. They’re all heading along roads which lead to the nub, the October fair, Ballinasloe. A convergence for horses and horsemanship, dealing and drinking, exchanging news and the “crack”. “You’ll never see as many horses together as you will at Ballinasloe. Once Seamus McGinty rode down the high street at the head of sixty, his sons as outriders flanking their wealth.” (more…)
Villages, Boats, Boulevards, Bars, Break in France and Italy, Aegean Tour continue… July 4, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Accommodation, Africa, Aquarium, Art Gallery, Beach Resorts, Cars, Coliseum, Destination, Dolphinarium, Europe, France, Hotels, Library, Motel, Museum, New York, Oceanarium, Planetarium, Restaurant , 3commentsFabienne wakes us. She is pretty in a New York Jewish sort of way — cracked nose, olive skin, beautiful drooping eyes with lot’s of kohl, smoker’s teeth and bitten nails. Wrapped in a peasant blanket she talks of “le business” in Soho and Piccadilly — prostitution to pay for her drug addiction. Her arms are scars, dead veins with hanging skin which will take no more abuse, and so her ankles have become the focal point of her masochism. Corsica is vacation after hospitalisation in Amsterdam and, more importantly from her point of view, stamping ground of many Moroccans who come from the hash crops of North Africa to supply France from this paradise isle. (more…)
