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…)
Aboard the Trans—Siberian Express July 25, 2008
Posted by dodo in : China, Embassy, England, Moscow, Rail Pass, Restaurant, Russia, Sightseeing, Tickets, Tour, Trails, Travelling Bag, Trip , 3commentsShe started sobbing three hours before the border. The conductress tried to console her with a glass of sweet, strong tea but without much success. She remained in the long druggeted corridor, a crumpled figure in a pink dressing gown watching the forests spinning madly by. The tankard holding the glass depicted a Slavic swordsman defending a child and she held it tight as a keepsake.
It certainly was a crying matter. The birch forests of Siberia, so upright, so elegant in autumn, had been broken by this winter campaign. Brought into perfect arcs by wind and snow, the younger birches littered the track-side like ribs and tusks while the old and brittle, unable to bow before the onslaught, rose into the air like splintered spines. (more…)
Hampton Court: A fine combination of the Tudor and English baroque styles May 26, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Embassy, Europe , add a commentHampton Courtis a very big palace — so big that it is quite possible for two people to have clear and precise images of it, for both images to be correct and yet for each to be totally different. It is possible to remember Hampton Court as a Tudor palace and to forget that, as such, it has lost all its state apartments. It is possible to remember Hampton Court as a great work of Sir Christopher Wren and to forget that as such it-is only a fragment of his whole design. Hampton Court shows us two architectural worlds, standing back to back, each robbing the other, but each so imposing as to carry absolute conviction.
The palace can be approached either from the Henry VIII end or from the William and Mary end. The Henry VIII end is near the river; seen across the water the palace provides the noblest panorama of Tudor architecture to be found anywhere, although the mind’s eye must supply many more lead-tipped turrets and golden vanes than are there now. (more…)
Malmaison: the Favourite country residence of Napoleon and Josephine May 22, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Accommodation, Air Tickets, Airlines, Destination, Egypt, Embassy, Flight Schedule, France, Hostels, London, USA , add a commentMalmaisonis not a palace. Yet Napoleon lived there during the dawn and the decline of his tumultuous career; Josephine loved it, improved it, and when destiny turned against her, retired there and finally died there. And so, by virtue of its owners, Malmaison deserves a place here.
It was a charming residence, built about 162o, just outside the village of Rueil, and it had been inhabited in turn by several families, the last of which was the Le Couteux de Moley. Abbe Delille described the stream which crossed the park in verse and regretted not having spoken more of this delightful spot in his poems on ‘Gardens’. Madame Vigee-Lebrun, who dined there in 1789 with Abbe Sieyès and several other enthusiasts of the Revolution, told how: ‘Mr de Moley inveighed against the nobles; everyone shouted, held forth . . . Abbe Sieyès said: In fact I believe we shall go too far.’ (more…)
Sintra: The palace of the Portuguese sovereigns in the Moorish style May 10, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Accommodation, Air Tickets, Beach Resorts, Cars, Destination, Embassy, Flight Schedule, Hostels, Hotels, Istanbul, Lisbon, Lodges, Motel, Portugal, Round The World, Travellers Cheque, USA , add a commentThe Alhambra itself cannot well be more morisco in point of architecture than this confused pile which crowns the summit of a rocky eminence and is broken into a variety of picturesque recesses and projections.’ This description of Sintra Palace, which William Beckford entered in his journal on Sunday, September, 2,1787, has been echoed again and again by subsequent visitors, who have thereby, consciously or unconsciously, subscribed to the tradition that the building dates from the period of the Saracenic occupation of Portugal.
Many of its features are indeed strikingly Moorish in design, especially the pair of conical chimneys resembling giant Kentish oast-houses — oriental relations to that of Glastonbury, and distant cousins to those that adorn the seraglio of Abdul the Damned at Istanbul. (more…)
The Monuments in the Shadows continue… April 5, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Cairo, Egypt, Embassy, Europe, The Nile , add a commentWe begin to encounter many Western sources in the fifteenth and, particularly, the sixteenth centuries, when the pilgrims were joined by merchants. The frontiers of the Orient were opened to European merchants at the beginning of the sixteenth century, and the first European ambassadors began to install themselves in Egypt on a permanent basis. This was accompanied by an increase in the number of publications with accounts of journeys to eastern lands, and the taste for the foreign spread among cultivated Europeans. A visit to the pyramids was an adventure that might be dangerous, as there was the risk of being attacked by Bedouins. Despite this, many Europeans went there and then published accounts of their experiences. Among other things, we owe to these hardy adventurers the report of one of the first cases of “tourist exploitation,” on the part of the inhabitants of Giza. Although the Great Pyramid had been open for some time, the natives regularly blocked the entrance after every visit, in order to be able to “open” it up again for the next visitors and thus get a tip. At the end of the sixteenth century, Sakkara was added to the itinerary; the visitors liked to enter the mastabas and unearth the mummies in order to open them up and look for jewels. (more…)
The Dawn of Moden Archaeology in Egypt continue… April 5, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Egypt, Embassy, Europe, France, Museum, Paris, USA , add a commentEven the Rosetta Stone did not automatically solve the problem. Scholars assumed correctly that the three forms of writing contained the same text, but this was not enough to decipher the Egyptian language in detail. It was here that the figure of Champollion emerged in all his greatness.
Born in France in 1790, Champollion, even as a child, dreamt of deciphering the hieroglyphic signs. He began to study assiduously in order to learn all he could about ancient Egypt and Coptic Egypt. By the time he was twenty-one, Champollion was already a professor at the University of Grenoble and when copies of the Rosetta Stone inscriptions appeared in France, he was among the many scholars who examined them. Although various other European scholars made contributions — particularly the English physician, Thomas Young — it was Champollion who persisted, and after years of indefatigable work, he was able in 1822 to announce the decipherment of the tablet as well as a system for reading hieroglyphic script. (more…)
