Avebury Village & Related Megalithic Sites: Remarkable Monument, Ceremonial Landscape part 2 August 12, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Destination, Europe, London, Memorial, Rail Pass, Sightseeing, Tickets, Tour, Travelling Bag, United Kingdom , 2commentsThe whole was covered with soil, each step of the chalk cone being filled and smoothed into the overall profile of the hill except the top one, which was left as a terrace or ledge running about 17 feet (5m) below the flat summit. Today this terrace is clearly visible on the eastern side of the mound, although the western part of the circuit is less distinct. Whether this was deliberate, or due to erosion by the prevailing southwest winds, is unclear. But the segment of the hill between terrace and summit is significant, as we shall see. (more…)
Avebury Village & Related Megalithic Sites: Remarkable Monument, Ceremonial Landscape August 12, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Accommodation, Airlines, Destination, Europe, Hotels, Memorial, Sightseeing, Tickets, Tour, Trails, Trip, United Kingdom , 3commentsThe two great henge mountains of Stonehenge and Avebury are only about 20 miles (32km) apart in Wiltshire, yet each has its own surrounding ceremonial landscape containing many other monuments. All are entered as site number 96 on the World Heritage List, but here we will describe each of these major monuments and landscapes in turn. (more…)
Passing on Victoria Water Falls, Shooting the Zambezi, Escape into Africa July 10, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Botswana, Hotels, Lodges, Passport, South Africa, Tour, USA, United Kingdom, Victoria Falls, Zambia , 4commentsA white line still bisected the bridge, but its meaning had gone and the menace with it. Now the only sentry was a baboon sitting on a fence barking at a warthog on the other side of the road.
Early morning, sun up but cool, just two of us on the bridge at Victoria Falls, between Zimbabwe and Zambia. We looked down at the pale green Zambesi 300 feet below. Cecil Rhodes had wanted the bridge built close enough to the Falls to catch the spray. Usually it does. However, this was September and the “Falls” in front of us were just a curtain of rock. The rains had been good; not good enough, though, to make up for years of drought.
Only on the Zimbabwean side did the river reach over and plunge in. Its noise was like distant motorway traffic.
We were about to go down the river on a rubber raft. We were to start at the bottom of the Falls and travel six miles down the Zambesi through zigzagging gorges . . . and over nine rapids. Why on earth had we agreed to it? Sarah didn’t even like putting her head under water in the bath. As for me, the wake of a passing launch under a scull on the Thames was the nearest I’d ever got to white water. (more…)
NEOCLASSICISM April 4, 2008
Posted by dodo in : China, England, India, United Kingdom , add a commentAs a response to the need for order after the chaos of revolution, colonizations, restored monarchies and political change, architects looked back, rather than forwards, for a style that could provide stability. In a philosophical and scientific age of reason and objectivity, the Jesuit Abbe Langier published the Essai sur l’Architecture (1752). Its authority combined with Colin Campbell’s Vitruvius Britannicus, Leoni’s Architecture of Palladio and William Kent’s Designs of Inigo Jones (1744), to establish a neoclassical revival.
Eventually, however, the spirit of the individual, the romance of medieval Gothic and the exoticism that came from travelling in India, China and beyond, led to a bizarre chapter in the evolution of architecture, in which the 19th century saw the rich treasury of history being ruthlessly plundered in the name of eclecticism and stylistic revivals. Architecture was at the edge of aesthetic anarchy, but it was rescued by four very different persuasions. (more…)
