South African Travel Guide: ‘Gem of the Karoo’ in a spacious mountain setting continued November 6, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Art Gallery, Europe, Hotels, Library, Memorial, Money, Museum, South Africa, Tour , 2commentsReinet House is now a superb period house museum, containing some of the personal possessions of the Murrays, and many fascinating domestic items. There is also a display on the town’s Reinet dolls. These were first made during World War I when many luxury imports, including dolls, could not be obtained.
In the back yard of Reinet House there is a reconstructed water mill, which can be operated by inserting a coin, and nearby is the old Black Acorn vine planted in 1870 by Charles Murray — believed to have been the thickest in the world until dead wood was removed in 1983. (more…)
Touring Paradise, St George’s Street — ‘memory mile’ of a Naval Town part 1 October 15, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Hotels, Memorial, Museum, Rail Pass, Restaurant, South Africa, Tickets, Tour, Trails, Trip , 2commentsThe buildings that rise in steep terraces above Simon’s Bay look down on a harbour that sheltered square-rigged warships with muzzle-loader guns, and today protects the deadly submarines of the South African Navy.
Between the houses and the sea runs Simon’s Town’s St George’s Street — a thoroughfare that has echoed to the tramp of marching feet for many generations. Countless sailors from throughout the world have a memory-filled corner of their hearts reserved for what is known today as ‘the historic mile’ — the central section of St George’s Street. (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…)
River Thames bank: Historic royal palace of Hampton Court June 1, 2008
Posted by dodo in : England, Europe, Jerusalem, London, Museum, Spain , 4commentsThe historic royal palace of Hampton Court stands on the north bank of the River Thames about 11 miles west of Charing Cross in London. This large complex is in fact two palaces in one, for as one moves eastwards from the west front the Tudor wings built in the time of Henry VIII yield to later work designed by Sir Christopher Wren for William and Mary. These two halves represent two distinct and important periods in the history of English architecture—the late medieval Perpendicular style tinged with Renaissance elements and the English Baroque affected by French and Italian influence. Yet overall unity is preserved by the use of warm-toned brickwork and the more-or-less symmetrical balancing of successive low wings. (more…)
The Winter Palace: A masterpiece by Italian and French architects on Neva May 4, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Beach Resorts, Credit Card, Finland, Health Insurance, Library, Memorial, Moscow, Museum, Russia, Travellers Cheque , 3commentsIt is impossible to talk of the Winter Palace without first conjuring up a picture of the city of St Petersburg, now Leningrad, and of the Neva River. I know of nothing in the world more beautiful than that great expanse of limpid and tremulous water, purified by the filter of the Ladoga Lake, and constantly agitated by tiny iridescent waves, that flow impetuously between the double dam of its magnificent embankments built in the rose granite of Finland. And the powerful stream that moves between the golden needle of the Petropavlovsk Fortress and the long facade of the Winter Palace is but a very small part indeed of the great river. (more…)
The Amalienborg: A group of four lovely palaces around an octagonal piazza April 24, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Accommodation, Europe, Italy, Library, Memorial, Museum, Paris, Travel Clinic , add a commentThe Royal Residence in Copenhagen is generally known as Amalienborg. The castle is not one great palatial structure but consists of four palaces each standing alone round an octagonal courtyard. This is the Amalienborg Plads (` Place‘ or ‘ Square ‘), so called after the old castle Sofie Amalienborg, which was built in 1667 by King Frederik III’s queen Sofie Amalie, practically in the space occupied by the Amalienborg Plads. Sofie Amalienborg was burnt down as early as 1689. The great garden of the castle, however, did survive. At the back of the garden, and in line with it, was a military parade-ground which was rather larger than the garden. When the whole of this area was built over in the eighteenth century, in the centre of it a square was laid’ out which was given the name Amalienborg Plads. (more…)
The Wawel Castle Carcow: The centre of splendid historical and cultural tradition April 22, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Europe, Hungary, Italy, Poland , add a commentThe Vistula, the main Artery of Poland, has two moments of glory in its long meandering course, when it flows through the country’s two capitals : through Cracow, the old capital, and then, flowing on northward in a great curve, through Warsaw, the present-day capital, two hundred miles away as the crow flies. In Cracow, the waters of the Vistula move slowly past the foot of the Wawel, the great rocky hill that overlooks the city and surrounding countryside, and from which rise the majestic walls of the fortifications, the proud outline of the cathedral with its soaring bell-tower and the massive form, lightened by its large windows, of the royal castle, where the kings of Poland used to live.
Cracovia totius Poloniae urbs celeberrima (` Cracow the most famous city of all Poland ‘) was the description of a chronicler. And it is still true, for the old capital has had an eventful history, in which the Wawel castle has frequently had a vital part to play. As a fortified hill, the Wawel itself had occupied a position of the first importance from the very earliest times. Towards the end of the first millenium, during the formation of the Polish state (whose first capital was not, however, Cracow), the dwelling-place of the local prince was built on the Wawel, first in wood and later, during the tenth and eleventh centuries, in masonry. (more…)
Egypt Temple of Karnak April 17, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Air Tickets, Cairo, Credit Card, Egypt , 5commentsIn fact, Karnak is not a temple; it is a complex of temples. Today’s visitor arrives there easily from Luxor, only a couple of miles away. We have already referred to Luxor as the modern town that grew up where Thebes was; in reality the true ancient center, the heart of the New Kingdom’s political and religious life, must have been Karnak. The first impression one has when crossing the threshold of the first pylon (there are many pylons at Karnak), and finding himself amid the ruins of what was the greatest ancient Egyptian sanctuary, is that he will not be able to make any sense out of it. Even the Giza pyramids, although mysterious looking, have an internal logic; they are closed up in themselves and one intuitively experiences them, even when we don’t understand them. Karnak does not offer this possibility. Walking along the courtyards, rooms, columns, obelisks, statues, and miles of hieroglyphic inscriptions, the visitor soon loses any capacity to link one element or monument with another. Therefore one must return to Karnak again and again. Even then, as we have warned, he must avoid searching among the monuments with aesthetic or rational criteria — in short, modern, Western standards. And we have also said that the true temple of Amon was always the sanctuary that formed the central nucleus. All the various additions made over the course of centuries have their own value per se; they are separate nuclei whose presence is independently justified by ceremonial needs, by new ideological lines, or by new links between the various divinities. (more…)
Other Nineteenth Dynasty Temples April 11, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Cairo, Egypt, Memorial, The Nile , add a commentIn discussing the great cult and ceremonial temples of the Eighteenth Dynasty, we did not explore the mortuary temples of the kings because they have been so poorly preserved. Their outer stones were taken off to be used for new constructions, and their inner cores became submerged by the flood waters and later covered over by cultivated fields. Their poor condition was probably also due to the fact that the further away, in time from the death of the king to whom these temples were dedicated, the more the cult tended to languish and then completely die. No pharaoh would be particularly interested in restoring the mortuary temple of one of his predecessors, and even less so in using the structures again, so that we have few remains of the Eighteenth Dynasty mortuary temples. However, it is known that the plan of these temples, in general, was not much different from that of Hatshepsut’s temple at Deir el-Bahri ; that is, it had terraces and arcaded courtyards. (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…)
