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…)
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…)
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…)
Secret and Scared Ancient Greece Places: World Heritage Epidaurus August 5, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Air Tickets, Cairo, Egypt, Europe, Greece, Hotels, Museum, Rail Pass, Sightseeing, Tickets, Tour, Trails, Travel Gear, Trip , 3commentsWorld Heritage list number 158 Consciousness, Evolved, Geomancy, Myth
The ruined sites of the Sanctuary of Aesculapius (Asklepios), or the Hieron of Epidaurus (Epidavros), is situated in an isolated valley between Mount Velanidhia (the ancient Titthion) to the northeast and Mount Kharani (the old Kynortion) to the southeast, in the vicinity of Ligourio on the Peloponnese Peninsula across the Saronic Gulf from Piraeus and Athens. (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…)
Egypt Ancient Thebes & its Necropolis continue… August 3, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Accommodation, Egypt, Flight Schedule, Memorial, Museum, Restaurant, The Nile, Tour, Trip , 6commentsHawkins crossed the Nile to the necropolis. This complex of mortuary temples and tombs hewn out of the living rock served many periods of ancient Egypt and covers a large area. The whole landscape is dominated by a remarkably regular pyramidical mountain. Atop it are the remains of a prehistoric mound, predating dynastic Egypt. It is difficult for a geomantic researcher not to consider that the shape of this peak was an important factor determining the Egyptians’ initial choice of this area as a major necropolis. (more…)
Pleasant hollow QUELUZ June 15, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Brazil, Lisbon, Portugal, USA , add a commentThe royal palace of Queluz is situated in a pleasant hollow about nine miles north-west of Lisbon. It belongs to the last phase of the opulent period in Portuguese culture that followed the discovery of gold in Brazil in 1693. At the beginning of the 17th century, foreign artists flocked to Portugal, where they created the somewhat over- decorated Baroque art of the royal palace at Mafra and the churches in Oporto and other cities. Artistically, Queluz represents a reaction against this earlier heaviness a shift from the dominant Italian influence to the lightness of French Rococo. (more…)
Fontainebleau: The Golden Portal of Gilles Le Breton May 31, 2008
Posted by dodo in : England, Europe, France, Paris, Spain, USA , add a commentThe Golden Portal of Gilles Le Breton, which bears the date of 1528 on one of the capitals. Although the rules accepted for the classical orders have been carefully observed, the piecemeal arrangement of the parts is typical of the early French Renaissance.
The vast, rambling palace of Fontainebleau was a favourite resort of the rulers of France from the 12th century until the end of the monarchy in 1870. It reached the height of its glory in the middle of this long period—in the early 16th century—when Francis I assembled a brilliant team of artists and decorators to enlarge and embellish the palace. Later additions, though they sometimes entailed the demolition of earlier parts, were nonetheless marked by a conservative spirit opposed to any fundamental reorganisation. (more…)
Split: the east coast of the Adriatic continue… May 30, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Egypt, Europe, Library, Museum, Round The World, USA , add a commentInstead of extending as far as the gallery overlooking the sea, the arcaded or southern arm of the north–south street stopped short at an arched lintel or fastigium. This archway provided a kind of canopy for the emperor’s appearances. The richly coloured columns of this part of the palace were imported from Egypt, where they had been looted from existing buildings. (The fastigium motif recurred no less than three times on the seaward side, as an expression of the palace’s exalted status.) To the east of the fastigium is a small precinct containing the most important building of the whole complex—the mausoleum erected by Diocletian as his own final resting-place. (more…)
The Pitti Palace continue… May 28, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Europe, France, Italy, Museum, Paris , add a commentAll these rooms and others adjoining them in the Galleria Palatina now house a collection of more than 500 paintings of the Renaissance and Baroque periods. The works include some of the most celebrated Madonnas of Raphael, crepuscular religious scenes by Andrea del Sarto, opulent portraits by Titian and exuberant allegories by Rubens. While some pieces of furniture and sculpture are also displayed, most of the sculpture has been removed to other museums, though Canova’s Venus still dignifies Room XXIII.
The other half of the main storey contains the former royal apartments, which were remodelled for the use of members of the House of Savoy in the late 19th century. In addition to furnishings of the period, the apartments contain a number of interesting Medici portraits by Giusto Sustermans, who died in 1681. (more…)
The Pitti Palace May 28, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Italy, Luxembourg, Museum, Paris , add a commentFor about three hundred years the Pitti Palace in Florence was the chief residence of the Grand Dukes of Tuscany, first the Medici family, then their successors of the House of Lorraine. When Tuscany became part of the new kingdom of Italy in 1860, ownership of the palace was acquired by the ruling House of Savoy, and it was used by King Victor Emmanuel II as his official residence during the brief period (1865-71) when Florence was the capital of Italy. The buildings and grounds now belong to the state and are fully open to the public.
As the name suggests, the palace was not originally a Medici residence. The nucleus of the present complex was built during the 15th century by Luca Pitti, the principal lieutenant of Cosimo de‘ Medici, the ruler in all but name of republican Florence. While we can follow the stages of Luca’s political career in some detail from contemporary records and diaries, his true character is hard to assess. (more…)
The Quirinal: The most venerable of the palaces in this city of palaces continue… May 16, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Accommodation, Air Tickets, Aquarium, Art Gallery, Beach Resorts, Cars, Coliseum, Destination, Dolphinarium, Flight Schedule, Gymnasium, Hotels, Library, Memorial, Museum, Oceanarium, Planetarium, Restaurant, USA , add a commentPonzio’s severe and imposing staircase consists of two flights advancing to meet one another between panelled stone walls. The landing where they converge is adorned by an important fresco by that rare fifteenth-century master, Melozzo da Forli. It is a picture of God the Father surrounded by angels. The awe- inspiring majesty of the subject, and the gravity of the full, austere forms, are conveyed with moving simplicity and directness of feeling bred of an age which had passed more than a century before the Quirinal was built. The fresco was originally commissioned by Cardinal Riario, nephew of Pope Sixtus IV, for a chapel in SS Apostoli, Rome, and was only brought to the palace in 171 1 when the church was rebuilt. (more…)
The Alhambra: Cool courtyards of the Moorish kings overlooking Granada continue… May 12, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Accommodation, Airlines, Beach Resorts, Destination, Granada, Hotels, Italy, Lodges, Round The World, Travel Insurance, USA , 3commentsToday, stripped bare and despoiled, scarcely any furnishings remain to remind us of this well organised palace life.
Until the day when the Cross of the Reconquest was planted on the Torre de la Vela, much of the history of its development is uncertain. The summit of the Asabica, the Moorish name for the hill on which the Alhambra stands, was certainly fortified from ancient times and grew in importance in the ninth century, when this region was dominated by the Emirs of nearby Cordoba. Formerly it faced a similar fortification on the opposite hill of Albaicin — the palace of the Berber chieftain Zagui ben Ziri, a descendant of the Royal Family of Tunis. In 1238 Mohammed ben Alhamar, vassal of the Christian King San Fernando, occupied Granada, having first seized the fortified citadels of Jaen, Baeza and Guadix. (more…)
The Royal Palace STOCKHOLM: One of the finest examples of French taste outside France Part 1 April 26, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Accommodation, Beach Resorts, Denmark, Europe, Finland, Russia, Sweden , add a commentThe Swedes must have felt they were well on the way to becoming a great Continental power at the end of the seventeenth century. Already, during the Thirty Years’ War, Sweden’s small but well-trained armies had distinguished themselves in central Europe under the leadership of their king, the dynamic Gustavus Adolfus. A quarter of a century later, Gustavus X had beaten the Danes by yet another stroke of brilliant generalship. This defeat did not finally settle the long drawn-out quarrel between the two countries, but it forced Denmark to give up the fertile southern part of the Swedish peninsula. (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…)
