South Africa Travel Guide: Unspoilt forests and wild beaches surround the ‘friendly city’ November 6, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Africa, Europe, Museum, Oceanarium, Rail Pass, Tickets, Tour, Trails , 2commentsThere are many places within easy reach of Port Elizabeth that offer fine walks and hikes through unspoilt natural surroundings. Even within the boundaries of the city, walkers who take to the Guinea Fowl Trail through Settlers Park Nature Reserve will be surprised by the wildness of the area.
Settlers Park contains some 160 different trees and shrubs, and is noted for its richly varied birdlife — which includes the Knysna loerie, giant kingfisher, fork-tailed drongo, gymnogene, herons, Guinea fowl and Egyptian geese. Also common are dassies (Hyrax), tortoises and leguans. The Guinea Fowl Trail takes two to three hours to walk, but is relatively easy. Many shorter walks through the park are also possible, and the park has several entry points, making it easily accessible from almost any part of the city. (more…)
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…)
South African Travel Guide: ‘Gem of the Karoo’ in a spacious mountain setting November 6, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Accommodation, Cape Town, Europe, Hostels, Hotels, India, London, Memorial, Museum, Rail Pass, South Africa, Tickets, Tour , 3comments
Ying in a loop of the Sundays River, beneath the distinctive dome of Spandau Kop, the old town of Graaff-Reinet is progressively being restored to the glory that earned it the title ‘Gem of the Karoo’. Another title, conferred by a Cape Town newspaper last century, was ‘Athens of the Eastern Cape‘ — a reflection of the town’s reputation as a cultural centre.
The citizens of Graaff-Reinet took some time to attain this status — the town was first no more than a straggling lane of mud huts. These nevertheless constituted one of the capital cities of the world when Graaff-Reinet declared itself an independent ‘republic’ only 10 years after being established. (more…)
Touring Paradise, St George’s Street — ‘memory mile’ of a Naval Town part 2 October 15, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Map, Museum, Rail Pass, Sightseeing, South Africa, Tickets, Tour, Trails, Travel Clinic, Trip , 2commentsFrom Jubilee Square to ‘Black Town‘ Jubilee Square, on the left, commemorates King George V’s Silver Jubilee in 1935. By coincidence, the drinking fountain in the square commemorates an earlier jubilee — that of Queen Victoria in 1897. It was moved here recently from its original position near The Residency. A statue of Able Seaman Just Nuisance was unveiled nearby in 1985. (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…)
Excited Spanish Travel, Rail Pass Matanza July 10, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Air Tickets, Andorra, Europe, Rail Pass, Sightseeing, Tickets, Tour, Trails, Trip , 4commentsSix-thirty am. I’m already dressed and out of the couchette as the train slows to a halt in the darkness. Outside, nothing but gravel and a road on one side: on the other, the small halt with its sign L’Hospitalet and the bus waiting to bear us on the long winding climb, leaving behind an ever-lengthening panorama pierced with points of light. The snow stands in cliffs on the uphill side of the road, cut by snowploughs only hours before.
In Old Andorra, Peter is waiting with his Santana Land-Rover, and greets me heartily. Has there been a matanza yet? I ask. “There was one at Margarita’s on Monday. I think there’s another tomorrow at Mestre’s,” he answers.
Our goal is fourteen dizzying kilometres up into the Spanish Pyrenees. A community still living in an almost cashless economy, to a pattern already set in the fourteenth century. One of the last outposts of a peasant culture which is rapidly passing from the world, governed entirely by the seasons and depending little on manufactured inputs. (more…)
Huis ten Bosch: The elegant ‘House in the Wood’ of the Dutch Royal Family May 4, 2008
Posted by dodo in : England, Nassau, Netherlands , 4commentsThe seventeenth century represents one of the most interesting periods in the architectural development of the northern Netherlands. The Dutch had challenged the Spaniards for their freedom, but it was not until the reign of Frederik Hendrik, a son of Prince William of Orange, that Holland attained political and cultural unity.
The Princes of Orange had at first been modest in their residential requirements. Frederik Hendrik, however, after assuming the Stadholdership in 1625, ushered in a new period and began his architectural activities by rebuilding the old castle at Honselaarsdijk, soon to be followed by the Huis ter Nieuburch at Rijswijk and the wings of het Oude Hof (the Old Court) in the Noordeinde at the Hague. Finally, the Oranjesael or Huis ten Bosch (` the House in the Wood’) was planned by Pieter Post at the wish of Princess Amalia van Solms-Braunfels. Countess van Solms, a maid-of-honour at the court of Frederik V of the Palatinate, had married Frederik Hendrik of Orange in 1625. (more…)
Tullgarn: A charming lakeside summer-palace of the Swedish monarchy continue… April 25, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Europe, Italy, Library , add a commentFirst, the building was altered in various ways: another storey was added to the wings, the roof was rebuilt and a new staircase was provided because the old ones allowed smells from the damp cellars to creep up into the house. But, for all this, the exterior of the house does not appear to have been changed in any very radical way. The interior, on the other hand, was completely redecorated in a light, unoppressive neo-classical style. This decoration, applied to the well-proportioned rooms of the old baroque mansion, has produced a very pleasant amalgam. It has recently been restored in an exceptionally sensitive manner and the effect is delightful.
Frederik Adolf had visited Italy, as all high-born young men of his day were expected to do, and had brought back with him more than a passing enthusiasm for classical art and decoration. On his tour, he also acquired a number of books on the classical antiquities (one of them was a present from the Pope), and these were in several instances a source of inspiration for the artists who executed the new decorations in his house. (more…)
Tullgarn: A charming lakeside summer-palace of the Swedish monarchy April 25, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Accommodation, Airlines, Beach Resorts, Hotels, Library, Lodges, Memorial, Museum, Russia, Sweden, Travellers Cheque , 3commentsMuch of Sweden is composed of very wild country, and even today one can travel for miles through the rock-strewn, dark pine forests only occasionally seeing a cluster of houses or a gang of wood-cutters or a school bus on its daily round, returning the children from the school-house in some local township. Every now and then one comes to a town which has grown up round the timber industry, but such towns are mostly fairly new and it is hardly an exaggeration to say that in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries there was nothing but wilderness stretching over most of Sweden — dark, terrifying and, it is easy to imagine, filled with trolls and other supernatural beings. Separated by these vast forests, were the three principal areas of habitation. (more…)
In Egypt, Temple as the House of God April 18, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Air Tickets, Aquarium, Cairo, Egypt, Memorial, Museum, Restaurant, Round The World , add a commentThe religious life of the ancient Egyptians, at least as far as we can recreate it today, was focused on the temples. The texts that deal with the temple embellish its origin with a series of mythological elements. Thus, a temple was directly connected to the moment of the world’s creation : from the primordial waters of Chaos there emerged a little hill, the first earth, on which the god-creator found refuge (this god varying according to the temple that elaborated the creation myth). (more…)
The Ptolemaic Temples April 9, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Egypt, The Nile , add a commentBefore examining specific temples, we should clarify one point. It is well known that in 30 B.C., as a result of the defeat of Mark Antony and Cleopatra’s fleet by Octavian, Egypt became a Roman province. There then began a period of Egyptian history that presents a number of problems substantially different even from those of the Ptolemaic epoch. Given their complexity, we cannot consider these problems here. For various reasons, the Roman emperors continued to enlarge and decorate even the basic parts of the Ptolemaic temples, so that these monuments exist today as a complex of elements from different ages. Nevertheless, contrary to what we have noted with the pharaonic temples, the Ptolemaic-Roman temples present considerable unity. As a result, it is almost impossible to separate single elements from the total context of a Ptolemaic monument. However, our discussion must concentrate on the way the Ptolemies approached the temples, even when the Roman influence is quite strong. (more…)
The Significance of Ptolemaic Temples continue… April 7, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Egypt, The Nile , add a commentOne structure was especially typical of all the Ptolemaic temples: the birth house we have referred to previously. To understand it, we must first refer back to the myth of the divine birth of Queen Hatshepsut, painted on the walls of her funerary temple. Although other versions of this myth were employed at Luxor and Karnak by Amenhotep III and Ramesses II, it was in the Ptolemaic period that it was taken up again and developed. In fact, a separate structure was dedicated to the ritual of this myth, situated outside the enclosure of the typical Ptolemaic temple. Here there must have taken place a sort of sacred “birth,” which represented the decisive moment of the divine birth. It is interesting to note that, if during the pharaonic age such a myth was linked with the more personal construction of the individual king, during the Ptolemaic period every temple complex had a birth house. We can thus consider the Ptolemaic birth house as the final flowering of the ancient Egyptian tradition that saw every pharaoh build his own temple alongside the complex dedicated to the divinity. (more…)
