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…)
Please to make a Hotel Reservation July 23, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Accommodation, Air Tickets, Beach Resorts, Destination, Flight Schedule, Hostels, Hotels, India, Lodges, Motel, Passport, Tickets, Tour , 3comments“Excuse me, do you speak English?” “Oh yes, certainly.”
“I want to reserve three seats on a train from Calcutta to Patna.” “Please?”
“I want to reserve . . .”
“Where are you wanting to go?” “Patna.”
“Have you a reservation?”
“No. That is what I want.” “Please you wait over there.”
“I want to go during the day so that we can all see the countryside.” (more…)
The EXhilaration Adventure, real Hiking Mountain Trail, Kebnekaise Mountain Station continue… July 18, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Air Tickets, Beach Resorts, Cars, Flight Schedule, Hostels, Hotels, Lodges, Motel, Restaurant, Sweden, Switzerland, Wellington , 2commentsIt was soon clear that the man had no idea what he was doing. He shouldn’t have been in the mountains. I asked him where his gear was. “Over there,” he said, pointing to the corner of the room. There was a tiny rucksack, a summer sleeping bag and a pair of Wellington boots. “Is that all?” I asked.
“Shit man, I didn‘t expect this. I came straight down the path from Abisko. It was beautiful the first two days. Which way did you come?”
“Over the mountains through Lapporten.”
“What was it like up there?”
“Cold and too much snow.”
“Where are you going?” (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…)
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…)
A Fair Show, happy Travelers Diaries July 6, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Accommodation, Aquarium, Cars, Cash, China, Destination, Dolphinarium, Ireland, Library, Museum, Restaurant, Round The World, Tour , 3commentsThrough Leinster and Munster, along Connaught lanes and highways there’s a movement. Brazenly on verges, tucked behind hedges, parked in laybys there are caravans. Not tourists but the homes of the Irish Travellers, the Tinkers. Herds of their horses hold up the traffic. Greys, chestnuts, roans, bays and the especial pride, the batty mares: great coloured, patched horses, piebald and skewbald, hooves swathed in shaggy hair. They’re all heading along roads which lead to the nub, the October fair, Ballinasloe. A convergence for horses and horsemanship, dealing and drinking, exchanging news and the “crack”. “You’ll never see as many horses together as you will at Ballinasloe. Once Seamus McGinty rode down the high street at the head of sixty, his sons as outriders flanking their wealth.” (more…)
I travel in Rome June 21, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Bangkok, Hotels, Las Vegas, Museum, Restaurant, Sweden , 1 comment so farArriving in Rome from Bangkok at the end of January 2007, I experienced a sense of euphoria at the sight of the umbrella pines, the perfect architectural proportions of an old farmhouse, the ruins of a medieval tower. We spent mostof our time in the city simply recovering from the flight and adjusting to the change. But we did see Caravaggio’s St. Matthew triptych in San Luigi dei Francesi, or as much of it as possible in the thirty-second installments purchased by inserting coins that slowly switch on the ceiling lights. Alva and I were back in the city in May 2007 on our way to Magna Graecia, of which I knew little more than Paestum, visited with Stravinsky. My objective in 2007 was to see the Villa Giulia, which had been closed for many years. In April the Stravinskys and I explored the Etruscan tombs and their frescoes systematically, going almost daily to Tarquinia and the other great sites in a car provided by the Rome Radio, and no less frequently to the Villa Giulia. A madness for things Etruscan was afloat at the time, and the King of Sweden, one of its victims, lived above me on the top floor of the Hassler Hotel at night, but worked in an excavation during his days. (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…)
Linderhof: Ludwing IP’s flamboyant fantasy in the neo-baroque manner May 19, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Accommodation, Air Tickets, Airlines, Aquarium, Art Gallery, Beach Resorts, Cars, Coliseum, Destination, Dolphinarium, Flight Schedule, France, Gymnasium, Hotels, Library, Lodges, Memorial, Museum, Oceanarium, Planetarium, Restaurant, Round The World, USA , add a commentOne should approach Linderhof in a mood of reverence and delight. It is essential to view it not as a madman’s dream but as a piece of fairy-tale architecture in a setting surprising and yet amazingly appropriate. The eye which sees it as so much white icing fallen from a wedding cake at a sylvan picnic is not worthy of it. The cultural snobbery which dismisses it because of its overwhelming sympathy for a period other than its own, blinds its victims to merits which are intrinsic and valid. It is in indisputable little masterpiece, and, in the light of that, its debt to the France of Louis Quator ze becomes an irrelevance. (more…)
Kronborg: Hamlet’s pinacled castle at Elsinore on the Baltic shore continue… April 23, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Air Tickets, Beach Resorts, Denmark, Flight Schedule, Italy, Lodges, Memorial, Museum, Netherlands, Sweden , add a commentThe distinctly military purpose of Kronborg, already mentioned, is undoubtedly the reason why Kronborg in its architecture is so different from other more or less contemporary Danish buildings, whose style, like Kronborg’s, must be characterised by the very broad term ‘ Scandinavian renaissance style ‘. This, at least where Denmark is concerned, is a style in which decoration plays far the most important part, whereas the plan is still rather medieval, despite certain efforts to pay attention to symmetry. The decoration has generally been inspired by, if not directly copied from, Flemish and German copperplate engravings, and besides, many of the stone-masons working in Denmark at the time had been brought from the Netherlands. (more…)
Egypt’s Monuments Usurped by Foreigners continue… April 7, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Africa, Asia, Egypt, The Nile , add a commentAs for the great West Thebes sanctuaries, we know for certain that the temple of Ramesses III at Medinet Habu, and that of Ramesses II, were turned into citadels of sorts. Evidently the storerooms and boundary walls must have still been standing, and during difficult times the population used them as refuges. Hatshepsut’s sanctuary at Deir el-Bahri enjoyed a different destiny: it not only continued to function, but housed a new cult, that of Imhotep (Djoser’s architect, identified by the Greeks with their Aesculapius, patron of medicine) and Amenhotep, Son of Hapu. Possibly this indicates an attempt on the part of the Greeks to introduce their gods in the popular Egyptian beliefs. Certainly the popularity of these new divinities was due to the fact that they were “healing” gods that the poor people could appeal to in time of need.
We should also mention the unique case of the Colossi of Memnon. In Homer’s Iliad, Memnon, an Ethiopian hero, son of Aurora, went with his troops to the aid of Troy, and was tragically killed by Achilles. At first Ethiopia had no definite location in the minds of the Greeks; some held it was in Asia, others in Africa; (more…)
