Mont Ventoux, the Giant of Provence.
This is the incredibly beautiful Mont Ventoux. It peaks at 1,912 metres and is known as the Giant of Provence. It also has several other nicknames, including one which I […]
San Francisco’s famous Golden Gate Bridge.
Eighty years ago today, on April 19th1937, the Golden Gate Bridge was completed connecting the city of San Francisco with Marin County. It spans approximately 1.7 miles across the San […]
Official opening of the Eiffel Tower.
One hundred and twenty-eight years ago today, on March 31st 1889, engineer Gustave Eiffel, with a handful of brave guests, hoisted an enormous French flag, on top of his controversial tower, to […]
Past and Present: The Alamo, San Antonio, Texas.
Past The site of the Alamo Mission in San Antonio helped give birth to Texas. Originally it was known as the Mission San Antonio de Valero and served as […]
Tureta: The fortress of Emperor Justinian?
The fortress of Tureta on the Konati Islands, located on the northern stretches of Dalmatia, south of Zadar and west of Sibenik in Croatia, dates back to late Antiquity. It […]
The Queen of Cities – Constantinople – like you have never seen her before.
Have you ever wondered what the queen of cities – Constantinople – might have looked like? Today traces of the old Byzantine city literally still litter Istanbul. The most conspicuous […]
Past and Present: Flinders Street Station, Melbourne, Australia.
Past In the 1920’s Flinders Street Station claimed to be the world’s busiest train station. To be able to boast such a marvelous claim, so early in its history, would have […]
501 Treasures of Byzantium: No. 3 The Aqueduct of Valens.
In modern Istanbul, standing impressively over the traffic on the busy Atatürk Bulvarı is the Aqueduct of Valens. (Today it is known better as the Bozdogan Kemeri.) It is a […]
Treasure and mystery in Byzantine Cappadocia.
Before the Romans, other ancient civilisations, notably the Achaemenid Empire, once inhabited the mountainous region of central Anatolia called Cappadocia. In the Christian era, as early as the fourth century, important […]
501 Treasures of Byzantium: No. 2 The sixth century Basilica Cistern.
One of the most amazing sights or structures in Istanbul today lies beneath our feet. In the subterranean depths below the ‘first hill of Constantinople’, where once stood a grand […]
Pompeii’s controversial amphitheatre
In an article I wrote towards the end of last year on the lost cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum, I made a passing comment about how impressive many of Pompeii’s […]
The Monastery of Saint Catherine.
Lying on the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt, the beautiful St. Catherine’s monastery today is still one of the oldest working monasteries in the world. It is truly one of the […]
The Lighthouse of Alexandria
In 1994, a French team of archaeological divers conducted a salvage inspection in the eastern harbor of Alexandria in the hope of finding the site of the famous lighthouse of […]
The Winds of Change, New York City 1945
Every year millions of migrating birds fly over New York City, using it as a stop over while on their way north or south depending on the season. They have […]
501 Treasures of Byzantium: No.1 The Portrait Statue of the Four Tetrarchs.
In my humble opinion, I believe that more than any other empire in history, both Rome and Byzantium are best understood through its art and monuments. Almost every piece of […]
The Crooked Forest of Gryfino.
The world is an amazing place where sometimes we can find truly beautiful and very strange things. In a small pocket in north west Poland near the town of Gryfino […]
