Category: monuments
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Road Trip from Lausanne to Tuscany – First stop: Turin (Torino)
After the pandemic faded in Europe, we took a road trip from Lausanne (in Switzerland, where we lived) to Tuscany. The 2-week long round trip took us across the Alps, south to the Mediterranean Sea where we made stops along the Ligurian coast before heading inland towards Tuscany. The towns where we stayed overnight were…
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Kasbah at Telouet, Home of the Pasha of Marrakech
On our way to Essaouira from Ouarzazate, we took a detour on P1506 to see Telouet Kasbah, but passing Ait Benhaddou (a United Nations Word Heritage site which regrettably we did not stop to explore). To accompany your reading, highly recommended is Stephen Micus’s quiet contemplative Nomad Songs published by ECM. We arrived at Telouet…
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Volubilis, an archaeological gem
While we were staying in Fes, we took a day trip to Meknes and Volubilis. Meknes, one of the imperial cities of old Morocco, did not make much of an impression on us but Volubilis is a gem. First, let’s put on some Morocco traditional music made with an Oud – a type of lute.…
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Former residence of Marshal Zhang 張學良, Taipei – part 1/3
Happy New Year of the Pig ! We visited Taiwan in November last year. It has been many years since we lasted visited this island. We only had time to see Taipei. Upon arrival, we checked into a spa hotel in Beitou 北投 in an area north of Taipei, which is famous for its volcanic…
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Kyiv Pechersk Lavra, Ukraine
Kyiv Pechersk Lavra (Києво-Печерська лавра), also known as the Kiev Monastery of the Caves, is a historic Orthodox Christian monastery which gave its name to one of the city districts where it is located in Kiev. Since its foundation as the cave monastery in 1051, the Lavra has been a preeminent center of Eastern Orthodox Christianity in Eastern Europe. Together with the Saint Sophia Cathedral, it…
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Mezhyhirya Residence, Ukraine
While we were in Kiev (Kyiv), we had a choice of visiting either Chernobyl (the site of the nuclear reactor accident) or Mezhyhirya (the residence of Ukraine’s ousted ex-president). They were both available as a day trip and one day was all we had. We took the safe option to view this monument of corruption.…