Category Architecture
Temple of Horus at Edfu
Our first stop up the river was the Temple of Horus at Edfu. We arrived sometime during the night and took a horse buggy into town to see the temple. The temple here is the best preserved of all the temples we saw. Aside from the early Christians’ attempts to deface the “pagan idols” the […]
Valley of the Kings
Next morning after visiting the Luxor temple, we got up early (this was not a trip for sleeping in!) and crossed the Nile and made our way through the lush farmland to the arid hills where the ancient Egyptians made their tombs. First stop was Hapshetsut’s memorial temple, which lies at the base of impressive […]
Luxor temple at night
We visited the Karnak temple early in the morning to beat the heat. After lunch and an air-conditioned nap back on the boat, we headed out again to see the Luxor temples at dusk. The Luxor temples aren’t quite as old as Karnak (only 3,000 years instead of 4,000 years) and are on a slightly […]
Catching up! Let’s start with the temples of Karnak
Sitting here in grey, rainy London (I flew back from Cairo yesterday) the sun and heat and sand of Egypt feel very far away! But before the memories dim I want to linger a bit longer on the highlights of our journey last week — let’s start with the temples of Karnak . . . […]
Exploring Munich’s centre ville
The last time I visited Munich was nearly 15 years ago. It was the summer of 2003 and I had just finished school in France and was backpacking Europe before flying back to the US. I had no money and was still shooting film on my old Olympus camera. And while I remember the feel […]
Nymphenburg Palace
The upside of staying in a skeezy neighborhood next to the Munich train station? I was just that much closer to getting out to see Nymphenburg, the Bavarian royal family’s summer palace. The original baroque palace was built in the 17th Century, and then was expanded in the 18th Century and again in the 19th […]
A palace and a play
King Henry VIII was quite the king. All those wives and the drama with the Catholic Church and the fantastic Holbein portraits. Yesterday I went to see where he used to live. Hampton Court Palace is about 15 miles up the Thames from London and claims to be the largest medieval palace in Europe (certainly […]
Exploring Edinburgh
What a lovely, charming city! We lucked out with clear, sunny weather during the few hours of daylight (sunrise at 8:45am, sunset at 3:45pm) to explore this northern capital of Scotland. Given how limited our time would be, we stayed mainly in the Old Town and soaked up the ancient atmosphere. The castle dominates the […]
Venice!
Fifteen years since I first came to Venice. I’m no longer a college student (too poor to do more than read Great Expectations on the piazza while other people ate dinner), but the city is still just as magical.
Towers, churches, and polenta dolce in Bergamo’s Citta Alta
I’m in Italy this weekend with my twin sister, Heather, and her husband and in-laws. The in-laws are living in Milan as mission presidents, but they took a break from presidential duties to show us around. We started out this morning with a stop in Bergamo, where we spent an hour or so exploring the […]
A More Gentlemanlike Manner 