From the World Heritage inscription: The early Christian religious monuments in Ravenna are of outstanding significance by virtue of the supreme artistry of the mosaic art that they contain, and also because of the crucial evidence that they provide of artistic and religious relationships and contacts at an important period of European cultural history. In …
Podcast Transcript For thousands of years, before Europeans crossed the Atlantic or steamships crossed the seas, the Indian Ocean connected much of the known world. Merchants riding the monsoon winds carried spices, silk, gold, ivory, porcelain, and ideas between Africa, Arabia, India, Southeast Asia, and China. Along these routes, religions spread, empires rose, and some …
Podcast Transcript Landlocked and often overlooked, Laos sits at the crossroads of Southeast Asia, shaped by empires, rivers, and war. From the rise of the Lan Xang (Lan Sang) kingdom to centuries of domination by neighboring powers, from French colonial rule to its role as a front in the Cold War, its history is anything …
Podcast Transcript In 1960, a handful of oil-producing nations made a decision that would reshape the global economy. They formed a cartel to control the world’s most vital resource, challenging powerful corporations and altering the balance of global power. Over the decades, that organization would trigger crises, fuel economic booms, and influence energy prices across …
Podcast Transcript In 1633, one of the greatest minds in Europe stood before a tribunal, not for a crime of violence or treason, but for an idea. Galileo Galilei had looked to the heavens and reached a conclusion that challenged centuries of accepted belief. What followed was a confrontation between observation and authority, with consequences …
Home to over 15 million Istanbulites, Istanbul may not be Turkey’s capital (that honor belongs to Ankara), but it remains the country’s largest city by quite some margin. Formerly known as Byzantium and Constantinople, the area has long been a major area of trading and commerce thanks to its location and the Bosphorus, the river …
It is a cold night here in Dresden, Germany. I woke up in the city of Eisenach and visited the birthplace of JS Bach and then went to the historic city of Weimar in the afternoon visiting the homes of Goethe, Schiller, List and Luther. I’ve probably learned more about German history in the last …
As I mentioned in my 12th-anniversary post last week, there have been a lot of changes to travel blogging in the last decade. In that article, I focused mainly on the cultural and business aspects of running a travel blog. As with the business side of things, there have been huge changes on the technical …
In 2011 I did a post listing the 13 places in the I most wanted to visit but haven’t yet. To date, I’ve only visited one of the places on that list: Lord Howe Island in Australia. Today I’m embarking on a trip in Cape Town to cross off the second destination on my list: …