Tag: history
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Day 11~ September 11th~ Tuscany
It is in cities like Siena that the ghosts of the past remain to haunt us with the mystery of what has been as we meander in its old cobble stone streets. Can you blame them? Would you want to leave a city this beautiful?
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Day 10~ September 10th~ Tuscany
After many years of fascination and research of cathedrals, I have come to discover that these massive houses of worship were mostly constructed over generations in places that held a great historical significance. If you dig deeper into the history of cathedrals like Chartres in France and the Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence,…
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Day 2~ September 2nd~ Tuscany
Like all art lovers, I have dreamt of the first time I would lay eyes on Florence. I read, I researched, I gazed at art, I dove into the renaissance, its music, its glorious artists, its astounding architecture, and I thought what I would finally meet would be so awe inspiring. But Florence exceded my…
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Day 5~ July 5th~ Vietnam
Somewhere along the way during human history, the essence of trust was forced to retreat. In a country like Vietnam where people had to suffer one occupation after another, and one war followed by the next, seeing a foreigner does not call out the essence of trust as a first principle. Warmth has to be…
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Day 23~ June 23rd~ Xinjiang
Starting around 200 BC, a network of trade routs was created linking China, India, other parts of Asia, Afro Asia and Europe. Its name comes from the German (Seidenstrasse), the silk road saw the trade of silk, tea, spices, glassware, jewelry, gold, silver, perfumes, textiles, precious stones as well as the dreaded bubonic plague. It…
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Day 17~ May 17th~ Cambodia
I do have a passion about diving into the records of the past. The wealth of impressions in historical artifacts is too great to ignore, it is awe-inspiring, magnificent and a perfect playground for mystery dreaming. Why did the ancients record important events so meticulously on reliefs, on temple walls, on pyramids, on tombs, on…
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Day 15~ May 15th~ Cambodia
Nature always finds a way to erode away human traces on its surfaces around the planet. In the temples of Angkor Wat, like in this old one in Ta Prohm, nature’s ways are not very subtle. The magnificent banyan trees just march over the great temples with their large trunks and extend their roots to…
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Day 11~ May 11th~ Cambodia
The Bayon, an exquisite temple of great significance. Constructed in the 12th century to face exactly east and roads lead to it directly from the gates at each of the city’s cardinal points, this Buddhist shrine still vibrates with accumulated potency. I visited it a little before sunrise and found myself alone safe for the monks…
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Day 4~ May 4th~ Cambodia
No matter how prepared you are when visiting Cambodia and despite all the photos you may have seen, meeting the stone buddha heads and faces in the jungles of Siem Reap can be an astounding experience. There is a great serenity in those faces, a wonderful calm even with the sense of eeriness, and they…