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In the Ottoman Era (mid 14th to late 19th century) Plovdiv was known as Filbe (essentially Turkish for "Philip's city," after the Greek name, Philippopolis). During this time the city would have had many public bathhouses, but I believe this is the last remaining one. It was constructed with facilities for both men and women in the 16th century and functioned as a bathhouse well into the 20th, but has since been converted into a contemporary art gallery. We tried to visit several times, but always found it closed. Chifte Banya (Ancient Bathhouse), viewed from Nebet Tepe, Plovdiv, Bulgaria.
One might be surprised that Bulgaria was at the forefront of European conservation. In the second half of the 19th century industrialization helped to produce a growing middle class that sought some temporary escape from the conditions that created it, and found it in a retreat to the country's abundant mountain ranges. This happened elsewhere in Europe, too, but in Bulgaria it coincided with an upsurge of patriotism that accompanied the 1878 liberation from the Ottomans.
In 1895 Aleko Konstantinov, proclaiming "Get to know your motherland and you will fall in love with it,” organized the first recreational climb of Vitosha, the large mountain overlooking Sofia (He was also the first to propose the National Trail that eventually became the Kom-Emine). This led to the creation of a hiking society, the Bulgarian Tourist Union, and eventually to the country's excellent hut system and a number of protected areas, including Vitosha Nature Park (1934), the first nature park on the Balkan Peninsula.
When the communists took over in 1944 they saw hiking as a healthful and patriotic leisure activity that dovetailed nicely with socialist ideals (i.e. it was a group leisure activity, but a classless one that required discipline and perseverance from all). They nationalized the hut system and the Tourist Union and greatly increased the number of huts and protected areas. With the collapse of the communist regime in 1989 conservation gave way to unregulated logging, an increase in poaching, and some noticeable decay in the hut system, which was privatized. We also saw new development projects, such as ski hotels and ski lifts, enabled through the current regime of crony capitalism, which have significantly damaged some of the natural areas. Nevertheless, the core protected areas remain and Bulgaria is still home to some magnificent wild areas and a remarkable amount of wildlife, including wolves and bears.
European brown bear print on the Five Mountains Trail, Verila Mountains, Bulgaria.
Cette série de photographies documente l'arrivée du printemps dans le parc Lefèvre, mettant en valeur la floraison éclatante d'arbres aux fleurs roses contrastant avec la verdure environnante et le ciel bleu clair.
この一連の写真は、ルフェーヴル公園における春の訪れを記録したもので、周囲の緑や澄んだ青空と対照的な、ピンク色の花を咲かせた木々の鮮やかな開花を際立たせています。
This series of photographs documents the arrival of spring in the Lefèvre park, highlighting the vibrant blooming of trees with pink flowers contrasting with the surrounding greenery and clear blue sky.
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Macarons: A sweet cookie to try when it’s not so outrageously expensive. In France, best to try and buy outside of the tourist areas.
Hier macht die reißende Isar ihrem Namen alle Ehre (aus dem Keltischen "Isaria" - die Reißende)
Stromschnellen bei Lenggries
The trees in this park (Quercus agrifolia) are somewhat stunted by a low nutrient environment (they grow out of ancient sand dunes). They are often many hundreds of years old, but are more gnarly than enormous. Coast live oak and lace lichen, Los Osos Oaks State Natural Reserve, California.
Hagphat, like many medieval monasteries, collected and reproduced texts, all of which in this era were in manuscript form. This room, the manuscript repository / library dates to the 11th century. Notice the ornately carved and geometric lightwell above, very characteristic of Armenian monastic architecture. Also notice the gravestones, which can generally be found in every room throughout these complexes, whatever their function. The floor also tells the story of the changing circumstances of the thirteenth century. With the Mongol incursions the monks removed the monastery's precious manuscripts to be hidden in caves (some were preserved, while others were lost--those that were preserved can be found in the Ancient Manuscripts Library in Yerevan). From around the mid-thirteenth century onward the room was used as a storeroom, and the holes and ceramics in the floor were a kind of climate control for food storage. Mrs. Orca in the Matenadaran, Hagphat Monastery, Armenia.
Khachkars, or memorial stone-crosses, are a uniquely Armenian art form dating to the 9th century at the commencement of the Armenian Renaissance. Typical examples include a cross set against a very intricate floral or tree of life pattern. They can be seen at cemeteries, incorporated into walls or facades of religious buildings, and on pedestals or even in piles at churches and monasteries. They are made from the very abundant Armenian volcanic stone and, as far as I can tell, in the same manner they have been for the last one thousand years or more. A stone mason, or varpet, carving a khachkar in Yerevan, Armenia.
Mrs. Orca following friends we met on trail down toward the Rilska River Valley far below. Notice the large glacial lake in the perfect hanging valley on the other side, I believe Smradlivo Lake, or Stinky Lake (2298m), Five Mountains Trail (E4), Rila Mountains, Bulgaria.
A moment suspended between control and chaos.
Fire spinning against neon lights, music in the air, bodies watching in silence.
Not staged. Not clean. Just alive.
Captured in Phi Phi, where nights burn brighter than days.
📍 Phi Phi Islands, Thailand
2024
📷 Google Pixel 8 Pro (Manual Mode)
A small medieval chapel overlooks Debed Canyon and Sanahin (below and just out of frame to right). To the left, some few hundred meters deep in the canyon, sits the large and interesting industrial town of Alaverdi. It was once a major supplier of copper to the USSR but is now in steep economic decline. The Debed Canyon, viewed from the Trans-Caucasian Trail just above Sanahin, Armenia.
Yerevan's name derives from the Erubuni Fortress, founded in 782 BC by the Urartian King Argishti I. While we were there what appeared to be a joint French and Armenian team of archaeologists were wrapping up a recent excavation. The on-site museum and the History Museum of Armenia already contain remarkable inscriptions, artifacts and frescoes that paint a vivid picture of that distant world of more than 2800 years ago.
When not under local control, Armenia has since been ruled over by a succession of empires: Medes, Achaemenids, Macedonians, Seleucids, Romans, Parthians, Sasanids, Byzantines, Abbasids, Seljuks, Mongols, Safavids, Ottomons, Russians and Soviets. During all that time Yerevan has been inhabited continuously. Today it has over a million people and is noticeably overcrowded, and promises to become more so: huge apartment blocks (back of image) are going up everywhere on the outskirts of the city. Walls of the Erubuni Fortress, Yerevan, Armenia.
Hagphat was at the height of its importance as an Armenian religious and intellectual center when the absurdly rapid Mongol Expansion of the 13th century overran Central Asia, East Asia, the Middle East and (briefly) Eastern Europe. Kayan Fortress was built in 1233 by the Hagphat monastery as a defense and refuge against the coming onslaught. It towers above Debed Canyon and has steep cliffs on three sides, but it fell to the Mongols just eight years later and was never rebuilt.
It can be reached as part of a footpath that connects Sanahin and Hagphat and also passes the ruins of one or two old chapels and some hermitage caves, all of which are contemporaneous with the monasteries. When we visited we found nothing much to look at except the ruins of a chapel (with grass growing on its roof, above) and an extensive system of walls. We were also quite surprised to see many workers employed at clearing away trees among the ruins and attempting to make the site more accessible, I presume using UNESCO funds. Workers were similarly employed on trail and at the caves, so it appears there is a project underway to develop the trail for more tourism, something that seems unlikely to succeed to me, given the fact that almost everyone who visits the monasteries appears to do so as part of a day trip via tour bus from Yerevan or Tbilsi. Kayan Fortress, in the Debed Canyon between Sanahin and Hagphat, Armenia.
Human occupation of Castle Hill and present day Bratislava date back millennia. In antiquity a sophisticated Celtic civilization emerged here. Archaeological investigation on Castle Hill revealed Celtic-minted coins bearing the names of chieftains in Latin letters and evidence of significant trade with Rome. Unfortunately, historians have no idea what the Celts called the city that is now Bratislava.
Sometime in late antiquity or the early middle ages the Slavs arrived, eventually organizing themselves into Great Moravia, a hazily understood Slavic Christian state that once ruled over large areas of Central Europe. A Frankish text from this era refers to the city as Brezalauspurc, Old German for "Braslav's castle."
After Great Moravia's collapse much of present day Slovakia came under the control of the Hungarians, who called the city Pozsony. But in 1526, the Hungarian King Louis II was killed by invading Ottomans at the Battle of Mohacs, and the Hungarian crown--including what remained of Hungary outside of Ottoman control--passed to the Austrian Habsburgs, who called the city Pressburg.
The city now became the capital of Royal Hungary, the Habsburg ruled portion of Hungary that did not fall to the Ottomans. For three centuries, Hungarian monarchs were crowned in the Gothic Saint Martin's Cathedral (left of image) and Castle Hill became the site of a great Habsburg palace. Pozsony/Pressburg was a thriving multiethnic city, with many Slavs, Germans, and Magyars, (not to mention migrants from elsewhere in Europe) calling the city by its various names according to their own language or preference.
After the Habsburg reconquest of Ottoman-occupied Hungary in the late seventeenth century, the political center of Hungary gradually shifted back to Buda. By the late eighteenth century, Castle Hill lost its military and royal significance, and it eventually burned and fell into ruin. Meanwhile, Slovak resentment of Hungarian influence gave rise to a growing nationalist movement, and--with the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire at the end of the First World War--to the formation of Czechoslovakia, conceived of as a Slavic nation.
In 1919 Czechoslovak authorities, wanting a new name for the city that distinguished it as a Slavic, as opposed to German or Hungarian city, renamed it Bratislava. Ironically, this name was adopted because a Slovak scholar somewhat misinterpreted the Old German term Brezalauspurc, believing the city was named for a Slavic Duke Bretislav, rather than Braslav's Castle. In the 1950s and 60s the ruins of the old castle, once a symbol of Habsburg and Hungarian power, were rebuilt to house the Museum of History in Bratislava, a branch of the Slovak National Museum.
Castle Hill, Saint Martin's Cathedral, and Bratislava Old Town, taken from the tower of the 13th century Town Hall, Bratislava, Slovakia.
After the conquests of Alexander Armenia became a part of the Hellenistic world. Upon his death in 323 BC his empire was divided among his generals, with Armenia and much of the Near East going to Seleucus. In time these Hellenistic kingdoms gave way to better organized powers, particularly Rome and Parthia, who collided wherever their empires met, including Armenia.
In 63 AD the two powers worked out a strange compromise whereby it was agreed that a member of the Parthian royal family would rule Armenia, but he would have travel to Rome and abase himself to receive his crown from the Roman Emperor. So it was that in 66 AD the Parthian Prince Tiridates I traveled to Rome and was crowned King of Armenia by none other than the infamous Nero.
An inscription found near the Garni Temple strongly suggests it was built in 77 AD by this same Tiridates I and dedicated to the sun god Mihr/Mithra. Today it is the sole surviving pagan or classical building in Armenia. In 301 Armenia became the world's first Christian country and essentially all pagan architecture was destroyed, but the Garni Temple alone survived, probably because it was incorporated into a royal complex.
The temple stood for sixteen centuries before it was toppled by an earthquake in 1679. It lay in ruins for three more centuries, but was reassembled in 1969-75 with the approval of a new overlord, the Soviet Union (it is the only Hellenistic building in the former Soviet world). Note the plain replacement pieces--very distinct from the original--that were used to bring the temple back to life.
Mrs. Orca at the Garni Temple, Armenia.
Ode To Enchanted Light
by Pablo Neruda
Under the trees light
has dropped from the top of the sky,
light
like a green
latticework of branches,
shining
on every leaf,
drifting down like clean
white sand.
A cicada sends
its sawing song
high into the empty air.
The world is
a glass overflowing
with water.
The endpoint of our hike in Bulgaria. I believe the cluster of flowers are Anthyllis aurea, a Balkan endemic with a long history of medicinal uses. On our final day we saw many small groups on the mountain picking various teas and medicinal herbs, a practice which is common everywhere in Bulgaria. Strictly speaking I do not believe this is legal at this particular location, though it is customary, and I doubt there is much if any harm in it. Gotsev Vhrah (2212m) and Anthyllis aurea, Slavyanka Mountains, Five Mountains Trail (E4), Bulgaria.
We're Here @ Chance Photography and Experimentation .
I actually took this picture late last night; it was very dark but the clouds had a weird glow. I thought it was too dark but my phone has a camera mode called Night Sight which I never used before. Chance & Experimentation.
A must-do while in Madeira is to take an exhilarating 2 km ride down the streets in a wicker toboggan guided by two white-clad locals. While presently a tourist attraction it previously was the local transportation to get from Monte to Funchal.
Alcatraz takes its name from the archaic Spanish word for the large seabirds ("alcatraces"--typically denoting pelicans, cormorants or gannets) that 18th century Spanish explorers found there in large numbers. In fact, the location had long been a site at which indigenous people harvested eggs. When the US took over after the Mexican war (1846-48) it became a military installation and then a military prison. It was a federal prison from 1934-1963, but closed because it is a very expensive and impractical site to run a prison (the island has no fresh water, the facilities are constantly battered and eroded by the elements, and it is hardly a practical commute for its employees). After the prison was decommissioned, the island became a popular national park and has even been recolonized by nesting seabirds. Strangely, I have never been there, I suppose because I grew up in the Bay Area and it seemed like such a tourist thing to do. Alcatraz island and the Golden Gate Bridge (1937), as seen from the Larkspur Ferry, on San Francisco Bay, California.