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Liebe Flickr Freunde, ich wünsche Euch ein schönes und glückliches Neues Jahr 2025!!
Dear Flickr friends, I wish you a happy and prosperous New Year 2025!!!
Mrs. Orca and I came across this owl yesterday afternoon on our neighborhood walk. I didn't have my camera with me but it was close enough to use my phone. Barred Owl, Olympia, Washington.
Our introduction to the Five Mountains Trail (E4) in Bulgaria came by way of some pretty extravagant wildflower displays. I don't remember nearly so many wildflowers on the Stara Planina / Kom Emine (E3), though we were there at the same time of year. Unfortunately, since we were just getting used to the pacing of the trail I did not always linger as long as I should have to photograph them. I believe this is common/meadow bistort, near Cherni Vrah (2290m), Vitosha mountains, Bulgaria.
Another surprising and mysterious object in the collection of the Plovdiv Archaeological Museum. This is a phiale, or libation bowl, from the Panagyurishte Gold Treasure, a collection of nine ceremonial 23 carat gold objects weighing in at over six kilos. They date to the late 4th or early 3rd century BC and--given their immense value--are thought to have belonged to the Thracian monarch of that time, Seuthes III. Like the famous Portrait Head of Seuthes, they were probably made by Greek artists. This, the most interesting of the objects, is decorated with African faces for reasons that are not entirely clear.
The gold objects were discovered by quarry workers in 1949, not in one of the famous Thracian monumental tombs, but in an unmarked hoard. Like most such hoards it was probably hidden during a time of unrest or invasion, but the person who buried it must have been killed or taken captive, else he surely would have returned to recover it. Part of the Panagyurishte Gold Treasure, Plovdiv Archaeological Museum, Plovdiv, Bulgaria.
This was one of two days on the trail (part of this day and the next) when we crossed sections of trail on via ferrata in heavy clouds. The downside, of course, is that this does away with many views, but as a compensation the heavy clouds mean you can't see what is (or isn't) beneath you when you're on the via ferrata, which makes the experience much less stressful. Prekorechko Lake, (@2400m) on the Five Mountains Trail (E4), Bulgaria.
Perhaps the most striking building in Yerevan, Saint Gregory the Illuminator Cathedral was consecrated in 2001 to commemorate the 1700 year anniversary of the state adoption of Christianity. It is, of course, named for the Gregory who was instrumental in the conversion in 301 of King Tiridates III, his erstwhile persecutor. It was also intended to house the relics of the saint, which for complicated historical reasons had long ago been removed to Naples, Italy.
There was a serious obstacle to the repatriation of the relics, however. Over the course of the Middle Ages, the various Eastern and Oriental Christian churches had all fallen out with each other and with the Western church in Rome. This falling out was ostensibly over very arcane theological disputes (in the Armenian vs Roman example, which came to a head in 451: Christ had two natures, but were they united or distinct?). In reality, the falling out between the different churches was really over matters of supremacy and power, as the heads of various churches sought out and found justification for why they should be in charge and not that other guy.
In recent times, councils of the the several churches have as much as admitted that the theological differences either don't really exist, or aren't that significant, or at least aren't significant enough to have warranted the breaches in the first place. Still, no one has yet agreed to hand over the power to that other guy, and all of the distinct church hierarchies remain. Yet, the renewed good feeling did bear some fruit: just in time for the consecration of the above cathedral, the Catholic Church transferred Gregory's relics to the Armenian Apostolic Church so that they could be housed in the Saint Gregory Cathedral.
Saint Gregory the Illuminator Cathedral, Yerevan, Armenia.
Das imposante Schloss Gottesaue ist ein Renaissance-Schloss in der Karlsruher Oststadt auf dem Areal einer ehemaligen Benediktinerabtei. Es ist heute Sitz der Hochschule für Musik Karlsruhe.
We're back after a marvelous two months in Armenia, Bulgaria, Hungary, Slovakia and Austria. The highlight was undoubtedly hiking the Bulgarian section of the E4, about 250km from Sofia to the Greek border. This was a hike we'd wanted to do since the first time we were in Bulgaria six years ago, and finally doing it provided a great opportunity to visit old friends, make new ones, and see some of the highest places in one of our favorite countries. Mrs. Orca on the trail to Vihren (2914m), Pirin Mountains, E4, Bulgaria.
Appareil photo argentique Minolta X-300 équipé d'un imposant objectif Soligor.
巨大なソリゴール製レンズを装着したミノルタX-300フィルムカメラ。
Minolta X-300 film camera equipped with a massive Soligor lens.
PXL_20260917_113145595.RAW-01-1
Sofia takes its modern name from this 6th century basilica dedicated to Holy Wisdom (Hagia Sophia in Greek). It was built in the reign of Justinian and is therefore contemporaneous with the more famous church/mosque of the same name in Constantinople/Istanbul. During much of the half millennium of Ottoman occupation it served as a mosque. It was eventually abandoned, but has since been restored and is now an active Bulgarian Orthodox church. It was itself built atop the site of several earlier churches dating to late antiquity which had been destroyed by successive waves of invaders clawing apart the crumbling Roman Empire. Today there is a very worthwhile museum in the excavated underground beneath the church where you can descend centuries into the past and visit these churches to view their ancient Christian mosaics and tombs, some with surviving frescoes. The Hagia Sophia, aka Sveta Sofia church in Sofia, Bulgaria.
My poor rhodie suffered severe damage from the heavy snow and ice this past winter. We lost 2 of the main branches so it doesn't look as full anymore, but I still love those blooms.
We've had two nights in a row without raccoons, which makes life a little easier for me and much easier for the amphibians in the yard. Northern red legged frog, backyard Olympia.
Early Modern Hungary was one of the most backward and oppressive regimes in Europe, with the Hungarian nobility prioritizing their feudal privileges (exemption from taxes, claims upon serfs' rents and labor) above all other concerns. In 1514, as Ottoman forces broke out of the Balkans and bore down on Central Europe, Pope Leo X called for a crusade against the Ottomans to protect Christendom. Hungary's peasants rallied to the call, but the nobility--fearing an armed peasantry and unwilling to lose their labor in the fields--resisted. The peasants then turned against the nobility in the revolutionary Dózsa Revolt. This rebellion was crushed brutally. Its leader, György Dózsa, was mocked as King of the Peasants and executed by being placed on a red hot throne, with a red hot crown upon his head. His followers were forced to eat his flesh while he was still alive, and the nobility imposed a perpetual serfdom upon the peasants.
A dozen years later, in 1526, Ottoman armies under Suleiman the Magnificent marched into Hungary, defeated the noble armies, and killed the Hungarian king, Louis II. For the next century and a half Hungary was plundered: by the Ottomans, who enslaved Hungarians for service in the Janissary Corps; by the Habsburgs, who laid claim to both occupied and unoccupied regions of Hungary; and by the Hungarian nobility themselves, who often lived in a comfortable exile in Austria but sent collectors to their old estates to extort payments from the peasants.
In 1686 Hapsburg and Hungarian forces evicted the Ottomans, but the Habsburgs ruled Hungary as a colony, stifling industry and maintaining the harsh feudal system, which generally pleased the Hungarian nobles, who sought only the maintenance of their privileges. So, in 1848, Hungary was again swept up in revolution, along with much of Europe, as commoners were joined by modernizers calling for the abolition of feudal privileges, for personal freedoms, and for constitutionalism. A Hungarian revolutionary government abolished serfdom, proclaimed civil equality, and ended the tax exemption of the Hungarian nobility.
Unlike most of the 1848 Revolutions, the one in Hungary escalated into full scale war. But this revolution, like the Dózsa Revolt, was also crushed. Austria called for assistance from Russia and, with the aid of 200,000 Russian soldiers, defeated the Revolutionary forces and executed its leaders. But even in defeat, the Revolution somehow achieved its aims. The Habsburgs recognized they could not force the peasants back into serfdom. They maintained its abolition, and the abolition of the tax exempt status of the nobility. Soon, in 1867, a weakened Austria was forced to recognize Hungary as an equal partner in the empire, creating a Dual Monarchy. This allowed Hungary to reform its parliament and granted it autonomy in internal affairs, which led to a period of rapid modernization.
Above, the Széchenyi Chain Bridge, the brainchild of the reforming Hungarian nobleman, Count István Széchenyi (1791-1860). Széchenyi was a wealthy Hungarian nobleman who argued that feudalism was bad for the nation and for the nobility because it stifled innovation. He hoped and believed (perhaps incorrectly) that change could be brought about by reform rather than revolution. Before 1848, he was deeply involved in modernizing and development schemes, one of which was the creation of a bridge to connect the two halves of the capital, Buda and Pest, which were often separated by dangerous waters or ice floes of the Danube. The most striking feature of the bridge was the symbolic insistence by Széchenyi that nobles, too, must pay a toll to cross it, an insistence that reeked of class treason to other aristocrats. The bridge was completed in 1849, just after the Revolution of 1848 was defeated and while Széchenyi himself was institutionalized for a mental breakdown brought on by the Revolution. But the bridge soon came to represent, like Széchenyi himself, the modernizing spirit in Hungary. The Chain Bridge, with Buda Castle in background, Budapest, Hungary.
This dates to the 1360s and was built on the site of a medieval cathedral just after the Ottoman conquest of Plovdiv. It was rebuilt in the 15th century and is still active. The Dzhumaya Mosque, AKA Friday Mosque in Plovdiv, Bulgaria.
Mrs. Orca on one of the highest peaks of the summer, Malyovitsa (2729m). This is in the middle of the Rila Mountains, and in the distance you can see most of the first four days of our route, with the Verila Mountains in the middle and Vitosha (2290m) in the far distance. Mrs. Orca on Malyovitsa Peak, Rila Mountains, Five Mountains Trail (E4) Bulgaria.