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Ein bezauberndes Weihnachtsboot liegt auf dem Weiher unseres Nachbarn vor Anker, zusammen mit den frisch verschneiten Bäumen war die Szenerie wie aus einem Märchen, ich konnte mich kaum mehr davon losreißen...Herzliche Grüße aus dem frisch verschneiten Isarwinkel
An enchanting Christmas boat is anchored on our neighbour's pond, together with the freshly snow-covered trees the scenery was like something out of a fairy tale, I could hardly tear myself away from it...
Google Pixel 8 Pro Night Mode
This is Utricularia inflata (swollen bladderwort), a very strange carnivorous plant. It has no roots, only a stem and leaf structure that floats freely in the water and has evolved into a system of carnivorous traps to ensnare small organisms, such as mosquito larvae. Each of the thousands or tens of thousands of bladders on the plant are small vacuum traps with tiny hair triggers which, when they detect a passing organism, spring the trap and suck it in to be digested. The plant also seasonally forms the strange floating cartwheel raft (left image) that acts as a base for the rather attractive snapdragon-like flower that emerges several inches above the water (right). This species is native to the American Southeast but has spread invasively to much of the country, including to our neighborhood ponds and, from there, to my goldfish pond. Composite image of swollen bladderwort (Utricularia inflata), backyard Olympia.
This is one of the most interesting sites in Plovdiv. In the lower half of the image is a small portion of the 2nd century AD Roman Stadium. This, the curved northern end of the stadium, has been fully excavated and you can walk right down into it from street level, or enter through its original northern tunnel entrance (the roof of which is bottom left of image). The excavated portion is a perfect semicircle, and when I first saw it I mistakenly visualized a small circular theater seating at most a few thousand. What you actually see is just the tip of the iceberg, however, since most is buried beneath the main market street of modern Plovdiv. The stadium sat about 30,000 spectators in its 240 meters of length and was used for races and other spectacles. It is, in fact, still complete, and there are some ambitious plans to reinforce the modern buildings that sit atop it and excavate the whole of the stadium to create a massive underground archaeological site.
The top half of the image is the Djumaya (or Friday) Mosque. In the Roman Era there was probably a pagan temple here, likely replaced by a Christian basilica in late antiquity. In the late medieval era the Sveta Petka Tarnovska Cathedral stood here, but when the Ottomans captured Plovdiv in the 1360s, they tore it down and used the materials to construct this mosque, one of the largest and oldest in the Balkans. Roman Stadium and Djumaya Mosque, Plovdiv, Bulgaria.
We rented bikes in Vienna and pedaled about forty kilometers along the river to reach the charming town of Tulln. In addition to some nice riverfront gardens, Tulln has a notable early 11th century church complete with this exemplary mid-13th century ossuary, or charnel house, one of the earliest of its kind.
In Roman Europe the dead by law were buried outside of city limits. But after the collapse it became common to bury the dead in churchyards, which evolved by the beginning of the High Middle Ages into the requirement that they be buried in consecrated ground, that is, grounds blessed by a bishop. In practical terms, this meant that urban churchyard real estate filled up quickly.
Practically speaking, it became necessary to dig up the deceased after a decade or so and move their (now, much more compact) remains so that the grave could be reoccupied. The bones, naturally, could not be discarded casually, as they were expected to reanimate on Judgement Day and had to remain on consecrated grounds. But at first, there wasn't any single institutional system for what to do with them.
Another theological basis for the special care of disinterred bones appeared in the mid 13th century, when the doctrine of Purgatory was formally defined by the Catholic Church. Because most of those destined for salvation were now believed to pass through Purgatory rather than directly to Heaven, loved ones were now expected to continue to pray over remains for the salvation of those already dead, so as to hasten their passage through this markedly unpleasant place.
Ossuaries provided both the practical and theological solution to the problem of what to do with the old bones. Often, they were an octagonal building immediately adjacent to a church. Tulln's remarkably original and well preserved one is unusual in that it is eleven-sided. Additionally, it was completed just before the doctrine of Purgatory was formalized, making it one of the earliest examples of this kind of building. Despite its age and unique design, it shares the same layout as typical medieval ossuaries, where the remains of thousands are housed on the lower level, with a chapel above where prayers were offered for the the souls of the deceased below.
From this time forward Ossuaries became common across much of Catholic Europe until the Reformation. In areas subject to the Reformation most were destroyed or repurposed, since the theological basis for their existence did not exist in Protestant communities. We've visited a number of them before, the strangest of which was undoubtedly the Capela dos Ossos in Évora, Portugal, where in the context of the Counter-Reformation the collection and display of bones was taken to a rather morbid extreme.
Outside of Protestant Europe, ossuaries ultimately gave way not to the Reformation but to the Enlightenment. For example, in late 18th century Austria, which within living memory had been stricken by the plague, burial within churchyards and urban places was banned as unhygienic as part of a package of reforms issued by Emperor Joseph II.
The 13th century Tulln Ossuary at the Parish Church of Saint Stephen, Tulln, Austria.
"The relationship between critic and writer is similar to the one between the pigeon and the statue." Ashwin Sanghi
Today's Bulgaria was part of a region known to the ancient Greeks and Romans as Thrace, after the people who lived there. They were a tribal people, but with the 5th century BC establishment of the Odrysian Dynasty a large portion of them were organized into single kingdom, which commenced a Thracian golden age when Thrace played a major role in the politics of the ancient world. Deceased kings of this era were deified and buried in monumental tombs (some of which can be visited) in the Valley of Thracian Kings.
During a period of internal division resulting from dynastic dispute, Alexander the Great's father, Phillip II, conquered much of the region, and many Thracian elites became Hellenized. The conquest was completed by Alexander, but the Thracians rebelled after his death and revived an autonomous state which continued in some form until final conquest by the Romans in the 1st century AD.
Above, a life sized portrait head of the Thracian King Seuthes III, who led a restored Thracian State after Alexander's death in 323 BC. This portrait was almost certainly produced by a Greek artist. It is one of my favorite artifacts from one of my favorite museums, the Sofia Archaeological Museum. The museum is somewhat small (it is housed in a 15th century Ottoman Mosque) but packs a real wallop and is amazingly well curated. Particularly memorable is the Hall of Treasures, which is actually a fairly small room containing artifacts excavated from and around Thracian burial mounds, mostly executed in the Greek style. Portrait of Seuthes III (4th century BC), in the Sofia Archaeological Museum, Sofia, Bulgaria.
This castle (which shares its name with the town below) sits high atop a hill overlooking a broad bend in the Danube. We took the slow tourist boat there from Budapest and clamored up a very rugged and sweaty trail to visit the castle and enjoy great views from the top.
This hill served as a strategic location dating to its time as a fortress on the Roman frontier. When the empire collapsed it acquired its present Slavic name (high castle), which was kept after the arrival of the Magyars. The present castle dates more to the 13th century, when it was constructed as a response to the Mongol invasions. The town below is now a small one, but was once the site of the famous palace of Matthias Corvinus, one of Hungary's most significant kings and a great patron of Renaissance art. It was largely destroyed during the Ottoman Era, and while there is an archaeological site there, it takes a fair bit of imagination to envision its former glory. Visegrád Castle, Visegrád, Hungary.
Cette photographie, prise en fin d'après-midi, montre une promenade sur la jetée Saint-Pauli à Hambourg. Au premier plan, des mouettes volent et se posent sur une rambarde longeant l'Elbe. Une personne les photographie. En arrière-plan, les grues du port se découpent sous un ciel nuageux traversé par les rayons du soleil couchant.
この夕方に撮影された写真は、ハンブルクのザンクト・パウリ桟橋の遊歩道を写しています。手前では、エルベ沿いの手すりにカモメが飛び交い、止まっています。一人の人物がそれらを撮影しています。背景には、夕日が差し込む曇り空の下、港のクレーンが浮かび上がっています。
This late afternoon photograph shows a promenade on the St. Pauli pier in Hamburg. In the foreground, seagulls fly and land on a railing along the Elbe. A person is photographing them. In the background, port cranes stand out under a cloudy sky pierced by the rays of the setting sun.
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The Bishop's Basilica upgraded its mosaics as the Christian community and the church became wealthier and as tastes and symbolic motifs evolved. The ground floor of the museum preserves the 4th-early 5th century mosaics in situ, where they were laid. Some of these are relatively simple but many are of the rainbow style of very colorful and complex geometric arrangements (above). In the later 5th or early 6th century new mosaics featuring more than a hundred birds were installed over these, but during modern excavation and conservation the two layers were carefully separated and most of the newer mosaics were moved for display on the second floor of the museum. The newer mosaics on the theme of birds are the more famous ones, but in truth I think these geometric ones are the more interesting. Rainbow mosaics, Bishop's Basilica, Plovdiv, Bulgaria.
A very small endemic alpine poppy found above 2000m in the Pirin Mountains. This one was very near the summit of Banski Suhodol (2884m). Pirin Poppy (Papaver degenii) on the Five Mountains Trail (E4) at Banski Suhodol, Pirin Mountains, Bulgaria.
This was our last day in the Rila Mountains before beginning the more rugged Pirin Mountains, which can be seen in the distance. I believe a Martagon Lily (Lilium martagon), somewhere on the ridges above Makedonia Hut (2166m) on the way to Predel Saddle, Five Mountains Trail (E4), Rila Mountains, Bulgaria.
The very small medieval church in the foreground is perhaps the oldest surviving building in Yerevan. It was built in the 12th or 13th century. Several hundred years later, in the late 17th century, it was incorporated into the construction of the much larger Katoghike church (the medieval church becoming a chapel within the newer one). In the 1930s the Soviets began demolishing churches, but when the much older church was discovered within the Katoghike church they somehow decided to preserve it. Today it is again an active place of worship on the campus of the 21st century Pontifical Residence, immediately in front of the Saint Anna Church (2011). Saint Astvatsatsin Church, Yerevan, Armenia.
Hungary was founded as a Catholic Kingdom, and the Habsburg monarchs who ruled Hungary at the time of the Reformation were not only Catholics, but leading figures of the Counter-Reformation, so I was surprised to find such a prominent Protestant church in Budapest. It seems that Protestantism took hold in Hungary during the harsh but comparatively tolerant rule of the Muslim Ottomans (c. 1526-1699). After the Habsburg-led reconquest of Hungary, the somewhat decentralized nature of the Kingdom, with its powerful nobility, largely protected Protestants from the Counter-Reformation.
Above (bottom right), the late 19th century Buda Calvinist Church (officially Szilágyi Dezső Square Reformed Church), with Fishermen's Bastion (middle ground) and the Catholic Matthias Church (top), which it somewhat resembles, Budapest, Hungary.
At the terracotta warriors mausoleum, the crowds can easily block you from getting a good look, so you may have to rely on others, especially if you don't have it in you to push and shove to the front. It's estimated that the site averages 10,000 daily visitors.
Almaden Lake Park, San Jose, California
This recent image from a moody and silent morning at a nearby lake is one of my Top 10 Favorites of 2023: www.stefanbaeurle.com/Blog/Top-10-Favorites-of-2023
We spent five or six days walking a section of the Trans Caucasian Trail starting from Dilijan. This section passed through Dilijan National Park and, with a slight diversion at the end, visited three notable medieval monasteries: Goshavank, Sanahin and Hagphat. It had some good ups and downs but spent a lot of time around 2000 meters, where seasonal settlements of shepherds raise sheep, cattle and horses, and cut and dry straw for the harsh Armenian winter. A GAZ-66, a common utility vehicle of Soviet design, on the TCT between Dilijan and Sanahin, Armenia.