At first glance the Babylon site is a strange Disneyland vision of what Babylon ought to look like, with impossibly pristine new brickwork and fanciful towers and ramparts. Just as though some Wizard has cast a magical “rebuild” spell. But much of this fanciful reconstruction is built on original foundations. Our site guide pointed at […]
Browsing Posts in Travel
Ancient Babylon Rebuilt!
March 30, 2012
Uruk
March 28, 2012
The Uruk site is well organized, with large explanatory signs, a strong perimeter fence, and (wonder of wonders) an actual ticket office, which doubles as a guard post. We were the only visitors of the day so it took a few minutes to round up the ticket seller. Uruk was the first great city, the […]
Ancient Ur
March 26, 2012
There are very few tourists in Iraq at the moment, so I was expecting the ancient city of Ur to be almost deserted. But no, as we approached the great ziggurat, we saw about 40 tour buses parked and hordes of teenagers cavorting around the site. Say what? It turns out it’s the last month […]
False Dawn in Murmansk
December 22, 2011
I was in Murmansk for the Winter Solstice. The city is North of the Arctic Circle, so the sun never actually rises in mid-winter. I had been vaguely expecting that I would be encountering a 24 hour night, but no, the sky was actually a bright twilight from about noon to about 4:00pm, as the […]
Stalin in Vladikavkaz
September 29, 2011
I’m in Vladikavkaz (“Lord of the Caucasus”), North Ossetia, Russian Federation, where Stalin lurks. I was visiting the fine WWII memorial park “Monument to Glory”. And there he was, posed casually in front of a giant historical mosaic. The most surprising part is that the bust is new, added in 2009 by the local Communist […]
Tskhinval, South Ossetia
September 28, 2011
The breakaway “Republic of South Ossetia” was a major focus of the 2008 Georgian-Russian war. The border with the rest of Georgia is closed to foreigners, but it’s possible to visit from Russia. You need advance permission from the South Ossetian authorities. They don’t issue a visa or even provide an authorization letter, but instead […]
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