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Sava River, Slovenia

March 04, 2008

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The Astronomical Clock, Gdansk, Poland

Church of St Mary, seen from the top of the Town Hall Tower, Gdansk In the tourist brochure it says that Gdansk’s St Mary’s church, the Marienkirche, is the biggest red brick church in Europe & one of the biggest in the world. But whatever its size and proportions, for me its greatest treasure is its gorgeous astronomical clock. It’s made of wood, created between 1464–1470 by Hans Düringer. I’m always happy to see visual references to the Zodiac in churches, from those days when they were not afraid of such things, when the church embraced the Zodiac, the celestial groupings of the stars and constellations and the symbols (Ram, Bull, Twins etc) that were given to each of the signs. Two other examples I’ve seen (and I’m sure there are many) are the stained glass windows in Chartres cathedral of all the Zodiac signs, and in Rome, the marble depictions of the signs on the floor of the Basilica di Santa Maria degli angeli (photos of some of them in an earlier post here ). So in this

The League of Prizren – Past and Present

Flags are everywhere. The red Albanian one with the black double headed eagle, and the blue and yellow ones of Kosova. They line the streets, are hung round houses like prayer flags, or flap from flagpoles beside important buildings – the university, the municipal offices, the Europa centre and the old Ottoman-style house – now a museum - where the League of Prizren first came together in 1878. League of Prizren House & Museum June 10 is the anniversary of this gathering of people who came to be known as the League of Prizren – in this very building. I wanted to give some background information about the League but when I started thinking about it, it seemed clear I would need to go back into 19 th and 20 th century Balkan history. There was the Ottoman occupation of several centuries, and the Albanian population was spread over the territories we now know as Montenegro, Kosova and Macedonia as well of course as Albania itself. But ‘Albania’ as an indep

The Buddhas of Bamiyan

Everlasting Blue – Journeys in Afghanistan In 1939 Annemarie Schwarzenbach and Ella Maillart travelled in a Ford car across Europe and much of Asia, through Turkey, Iran, and the deserts and mountains of Afghanistan. Travel with someone is a true test of relationships, so it is said, and their partnership was certainly tested. They were both Swiss citizens (though their first languages were different) and were both people who deeply questioned life, its purposes and meanings, particularly in the times they were living then, with the rise of Fascism in Europe, which was on the brink of war. They shared a love of geographical exploration too, of adventure, travel and risk taking. And they were both writers. But in many ways their personalities could not have been more different. Ella's adventurousness and risk taking was tempered with an instinct for survival. She had a clear goal in mind – to leave the practical hazards and the emotional upheavals of

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