Posts/Entries
All posts/entries, for now, from over two decades of global travel. And a few colourful tags, too.
Crac des Chevaliers, Syria
Krac des Chevaliers, transliterated Crac des Chevaliers, in the Middle Eastern country of Syria, was a Crusader fortress that today is considered one of the most important preserved medieval military castles in the world. The Crac des Chevaliers was built by the...
Hama, Syria
Hama is the fifth-largest city in the Middle Eastern country of Syria. The city is renowned for its ancient norias which line the city's Orontes River. The Norias of Hama are huge wooden waterwheels (norias means 'wheels of pots'), up to 20 metres (66 ft) in diameter,...
Damascus, Syria
Founded in the 3rd millennium B.C., the Syrian capital of Damascus is one of the oldest cities in the Middle East & is considered to be among the oldest continually inhabited cities on earth. It was an important cultural and commercial centre, by virtue of its...
Bethlehem, Palestine
Bethlehem is a Palestinian city located in the central West Bank, about 10 kilometres south of Jerusalem. The city is inhabited by one of the oldest Christian communities in the world, although the size of the community has shrunk due to emigration. Bethlehem was...
Jerusalem, Israel
Jerusalem is the capital of the Israeli State (Palestinians also claim it as their capital) & one of the oldest & most historic cities on earth. An iconic biblical melting-pot, the city is considered holy to the three major Abrahamic religions of Judaism,...
Mt. Nebo, Madaba & the Dead Sea, Jordan
The Christian Holy Place of Mount Nebo is an elevated ridge in Jordan, approximately 817 metres (2,680 ft) above sea level, mentioned in the Bible as the place where Moses was granted a view of the Promised Land. The view from the summit provides a panorama of the...
Amman, Jordan
While the city has never boasted a vast array of Islamic antiquities or history delving back over the centuries like several of its Middle Eastern cousins, Amman is nevertheless an important city of Jordan, especially in the 21st century as the place goes from quiet...
Petra, Jordan
Petra, the breathtaking half-built, half-carved into the rock, fabled "rose-red city, half as old as time", is a well-known ancient city in the south of the Middle Eastern Arab kingdom of Jordan that is famous for its rock-cut architecture and water conduit system....
Wadi Rum, Jordan
Wadi Rum is a vast, seemingly endless, extraordinarily beautiful red sand desert valley (wadi in Arabic) in the south of the Middle Eastern country of Jordan. The 74,000-hectare region is inscribed as both a mixed natural and cultural UNESCO World Heritage site, one...
Aqaba, Jordan
So we've made it. Finally. We've escaped. We're free. We've been liberated. We are no longer in Egypt. That's good. We're in Jordan. That's even better. This is an extract from our guidebook on travel in Jordan and on the Jordanian people. [quote...
Ten Commandments of Egyptian Travel
So there I was sitting atop of Mount Sinai a few evenings ago waiting for the sunset, lost in my thoughts and gazing blankly out over the desolate Egyptian Sinai Peninsula, when all of a sudden the small bush beside me began to spontaneously combust. It was obviously...
Nuweiba, Sinai, Egypt
Nuweiba on Egypt's Sinai Peninsula is more picturesque & laid-back than nearby Dahab mainly because it, Nuweiba, has something Dahab doesn't - a beaches. It's also quieter here, especially if you take a stroll on the beaches, one of which fronts our camp, Soft Beach...
Mount Sinai, Egypt
Although some archaeologists and historians dispute Mount Sinai's biblical claim to fame, it is revered by Christians, Muslims and Jews, all of whom believe God delivered his Ten Commandments to Moses on its summit....
Dahab, Sinai, Egypt
It always amazes me how time passes when one has positively nothing to do. 4 nights we've now spent here in Dahab on Egypt's Sinai Peninsula and we still don't know when we're leaving. The reason we don't know is because we have yet to go to Mt. Sinai (organising a...