We spent the day at the Vatican and as a history nerd, I was in heaven. It wasn’t just the art but the architecture and context. It was overwhelming, beautiful, gorgeous, magnificent. I loved the work by Raphael and Michelangelo particularly the Last judgement in the Sistine Chapel. St. Peter’s Basilica is the largest church in…
Tag: Byzantium
Seeing the Sites
Today we did a lot of walking. Topkapi Palace, Byzantine Cistern, Byzantine Hippodrome and the Blue Mosque. The high point for me was seeing the treasure rooms and holy relics in Topkapi Palace. Each treasure was more exquisite than the one before and encrusted with massive diamonds, emeralds and rubys. The sacred relics were astonishing…
Round the world
This morning we are on our way to travel around the world by way of the Silk Road. Toady we fly to Instanbul where we’ll stay for a bit before continuing on to Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and China. From a historical perspective, we will be traveling through the regions that saw the first contact between…