The go to museum for Impressionist lovers is Musee d’Orsay. Hands down. And it is a lot less swamped with tourists than the jam packed Louvre. So let’s consider what they have to show us…. but first, one has to have a stop at a proper Cafe and Sweet shop, namely La Duree. But first lets take a water taxi down the Seine, and see a few sites on the way. Orsay can wait until the next post. Look closely... Read more
One of the things I like least about the middle ages era of church history is phony relics— a rib from Peter or a bone from his foot (when in fact if Peter is anywhere he is buried intact on Vatican Hill under St. Peters today. All the earliest Christians were Jews, and they did not believe in magical relics. They did believe in miracles, which was a different matter. But here are some of the so-called apostolic relics. The... Read more
One museum I had never visited in Paris was Cluny, which was once a monastery satellite of the huge abbey of Cluny in the city of the same name. I had no idea there was so much Christian art in Cluny museum in Paris, but you are about to see what I mean. A little history is in order. Cluny, both the abbey and its monasteries was once the dominant Catholic religious force in France, run by the Benedictines. Here... Read more
There are churches with members, and then there are special chapels built as reliquaries, that is to house precious Christian relics. But that is not all in this case. This chapel in the heart of Paris is a tribute to King Louis IX, destined to become Saint Louis, he was so pious, and was raised by his mother to be that way. The supposed relics collected and housed in this chapel included the crown of thorns, and a piece of... Read more
The water lily pond at Monet’s Giverny home is of course the center of the garden and the center of attention. But by no means are water lilies all there is to this garden, for example, Right next to the pond itself is a five hundred year old grandaddy of a copper beech tree, providing shade in all directions. Beside it on the left is a bamboo thicket. This is most definitely a magical place, and especially for my wife... Read more
On the way home from Turkey, we stopped in Paris to see our gal Yuliya Tsutserova, whom we raised for about 18 years through all her American schooling, including her PhD at the University of Chicago. Now she teaches at the American University in Paris, and at the Sorbonne in the subjects of Philosophy and Art. We had not seen her for several years, partly because of the pandemic. And in the interim, she has had a son, Louis Alexandre.... Read more
There is much more in the Ankara museum than just Hittite remains, and this post will focus on these other things, with a few Hittite shots as well. Let’s look at the stone reliefs outside the museum first, and a famous milestone. Inside the museum there is much more to see. Including this poor Hittite who looks for all the world like Doby from the Harry Potter films… This of course is a small altar. There is so much more... Read more
Sometimes, your mind writes checks your body can’t cash any more. And this happened to Ann, and it almost happened to me. I barely got to the top of Mt. Nimrud this time. There were a variety of factors involved besides the age of Ann and myself. For one thing, there was a 30+ mile an hour wind on top of that 7,000 ft. mountain and there were no railings to help one make the steep climb. For another thing,... Read more
You can just see the tumulus in the distance behind the sign. Read more
Arsemeia in some ways was the capital of the Commagene kingdom, located way up on a mountain with a great view…. Shoot it even has a restaurant way up on that hill… Yet another statue of Antiochus shaking the hand of a god or demi-god, in this case Herakles=Hercules. There is also a stand alone statue of the king himself…. being hugged here by Meltem…. Even higher up on the hill is the largest and longest single Greek inscription in... Read more
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