Unesco

Hue Imperial City and Citadel, Hue, Vietnam

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hue citadel dragon on roof

The Citadel, built by the Vietnamese emperors in the early 19th Century, was severely damaged in Vietnam’s two wars of the 20th Century. In 1947 against the French, and again in 1968 against the Americans, the center of Hue was the site of ferocious battles. The citadel area once held over 140 buildings. Only about 20 remain after extensive restoration since the 1990s. Most buildings were completely destroyed in the fighting and cannot be restored.

Fantastic Cappadocia, Turkey

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Cappadocia, In a word: fantastic. In the literal sense. It’s a fantasy land, both in terms of history and landscape. The region is a network of small towns that have one thing in common: the weird geology of the region lent itself over the ages to people digging caves to live in. And so they did.

And, if you look at a map, and know a little of the history of the Christian church, you’ll see that this area also lent itself to becoming a true cradle for the infant church–a cradle which sheltered Christians in these caves for up to fifteen centuries.

Valparaíso and So Forth

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Kris and I went for the weekend in Valparaíso and stayed for the rain.

The three month long drought in Chile broke all over us last weekend. We took a two-hour bus trip to Valpo on Friday even though we’d been warned that the weather wasn’t going to cooperate. I don’t know why we didn’t just postpone until the week. It’s not like we have jobs or anything that makes us note the difference between weekends and weekdays, but, at least one of us is really stubborn.