The Jewish Cemetery Warsaw - Cmentarz żydowski w Warszawie ul. Okopowa 49/51

We visited the Jewish Cemetery on the morning of 1st August 2017, on the 73rd anniversary of the Warsaw Uprising of 1944.

France: Four Châteaux of the Loire Valley

Château de Chenenceau

Château de Brézé

Château de Chambord

Château de Cheverny

A Grey Day in Montenegro

The village of Perast, Montenegro

Perast, from the island church of Our Lady of the Rocks

Part of the fortified walls of Kotor, Montenegro

Looking up at part of the walls of Kotor

Clock Tower, Kotor

St Nicolas Orthodox Church, Kotor

Myanmar, Yangon: Shwedagon Pagoda

I originally thought this was the Shwedagon Pagoda, but now I'm not sure, we were not on the other side of the river to Schwedagon but I can find no details of another pagoda this size

This is the Eastern Entrance to the Shwedagon Pagoda, there is an entrance at each cardinal point. The Pagoda which sits on a 58 metre high hill, is 99 metres high.

The main platform is inlaid with marble slabs, and at each of the four corners are sphinxes surrounded by chinthe (half lion, half dragon) There is  large zedi (stupa) at each cardinal point.  In the centre is the great gold zedi, the octagnal base has eight small zedi on each side. Around the terrace are numerous shrines, pagodas, planatery posts, statues of Buddhas, two bodhi trees, two bells (weighing 24 tons and 42 tons)..... There are stupa umbrellas - hti- (the gold spires) everywhere you look.

The Umbrella of the Shwedagon weighs 5 tons, it is 13 metres high, 5 metres circumference at its widest, covered with half a ton of gold. It has 4,016 small gold bells and 83,850 diamonds, rubies, sapphires and other precious stones. On top of this is the Vane which turns with the wind, it is 130cms long, 76cms breadth and weighs 924lbs. At the very top of the spire is the Diamond Orb, it is 56cms high with a diameter of 27cms, this alone has 4,351 diamonds totaling 1,800 carat, with a single 76 carat diamond at its apex. (per the map issued by the Shwedagon Pagoda) Check out the close up photographs on line.

Cathar Castles of Languedoc: The four castles at Lastours are, Quertinheux, Cabaret, la Tour Regine, Surdespine, 100km to the south you will find Peyrepertuse & Sant Jordi, a further 12km to the south east is Queribus (only 5km as the crow flies), and Puilaurens is 33km west of Queribus.

The Cathars were Gnostics, believing people should shun the material world and embrace the spiritual.  The Albigensian Crusade was declared by Pope Innocent III in 1209, against the Cathars as they were seen by Rome to threaten the authority of the Church. 

Quertinheux, seen from the village of Lastours. Three of the castles of Lastours, Cabaret, Surdespine and Quertinheux, were built in the middle of the XIth century, tour Régina was built sometime after 1255.

Three chateaux of Cabaret, la Tour Régine and Surdespine, stand in a line, on a ridge that is only 450m long and 50m wide. Quertinheux is built close by but on a separate pinnacle, overlooking the village of Lastours. The ridge is 300m high and there is a small dirt path between each chateau. 

Looking from Cabaret to Tour Regine and Surdespine

Peyrepertuse has always been a "remote castle on an inaccessible mountain top", it is on an 800m high limestone ridge. It was never attacked during the crusades but was surrendered in 1217. It was reclaimed, and then surrendered again after the 1240 Siege of Carcassone. It was originally built by either the Catalan Counts of Besalu or the Spanish kings of Aragon in the 11th century, (first mention is c. 1020) but was then annexed by France. It became a French possession in 1240. and a second, higher castle, le chateau Sant Jordi, was built by King Louis IX. Peyrepertuse then became a fortress of the French frontier line. 

The original castle, viewed from Sant Jordi.

Queribus is perched on a narrow rocky peak at 728m. Following the siege of Montsegur in 1244, the last of the Cathars were sheltered here - it fell to King Louis IX in 1255 and was another fortress on the French/Spanish border until the Treaty of the Pyrenees in 1659 when the border was fixed at it current location further south. 

Spot the man in the orange tee shirt walking up to the castle.

Finally on our trip we visited Puilaurens, spotting it one evening from the village of Lapradelle as the setting sun was reflected on the castle walls.

France; Abbaye de Saint-Papoul

Bilbao: Guggenheim Museum

The Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao was designed by Frank Gehry (born 28 Feb 1929) It was built between   Oct 1993 and Oct 1997 and is made from titanium, limestone and glass. The outer skin of the building is made up of approximately 33,000 sheets of titanium which change colour, reflecting the light and weather conditions.

"Mamon"   the   spider  sculpture   cast   in   bronze,   marble   and   stainless   steel   by                 Louise   Bourgeois (25/12/1911 - 31/05/ 2010),