Canyonlands National Park

Zion Canyon National Park

Capitol Reef National Park

Bryce Canyon National Park

Goblin Valley State Park

Arches National Park

Christiania

Rural Oregon

Grave Creek covered bridge was built in 1920, and restored several years ago.





Victorian house in the town of Drain. Note the lovely, homogenous second-growth forest, in the background. Only some 3% of Oregon's old-growth forests remain.

Luzern

Luzern is somewhere close to paradise. In the 14th Century, it helped lead central Switzerland to independence from the Hapsburgs. Today, with good reason, it is a popular tourist destination.

Behind the town is the 7000 foot Pilatus.



The posh waterfront.



The KKL, or Culture and Congress Centre, was designed by Jean Nouvel, and opened in 1998.

Thames Night

Thoughts For A Sweltering Summer Night

Cannon Beach, Oregon

Amsterdam: History And Art

Amsterdam means a lot of different things to a lot of different people, but to me it is the city of Rembrandt van Rijn. More on that, but first the modern city.

Pont du Gard

Near the town of Nimes, and built either in the last century BCE or the first century CE, the aqueduct and bridge known as the Pont du Gard may be the best remaining example of the genius that was Roman engineering.

Monaco And Nice

Monaco

Monaco is a tiny independent nation, tucked into the southern French coast. Its national defense is the responsibility of France, but it is a constitutional monarchy, ruled by the Grimaldi family since 1297, and a full member of the United Nations. The vast majority of its population is wealthy foreigners, who live there because it is a tax haven. Its chief industry is tourism, and its botanic gardens and casino are world famous.

We stopped in for just a couple hours, on a drive from Torino to Nice, and the gardens already were closed.



Beneath this long garden and series of fountains is an enormous garage.



The casino has a strict dress code. Shorts and tee-shirts don't cut it. We didn't go inside.

Three Small Towns In Provence

Carpentras

Carpentras dates at least to Roman times.





Medieval tower.

Avignon

By the beginning of the 14th Century, Italy was wracked by wars between rival religious and political factions, rival merchant states, and rival factions within these factions and merchant states. The "Holy" "Roman" "Emperor" Heinrich VII invaded, but failed to take Rome. And amidst this violent turmoil, Giotto reinvented art and launched the southern Renaissance, while Dante and Petrarch reinvented poetry. And also amidst this turmoil, and with his papacy threatened, Pope Clement V, under pressure from the French King Philippe IV le Bel, moved the papal court to Avignon, which was not actually in France, but was in the Venaissan enclave granted to the papacy by its Angevin clients. The next seven popes would be French, but not all Catholic nations would accept them. The Catholic Church again would be torn by schisms.

The 14th Century saw Europe torn apart and reinvented, and France was at the heart of it. The Black Death would kill perhaps eight million people, in France alone. Jews and lepers would be burned, on order of King Philip V. The Hundred Years War with England would rage. The Capetian dynasty would end. The Dukes of Burgundy, who controlled not only that modern French region, but also what are now the modern Benelux nations, sided with England, attempting to form a sort of middle kingdom, between the war-ravaged France and Germany. Under their patronage, Claus Sluter would launch the northern Renaissance.

In the 1330s, Pope Benedict XII began the massive renovation of the Avignon ecclesiastical palace, tranforming it into the grand Palais des Papes. In 1377, St. Catherine of Siena convinced Pope Gregory XI to return to Rome, which soon led to yet more schisms within the Church, including the election of an alternate pope in Avignon.


The Palais des Papes



A collection of medieval catapult balls.



A courtyard.

Chihuly At The De Young