Htilominlo Temple is a large, two-story temple in the northern part of the Bagan plain. It dates to the 12th to 13th centuries and is best known for its ornate stucco decoration, especially the patterns on the ceilings of the interior arches. The temple gets its name from umbrellas, one…
It’s one of the oldest–and from all appearances, richest–of the many pagodas in Sagaing. Sitting high on top of Nga-pha Hill, one of dozens of hilltops in the Sagaing Hills, it was built in 1312 by Minister Pon Nya, after whom it’s named. It’s not the most subtly decorated pagoda…
Dating to 1334, Thisa-wadi Temple is a medium-sized in the southeastern section of the Bagan Archeological Zone in Bagan, Myanmar (Burma). While it’s not the grandest of Bagan’s temples, it’s one of the handful that have terraces that you’re allowed to climb, and they offer great views out over the…
Casco Viejo is an up-and-coming part of Panama City. This might sound like an odd thing to say about some of the oldest parts of the oldest city on the Pacific coast of the Americas. Quite a few of the buildings date back to the late-1600s. But for a long…
Dominating the northern side of the Zocalo in the Centro Historico, the historic quarter of Mexico City, the Metropolitan Cathedral is the largest Roman Catholic Cathedral in the Americas. Its formal name is the Metropolitan Cathedral of the Assumption of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary into Heaven (or, in Spanish:…
The National Museum of Anthropology is Mexico’s most-visited museum. And it’s easy to see why. It has a vast array of exhibits related to Mesoamerica’s cultural history. And it is a region with an exceptionally rich cultural history. It’s not just about Aztecs and Incas, although there’s an abundance of…
Sitting high above one of Mexico City’s best green spaces is Chapultepec Castle. It sits on top of a hill that has been a sacred place for Aztecs and housed a military academy, imperial residence, and presidential home. Now, it’s a museum. The castle that was once home to Mexican…
Ananda Temple is one of Myanmar’s most revered sites. Built in the 11th-12th centuries, it has remained an active worship site since, nearly a millennia. With its striking gold hti, or umbrella, it stands out brightly against the landscape and red bricks. It is laid out as a large crucifix…
The Greek economy might be tanking, but at least one group is thriving in Athens: graffiti artists. It has been suggested that Athens might be the best place in the world to be a graffiti artist right now. Or, as one of the practitioners puts it, “a little paradise for…
If you want to see where many of the restaurants in Athens get their seafood and meat, head to the Dimotiki Agora, or public market. The fish market forms the center of the covered market, with rows of stalls packed with mounds of ice on top of which the day’s…
The Metropolitan Cathedral is one of the grandest churches in this ancient city. But it’s by no means the oldest. There are several others that date back to the Byzantine era. Even the tiny little church right next to the Metropolis dates back to the 12th century. The cathedral, by…
When sponge divers off the coast of the Greek island of Antikythera in 1900 stumbled upon a bronze hand with a finger missing, underwater archaeologists swept in to find an incredible collection of statues and coins. Working with the limits of early-20th-century underwater excavation, they recovered what they could. Much…
Standing on a small island just off the shore in the Tagos River, Belem Tower (Torre de Belém, in Portuguese) is a remnant from a bygone age when Portugal’s ships ruled the waves. It is one of Portugal’s iconic landmarks, and you’ll see it represented everywhere from t-shirts in the…
Lisbon has nowhere near the level of rampant graffiti that Athens has, but there is still some creative and impressive street art in the downtown area. Here’s a small sampling from around Bairro Alto, Chiado, Rossio, the Alfama, and Belem: This isn’t graffiti, as such. It’s part of the Arte…
From the outside, it’s remarkably plain. The facade isn’t all that much to write home about–not much more than a simple vertical wall towering over a small public square facing down the hill of Rua da Misericórdia towards the Targa waterfront. But there’s nothing ordinary about the interior. Dedicated to…
The Museu de São Roque is housed immediately adjacent to Lisbon’s impressive Igreja de São Roque. The core of the museum is divided into five permanent exhibits. History of Igreja de São Roque This section displays 16th-century art and artifacts related to the life and legend of Sao Roque (St…
I first visited the Maritime Museum about 12 years ago. Aside from some updating some of the exhibits that you see when you first enter and a shiny new gift shop, very little has changed. It’s still housed in two stylistically clashing buildings, and many of the exhibits and showcases…
The Military Museum is on the waterfront in Lisbon’s Alfama neighborhood, just down the hill from Santa Engracia (the National Pantheon). It’s on the site of a 16th-century cannon foundry and munitions depot. It’s in a grand old building that was completed in its current configuration in 1905, and it’s…
It sits in the heart of Sintra’s old town. It’s well beneath the hill with the Moorish Castle, but it still manages to be out on a point, overlooking the surrounding countryside and the new section of Sintra. And it’s two large conical spires can be seen from miles around–even…
The royal palace used to stand here. Which is why, rather than its formal name of Praça do Comércio, locals know it as Terreiro do Paço, or Palace Square. King Manuel I moved the royal residence from Castelo Sao Jorge, the Moorish keep on top of the hill, down here…
The distinctive white dome of Igreja de Santa Engrácia is visible from all around, and you will most likely have noticed it especially if you looked toward the east from the top of Castelo San Jorge, tucked in behind the turrets of Monastery of São Vicente de Fora in the…
Fort Moultrie isn’t as famous as the fort you can see a little way across the water–Fort Sumter–but it’s part of the same complex of defenses for the entrance to Charleston Harbor. Built on a corner of Sullivan’s Island, Fort Moultrie is now mostly buried under dirt. But that’s quite…
There’s not quite so much of the gold left that once covered the wood, but its ornately carved teak is arguably even more impressive. Built in 1880 of carved teak, Shwenandaw Monastery was originally part of the imperial palace at Amarapura. About five years before the British arrived it was…
Shwezigon Pagoda is located in Nyaung-U, near Bagan. It was built in the 11th century. From a large central gold leaf-gilded bell-shaped stupa radiate a number of smaller temples and shrines. The stupa is solid, and legend has it that it enshrines a bone and tooth of Gautama Buddha. And…
Sitting high on a hill overlooking the center of Lisbon, the Moorish Saint George Castle (or Castelo de São Jorge or Saint George Castle) looks exactly how a castle should look, with its imposing ramparts offering spectacular views over the city. Fortifications have existed on the site for thousands of…
The Monastery of Sao Vicente de Fora is one of the ornate white buildings that you can see clearly from the ramparts of Saint George Castle. The present monastery dates back to the 17th century, although the original church on the site goes much further, to the 12th century. There…
Tayok Pye Temple (also sometimes written as Tayok-pyi) is one of the larger temples in the eastern part of the Bagan Archaeological Zone. It’s notable for intricate stucco ornamentation on the outside (much of it renovated) and its painted murals inside. Precisely when it was built isn’t clear, but it…
Lemyethna Pagoda is located in the eastern part of the Bagan Plain and was built in 1222. It features intricate figure frescoes on its interior walls and ceilings. Based on some of the ruins nearby, the temple was likely originally part of a monastery.1 Photos of Lemyethna Pagoda Photo by…
The gold stupa of the Dhammayazika Pagoda certainly stands out, especially at sunrise and sunset. But it wasn’t always this opulent. Until the 1990s when it was restored, it was basically deserted. The renovations included a gleaming gold finish for the massive stupa. They also destroyed some of the original…
Thatbyinnyu Temple is the tallest of the pagodas in Bagan, rising up the equivalent of about 21 stories. And being close to both Ananda Temple and Old Bagan, it’s one of the easiest to visit. Despite its prominence on the skyline and close proximity to the famous Ananda Temple and…
I really don’t know much about this temple. It doesn’t appear on any of the maps or guides I’ve come across. There aren’t any signs–at least, not in English–nearby. And there was no-one around to ask. I came across when out exploring by myself. It sits in an open dirt…
From fresh fish to cooking oil to betel nut, the Mani Sithu Market in downtown Nyaung-U is the main local market for the town. It’s a permanent market and set up under a light wooden structure that occupies a large block in the middle of town. You won’t find much…
If you’re flying to Bagan, Nyaung-U Airport is the airport you’ll fly into. As small as it is, it’s the airport that serves as the aerial gateway to the Bagan region. (There are other ways to reach Bagan, of course, such as flying into Mandalay and taking a bus or…
This is a guide to temples and pagodas of Bagan that was compiled by the Director of Archaeological Survey, Burma, in the mid-1950s and revised in 1963. It was published in Rangoon by the Union Cultural Council, Ministry of Union Culture, Revolutionary Government of the Union of Burma. I picked…
Located just south of Myinkaba Village in the Bagan Archeological Zone, Apeyadana Temple is named after Apeyadana, an 11th-century chief queen consort of King Kyansittha of the Pagan Dynasty of Burma (Myanmar) and maternal grandmother of King Sithu I of Pagan. Much about this temple remains unknown or obscured through…
Manuha Temple is one of the easiest temples to visit. It’s in Myinkaba Village, just south of Old Bagan, and right on the main road. It’s also one of the oddest, not at all like most of the other temples and pagodas in Bagan. The layout is very different, inside…
Nagayon Temple, about half a mile south of Myinkaba Village, gets its name from the large serpent mouths that arch over the statue of The Buddha in the main shrine. Naga refers to the serpents, or king cobras, that you see stylized around the place, often protecting the entrances to…
Myazedi, which translates as “emerald stupa,” is located just north of Myinkaba Village and just south of Old Bagan. A notable item at the Myazedi stupa is a stone slab with the text in four languages: Pyu, Mon, Pali, and Burmese. It’s the earliest dated example of written Burmese language,…
Compared to many of Istanbul’s other mosques, Nuruosmaniye is quite new. It was built between 1748 and 1755. So it’s still not exactly a new build. While it shares some distinctive design features with other mosques in Istanbul, Nuruosmaniye Mosque was the first and largest mosque to be built in…
The Gran Hotel Cuidad de Mexico is well worth a visit even if you’re not staying there. It sits on a corner of the Zocalo in Centro Historico, the old-town portion of Mexico City that was itself designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987. There are newer, fancier,…
The Palacio de Bellas Artes was built in the early 20th century to house the national theater, but it has become more than that. Some call it the “Cathedral of Art in Mexico.” It has become a cultural hub of Mexico City–in addition to containing two theaters, there are important…
The Biblioteca Miguel Lerdo de Tejada (Tejada Library) specializes on holdings related to economics. It’s named for Miguel Lerdo de Tejada, a 19th-century Mexican finance minister, treasurer, minister of foreign affairs, and magistrate of the Supreme Court. It’s housed in a former chapel, la Capilla de la Emperatriz del Palacio…
It’s known as the world’s largest book. But it doesn’t look much like any book you’ve seen before. Each of the 729 “pages” is a large marble tablet inscribed with text from the Tipitaka (some of the Buddhist scriptures). The text was originally in gold, but it has long since…
Built in the 1770s, the Templo de la Enseñanza is a small church a block behind the Catedral Metropolitana. Sometimes known as La Enseñanza Church, its name translates as “The Teaching Church,” a nod to its original role as a church attached to a teaching convent. The convent has long…
Longyearbyen isn’t very big, but there are two museums in town. This is the older but smaller of the two. It focuses on efforts to reach the north pole with various types of aviation, some successful and some not. You’ll sometimes see the North Pole Expedition Museum referred to by…
I guess it shouldn’t be so surprising that it’s small. It’s right there in the name, after all: The Little Mermaid. As with the Mannekin Pis in Brussels, there’s something a bit jarring for an iconic attraction with such an outsized reputation to be so petite. It’s a roughly life-sized…
Denmark has a long and important maritime history, going back at least a millennium to the Vikings up the present day with the largest container shipping company in the world. With so much coastline in such a strategically important location, it was inevitable that moving things and people over the…
On a recent trip to the Arctic I decided to stick a GoPro on one of the ship’s rails to capture our progress punching through the polar ice pack as we got north of Svalbard. This drifting sea ice is the summer home of polar bears and the seals they…
It’s known as Hamlet’s castle because Shakespeare set his play at the castle in Elsinore, the Anglicized version of the town’s Danish name, Helsingør. Kronborg Castle sits on a peninsula of the Sound that leads down to the Baltic. It’s on a narrow point between Denmark and Sweden. You can…
The Chapel at Kronborg Castle isn’t especially large, and it’s not ornate by the standards of other European churches, but it has its charms. It’s also one of the oldest parts of the castle. It dates back to 1582 and survived a major fire in 1629 that claimed much of…
The Royal Apartments at the 16th-century Kronborg Castle are where King Frederick II and his very young queen, Sophie, lived and worked. (Sophie was 14 years old when they married.) As you walk through them when you visit Kronborg Castle today you’re seeing rooms that have been reconstructed to appear…
The legend of Holger Danske, or Holger the Dane, is nearly a millennium old. The legend tells of a Danish prince accomplishing great feats after being sent to Holy Roman Emperor Charlemagne as a hostage. The legend actually originated in France, but it has been adopted by the Danes with…
I took this photo last spring during the very brief blooming of the saucer magnolias (or tulip magnolias) in Washington DC. They’re one of the spring’s first dramatic blooming varieties in the DC area, usually beating the more famous cherry blossoms by a couple of weeks. But this particular year…
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It’s drafty and dark, and It feels like you’re walking around the deck of a ship. And there’s a good reason for that. The pagoda is made entirely of teak, a timber long prized in shipbuilding and boatbuilding. It’s held up by 267 massive posts of teak, the largest of…
If you’re headed into the Guatemalan highlands town of Chichicastenango, chances are you’re going for the famous market day. While you’re there, it’s worth dropping by the town’s cemetery just down the hill a little. The town is not very big, so the cemetery isn’t either, but it sure is…
Bangkok is the very epitome of a bustling city. Crowded, crammed, and chaotic. Amid all that, there are still millions of bites of beauty around many of the city’s corners. But you get a totally different perspective from up high. Some of the fancy newer hotels have realized this and…
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Travel Photography Ushuaia, The World’s Most Southern City USHUAIA, Argentina — Ushuaia claims the title of the world’s southernmost city. These days its main industry is tourism, serving as a gateway to Antarctica. But the town also has charms of its own. The Tombs of the Sultans at Hagia Sophia…
Translating as “Temple of the Golden City,” the 16th-century Wat Xieng Thong sits on the end of the peninsula of Luang Prabang’s historic center, wedged between the Mekong and the Nam Khan rivers. It is considered one of the most important of Lao monasteries, and the temple remains a significant…
Most of the temples in Bagan are out on the plain. The Manuha Temple is different. It’s tucked into Myinkaba Village, a smaller built-up area just off the main road, halfway between Old Bagan and New Bagan. It was built around the 1060s, making it one of the oldest temples…
It feels a little odd to be climbing hundreds of feet up on a pile of bricks that is famous for being structurally unsound. And there are places on the way up where the line between building and rubble is definitely fuzzy. But the view at the top is worth…
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