DEBRE BIZEN MONASTERY From the closer photo it looks freakout material on the edge of a cliff but from afar looks quite expansive in an amazing location. You, Ake, probably are the first to post pics of churches and/or mosques in Eritrea, so with pleasure I have posted them in the "Cathedrals, grand churches, mosques & places of worship" thread in the Photography Forum. Check 'em out.
Thanks for adding the picture to the forum Thank's for adding the photo of Debre Bizen monastery to the forum. The setting of the monastery is very dramatic with steep cliffs on at least two sides of it. /Ake
MATARA PILLAR An intriguing blog Ake. The lettering on this pillar, which I presume is fallen, is nor cuneiform or Sanskrit, so I wonder if you know. We saw giant pillars in Axum, Nthn Ethiopia which was quite close to the border of Eritrea.
Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania To make a trip to all three Baltic states, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, would probably be awesome in summer. We have been thinking about doing that but have so far not done it. But the shorter trips in the region we have undertaken have been joyful. /Ake
Around Cyprus Thanks for taking us along to enjoy the beauty. Since you'd been to North Cyprus in 2006 no need to spend a lot of time there on this trip.
I would not miss... When visiting Cyprus I would make sure not to miss Holy Monastery of St Nicholas of the Cats. But that's mainly me and my love of cats talking.
Thanks for commenting Thanks for commenting on the blog. It makes me glad to hear that you enjoy reading it. I hope you read our other blog entries too.
Cats! I thought the cats were bad in Turkey. lol. Traveling Cyprus by car seems easy, is it economical. Is it the only way to travel? Very interesting all the churches and monasteries. Is the weather mild at that time of year?
Cats and travelling information on Cyprus I have visited Türkiye a few times and from my memories there was not even close to be as many cats there as there was in Cyprus.
It was very economical to travel by car. The rent was very low.
When I was there in late December the weather was very nice. No rain, plenty of sun and around 20 degrees in the daytime and maybe around 15 at night. I guess I should point out that normally it is probably a bit colder and a lot more rain. I think I was very lucky.
Cyprus Great to see you travelling again Ake. I'm planning a trip to Cyprus myself next year, so looking forward to some inspiration! Larnaca looks nice, and nice to see it's still active outside the tourist season.
Hope you found some interesting places Hope the blog entries I have posted from Cyprus give you something of value when you plan your trip. In the Larnaca and Ayia Napa-blog I guess you mostly find things you would have located yourself though
Paphos Another church to add to the one you posted in TB's "Cathedrals, grand churches, mosques and places of worship" thread in the Photography Forum that I have posted for you. Built next to ancient columns. Gotta love ancient ruins. Fascinating. We do not have them in Oz except ancient rock art.
We don't have many ancient ruins either Sweden is far north in Europe so neither the Greek Empire not Ancient Rome ever included our territory. We did however produce some buildings ourselves 800 years ago or so and some of those are today nice looking ruins.
I love the ancient art in Australia and I would love to visit again and see some more.
And now there's more And now I have published the third and last blog entry from that trip. Hope you enjoy that one as well. If you like cats I can recommend reading about Holy Monastery of St Nicholas of the Cats. /Ake
Cyrus holds interest We were going to visit Turkey and Cyprus later this year but another trip popped up so that may not happen. Thanks for sharing your time there. I think we would enjoy visiting. I'm sorry you didn't make it to the Salt & Pepper Museum. That is a place you would have found us visiting. Off season is usually a great time to visit many places.
Combining Turkey and Cyprus Since you have been thinking about visiting Turkey and Cyprus I can give you some input from my perspective. I spent a week in Cyprus and was quite happy with that. I didn't need more time than that but wouldn't have liked less than that either. A long time ago I visited North Cyprus (2006. I have written about it on TravelBlog if you wish to read about it). I spent a week there and was quite happy with that. I didn't need more time than that but wouldn't have liked less than that either. Turkey I have visited several times. Even if you limit yourself to the most interesting places you could easily spend a month there.
North Cyprus is occupied by Turkey. The situation is very relaxed nowadays so I don't expect you to run into any visa problems if you decide to go to Cyprus and Turkey on the same journey. But travelling directly between the two countries might not be possible. But it ought to be uncomplicated to travel via some other country in Europe. /Ake
Fun collection of photos Interesting that churches, mosques and a monastery (Buddhist? Christian??) all are represented. I'm curious about the demographics there. Thanks for sharing your trip! Oh my cod! hahahaha
We are Emma Holmbro and Ake Dahllof. We live in Stockholm, Sweden.
We have travelled more or less regularly since the mid 1990-ies and it seems like the more we travel the more difficult it is to decide where to go next. Not because we are running out of places to visit but because we find more places we want to go to faster than we manage to travel to them.
Some of the things from our travel bucket list we have ticked off since we started this blog in 2006 are
Angel Falls in Ven... full info
Dancing Dave
David Hooper
DEBRE BIZEN MONASTERY
From the closer photo it looks freakout material on the edge of a cliff but from afar looks quite expansive in an amazing location. You, Ake, probably are the first to post pics of churches and/or mosques in Eritrea, so with pleasure I have posted them in the "Cathedrals, grand churches, mosques & places of worship" thread in the Photography Forum. Check 'em out.