Dick Schmitt

The Chinati Foundation/La Fundacion Chinati Marfa, Texas Visited 1 and 2 April, 2010 Please see the same text and many pictures at the sites below Click here For a web page, or cut and paste this link: http://www.dickschmitt.com/travels/texas/big-bend-area/chinati/index.html Click here For a slide show or cut and paste this link: http://picasaweb.google.com/schmitt.dick/ChinatiFoundation#slideshow The Chinati Foundation/La Fundacion Chinati displays the works of a few modern artists in a space integrated with the Chihuahuam desert which surrounds it in Marfa, Texas. Because of its distant and sometimes hostile location, few will visit these intriguing ex... read more

Please see the same text and many pictures at the sites below Click here For a web page, or cut and paste this link: http://www.dickschmitt.com/travels/Croatia/dalmatia/pula/index.html Click here For a slide show or cut and paste this link: http://picasaweb.google.com/schmitt.dick/PulaCroatia#slideshow Pula Croatia At the Southern tip of Dalmatia's Istria Peninsula, Pula rises from a bay that has sheltered navies from the galleys of Byzantium to the dreadnoughts of the Austro-Hungary Empire. Today it sports impressive Roman ruins including perhaps Europe's best-preserved forum and the 6th largest surviving amphitheater.  In letters home, James Joyce called it a "naval Sibe... read more

Please see the same text and many pictures at the sites below Click here For a web page, or cut and paste this link: http://www.dickschmitt.com/travels/Croatia/dalmatia/split/index.html Click here For a slide show or cut and paste this link: http://www.dickschmitt.com/travels/Croatia/dalmatia/split/index.html Split Croatia Visited 18 and 20 October 2009 Second -- eventually to none Split started life as a retirement villa for a retired Roman Emperor -- and ended up as the Dalmatian coast's largest city as well as its economic and cultural hub. The important Roman town was four miles away with all the comforts of a provincial capital -- and because of that, a target for th... read more

Please see the same text but with many pictures at the sites below Click here For a web page, or cut and paste this link: http://www.dickschmitt.com/travels/Croatia/Hvar/hvar/index.html Click here For a slide show or cut and paste this link: http://picasaweb.google.com/schmitt.dick/HvarCroatia#slideshow/5420735224775379474 Hvar, Croatia Visited 18 and 19 October 2009 Hvar claims to be the sunniest spot in Europe and has been a tourist destination since 1886. Over 5,000 years ago, this was the site of the Hvar Culture. UNESCO calls the still-used fields a world heritage site for Greek agriculture. This island is the longest Adriatic island at about 43 miles long. B... read more

Visited Dubrovnik, Croatia 16 and 17 October 2009 Please see the same text and many pictures at the sites below Click here For a web page, or cut and paste this link: http://www.dickschmitt.com/travels/Croatia/Dubrovnik/overview/index.html . Click here For a slide show or cut and paste this link: http://picasaweb.google.com/schmitt.dick/DubrovnikCroatia#slideshow Map it Called the "Pearl of the Adriatic" because of its masterful town planning in the late 12th century, Dubrovnik skillfully manipulated hostile neighbors to maintain its independence during its golden age. Then came the earthquake that leveled it. Rebuilt in the Baroque period, this UNESCO World Heritage Site has a... read more

Rector's Palace -- Dubrovnik, Croatia Visited 16 and 17 October 2009 Please see the same text and many pictures at the sites below Click here For a web page, or cut and paste this link: http://www.dickschmitt.com/travels/Croatia/Dubrovnik/rector/index.html url=http://picasaweb.google.com/schmitt.dick/RectorSPalaceDubrovnikCroatiaSupplementalPictures#slideshowl Click here For a slide show or cut and paste this link: http://picasaweb.google.com/schmitt.dick/RectorSPalaceDubrovnikCroatiaSupplementalPictures#slideshow You may prefer to see these pages as a photo slide show which contains the same text but presents the pictures full screen size. If so, click on the slides presentation at the right. Prison or Palace? This somewhat warped pict... read more

Please see the same text and a lot of pictures at the sites below Click here For a web page, or cut and paste this link: http://www.dickschmitt.com/travels/Croatia/plitvice/plitvicelakes/index.html Click here For a slide show or cut and paste this link: http://picasaweb.google.com/schmitt.dick/PlitviceLakesNationalParkCroatia#slideshow Plitvice Lakes National Park Croatia Visited 15 October 2008 A UNESCO World Heritage site, the Plitvice Lakes National Park is a necklace of 16 turquoise alpine lakes encircling 3 mountains in the Dinaric Alps. As the insert from Wikipedia shows, it's almost at the tip of the Bosnia-Herzegovina arrowhead that cut... read more

Religious Buildings in Dubrovnik, Croatia Visited 16 and 17 October 2009 You probably want to see this presentation as either web pages ( click here ) or as a slide show (url=http://picasaweb.google.com/schmitt.dick/ReligiousBuildingsOfDubrovnikCroatiaSupplementalSlides#slideshow/5420001122676682066 click here ) Before doing that, you probably want to review my overall presentation on Dubrovnik (url=http://picasaweb.google.com/schmitt.dick/DubrovnikCroatia?authkey=Gv1sRgCOzimefG9ZzgWA#slideshow/5416624998045016882 click here ). Below is the text found on those pages: The Franciscan Monastery Let's start with the Franciscan Monastery which anchors the west end of Dubrovnik, just inside the Pile gate and extends northward towards the Minceta tower. ... read more

Stop! Don’t read this page! Instead, read the same text and see the pictures much larger by clicking here. OK, if you read this, you didn’t follow our advice. You may find that some of these small pictures are a bit mishapen. If so, just click on any of them to see them larger. Join us as we visit this developing democracy as it emerges from the chaos of Europe’s latest war. Croatia is crescent shaped, ironically because it clung to its coast while resisting the Ottomans who threatened from Bosnia for centuries. Hungarians took it over in 1102 and held on until the “war to end all wars” which we call WWI. It then joined its neighbors in becoming Yugoslavia. It declared independence in 1991 — but fought the Serbian-dominated Yugoslav army for 5 bloody ... read more

These are the captions for this album: http://picasaweb.google.com/schmitt.dick/TheDefensiveWallsOfDubrovnikCroatia?authkey=Gv1sRgCPun7on-t_qangE# It makes a lot more sense to see them by clicking on the link above Day or night, by land or by sea, Dubrovnik's walls are highly visible as one approaches this historic city. One of the strongest set of fortifications in Europe, these were never breached. The town fell only once, when that rascal Napoleon and his buddies were invited in to help defend -- and decided to stay and take over the place. (Oh, those French!) But to a large degree, Dubrovnik's best defense were the skillful diplomats who played the city'-states's enemies off against each other such as the Venetians and the Turks. (Diplomacy sometimes consisted of paying tribute -- and bribes -- to each of those countries as well.) At the rear we see ... read more