Author Archives: Justin
Photos Of The Day: Vatican City Art
I’m not the biggest fan of this place for a variety of reasons, but the collection of art assembled in Vatican City is truly remarkable: Continue reading
The Largest Stone In The World
This is an abandoned Roman quarry (which I thought was interesting by itself) found within the Lebanese city of Baalbek: Off in a corner of the quarry… …can be found what is billed as the largest stone in the world, measuring in at 21.5m by 4m by 4.5m: It was the Romans that carved out … Continue reading
The Road To Damascus
The windshield was dirty and cracked, the picture is blurry… I didn’t care because I was so pumped up to actually be entering Syria: I should mention at this point how unexpected taking the above picture was for me. We met a number of people in Lebanon that were refused entry to Syria on suspicion … Continue reading
Exploring Byblos (Jbeil), Lebanon
Byblos is believed to be the oldest continuously-inhabited city in the world: About 7,000 years ago a small Neolithic fishing community settled along the shore and several of their huts, with crushed limed stone floors, can still be seen. Many tools and weapons of this stone age period have been found as well. The Chalcolithic … Continue reading
The Umayyad Mosque of Damascus, Syria
The Minaret of Qaitbay as seen from the outside of the Umayyad Mosque… Considered the first monumental work of architecture in Islamic history, the Umayyad Mosque (also called the Great Mosque of Damascus) is a melting pot of different faiths. It houses the mausoleum of John the Baptist — which is said to contain his … Continue reading
The Lebanon Of Hezbollah
Hezbollah fighters launching rockets toward Israel… I’ve already shown you the Mleeta Resistance Landmark… And if you are a reader of this web site, you are almost certainly already familiar with Hezbollah anyway. Therefore, I shall not go into a detailed history here. I’ll sprinkle in some interesting facts and observations I made on our … Continue reading
The Velvet Rocket 