Water is important in the Middle East. Actually, it is important everywhere, but particularly so in the Middle East. One significant source of water in the Middle East comes from a karst spring found in the Golan Heights region of Israel. The water from this spring forms the Dan River which is the largest and … Continue reading
I was amused by these road signs I noticed when driving across Israel’s Negev Desert… Having done most of my driving in the United States, these were a little outside the sphere of familiar signs to me. Continue reading
I’ve been giving you a lot on the cities and towns of Sicily lately, but what about rural Sicily, which makes up the majority of the island? I’m glad you inquired because below is what rural Sicily looks like… Now, I don’t have much commentary on these specific scenes as I just took these pictures … Continue reading
Agrigento is located on the southern coast of Sicily and is renowned as the site of the ancient Greek city of Akragas. So, I’ll focus on that first… In its day, Akragas was one of the richest and most famous of the Greek colonies. Ancient Akragas covered a huge area — much of which is … Continue reading
Rakshasas c. 10th century Sandstone India (probably Madhya Pradesh) Feasting on human body parts, these cadaverous rakshasas (malicious spirits) are also attendants of terrifying yet protective deities such as the goddess Kali (and her variant Chamunda). In fact, this sculpture is a fragment from a large image depicting such a deity who once wore a … Continue reading
Perhaps it is a guy thing, but I have always been fascinated by volcanoes. I remember seeing video footage when I was a child of Etna spraying lava hundreds of meters into the night sky and wanted to visit ever since then. Nice to cross something else off of the list… Mount Etna is actually … Continue reading
The Velvet Rocket staff are quite familiar with Italy and have seen most of it. And we (including our Italian correspondent) remain unanimous on one point: Sicily is our favorite part of Italy. These scenes from the small Sicilian town of Cefalù, which can be found in the province of Palermo along the northern coast, … Continue reading
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