( Two pictures, actually )

To continue my quest for more literal, and literal-ish, English surnames, here are some more that have occurred to me: Chambers; Fields, Fielding; Knight; Prentice/Prentiss; Squire; Waterman.

Thanks to my Forgotten English calendar, I've now heard of the English scholar C. T. OnionsWe went to Philadelphia last weekend to visit Kendell's aunt and ( Read more... )

Today's Pepys entry mentions a "Lord Mordaunt". I've clearly read way too much fantasy, because I instantly thought of a heartless archvillain plotting to take over the whole of the Nineteen Realms and plunge them into Eternal Shadow, etc.

He seems to have been a little evil at least. Wikipedia says he was impeached by the House of Commons for ( Read more... )

One last Greco-Turkish entry: this one's about the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul.

( Read more... )

Not counting Athens, from which the cruise left, our trip had six stops. The first three were Greek islands: Milos, Santorini, and Rhodes. The latter three were ports on the Turkish mainland: Bodrum, Kuşadası, Istanbul ( Read more... )

Back to the world's most leisurely and intermittently updated travelogue! Today's topic is the island of Rhodes.

( Nine photos by Kendell )

O precious and sanctified blog! Once more, my corporate overlords have blocked my access to thee, after the blessed amnesty of a year or so. Were it not for this interference, I probably wouldn't still have stray memories of our August trip to Greece and Turkey to jot down. So, onward to other cool things about ancient Athens. With some photos, too ( Read more... )

Today is the tercentenary of Samuel Johnson's birthday ( Read more... )

Whenever I visit old places, I like to try to imagine what life was like there back in their heyday. I'm sure I'm not alone in wanting to do that: why else would you visit an ancient ruin, if not to try to get some glimpse of the past? And given that you could just as well stay home and look at pictures of the ruins, you have to hope that visiting ( Read more... )

I recently read Mark Twain's The Innocents Abroad, which I highly recommend. It often felt like I was reading the template for all the humorous travel books I'd ever read.

Anyway, here are three quotes about art appreciation I could relate to. They make a nice counterpoint to all the Vasari quotes.

( Three quotes )