Category Archives: PLACES AND TRAVEL

The Blue Mountains, NSW.

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Sheer rock face at the Blue Mountains
Image Credit: Wikimedia.
Only a short drive from Sydney, the Blue Mountains provide spectacular scenery and a variety of activities are available for everyone.
The “Blueys” have been a mainstay destination for outdoor enthusiasts for decades.
And rightly so; the myriad villages that comprise the Blue Mountains area offer a great base from which to tackle everything from abseiling, canyoning and climbing, through to bushwalking, canoeing and mountain biking.
Accommodation ranges from campsites through to luxury Bed and Breakfast.
Walking is a Blue Mountains specialty (there’s even an annual walking festival) and there are a huge variety of options.
If you’re just after a few hours’ walking, the Grand Canyon track, near Blackheath, is ideal.
If you’re keen on an overnighter, then the trek to the beautiful Blue Gum Forest is a no-brainer.
You get to experience the sandstone cliffs up close as you make your way down the steep track that starts at Evans Lookout carpark, before following a creek along the valley floor to the campsite.
For rock climbers, there are oodles of routes – bolted and trad – and grades ranging from easy through to truly epic multi-pitches.
Source: Blue Mountains NSW – Australian Geographic

The Quebec City I Love.

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Rue St. Louis – Photograph by Susan Seubert
Keith Bellows, Editor in Chief, National Geographic Travel
When I was growing up, Quebec City was something of an also-ran compared to Montreal, its brasher, more idiosyncratic sibling and my hometown. My family would often drive the 150 miles up the St. Lawrence River to Quebec City, and as a kid I recall coming away a little underwhelmed. I
t seemed so dutiful and reserved next to the “sin city,” as Montreal was known. Sure, Quebec City could lay claim to a marginally more storied history—symbolized by the star-shaped Citadelle and the once bloody Plains of Abraham, where the British and French clashed over control of what would become Canada. But next to Montreal it lacked panache.
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Notre-Dame de Quebec – Photograph by Susan Seubert
No more. These days the cities have reached a comfortable détente over which has the most to offer. They are simply different. Quebec City’s warren of cobblestone streets, hulking Fairmont Le Château Frontenac, and Upper and Lower Towns are backdrop to its francophone fashion shops, chansons echoing off centuries-old cut-stone buildings, and air heavy with thick Québécois accents—a combination that’s unique in all North America. The food has gone from pedestrian to a superbly traditional force of gustatory nature (many dishes draw on local ingredients).
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Raclette – Photograph by Susan Seubert
When it turned 400 years old in 2008, Quebec City also seemed to turn a corner. Now it is a truly modern city with old bones. My advice: Learn a little French, try it out on the residents, and you’ll enter a world where the locals will help you unlock the keys to street-level Old France.
See more via I Heart Quebec City — National Geographic.

The Sarcophagi of Karajia, Peru.

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 Photo Credit: JF (Flickr).
About 60 km northeast of the city of Chachapoyas, in Luya Province, in Peru, lies the archaeological site of Karajia, where the funeral tombs of the “ancient wise men” are located.
Perched high on a ledge by the side of a limestone cliff, the six sarcophagi (coffins carved in stone and displayed above ground) resembling six limbless torsos with large heads and enormous jaw lines, stand proud with their chin up and facing the abyss.
Some of the headpieces are embellished with horns, imitating deer antlers, while others have encrusted human skulls, which are presumed to be trophy heads. Each sarcophagus is 2.5 meters tall.
The sarcophagi were built by the Chachapoya people to house the remains of important individuals in their culture, about 600 years ago.
Originally, there were eight sarcophagi but two were destroyed by earthquakes and other natural elements.
Their inaccessible location high above a river gorge has thankfully preserved them from destruction by looters.
via The Sarcophagi of Karajia | Amusing Planet.

The Tabletop Mountains of Venezuela.

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tepui-venezuela-46Tepuis are flat table-top mountains found in the Guayana Highlands of South America, especially in Venezuela. In the language of the Pemon people who live in the Gran Sabana, Tepui means ‘House of the Gods’ due to their height.
Tepuis tend to be found as isolated entities rather than in connected ranges, which makes them host to hundreds of endemic plant and animal species, some of which are found only on one tepui.
Towering over the surrounding forest, the tepuis have almost sheer vertical flanks, and many rise as much as 1,000 meters above the surrounding jungle. The tallest of them are over 3,000 meters tall.
The nearly vertical escarpments and dense rainforest bed on which these tepuis or mesa lie make them inaccessible by foot. Only three of the Gran Sabana’s mountains can be reached by foot, among which the 2,180m-high Roraima is the most accessible.
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Tepuis are the remains of a large sandstone plateau that once covered the granite basement complex between the north border of the Amazon Basin and the Orinoco, between the Atlantic coast and the Rio Negro, during the Precambrian period. Over millions of years, the plateaus were eroded and all that were left were isolated flat-headed tepuis.
Although the tepuis looks quite barren, the summit is teeming with life.
The high altitude of tepuis causes them to have a different climate from the ground forest. The top is often cooler with frequent rainfall, while the bases of the mountains have a tropical, warm and humid climate.
Many extraordinary plants have adapted to the environment to form species unique to the tepui.
Some 9,400 species of higher plants have been recorded from the Venezuelan Guayana, of which 2322 are registered from the tepuis. Approximately one-third of the species occur nowhere else in the world.

Read more via Tabletop Mountains or Tepuis of Venezuela | Amusing Planet.

The Cave City of Crimea.

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Photos: Dementievsky Ivan
Eski Kermen is a medieval town located just 6 km from Mangupa, in the Bakhchisaray region in Crimea.
The town is located atop one of the flat-topped mountains called mesa, which are normal for this part of Crimea, and is famous for its more than 300 caves.
The caves were built in the 6th century and was used for human habitation because of the safety they provided and the shelter that they offered from the elements.
Over the centuries the dwellings grew and housed several hundreds of people at one time.
eski-kermen-7[2]Religious life was important to these people who had a few temples and churches built in the caves.
One of the churches still has frescoes that depict Christ and Mary, although the frescoes are beginning to show the wear of the elements.
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The “cave city” was inhabited until the arrival of the Mongols in the 13th century.
Due to the mountainous terrain, the town is difficult to reach and was therefore one of the last to succumb to the Mongol onslaught.
After the caves were abandoned by the residents, for a brief period, the neighboring villagers began to use the caves for commercial purposes.
Today, the caves of Eski Kermen makes for a great day-trip and for hikes.
See more via Eski Kerman, An Ancient Cave City in Crimea | Amusing Planet.

Richard the Lionheart’s Castle.

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Richard the Lionheart was once king of this imposing castle on the banks of the Seine that features in Kieron Connolly’s latest book, Abandoned Castles.
The world is littered with castles, once majestic but now standing as ghostly reminders to the way we once lived.
Château Gaillard was built on the banks of the Seine between 1196 and 1198 on the orders of Richard the Lionheart, (King of England and Duke of Normandy).
The stronghold – north-west of Paris – was as close as possible to the border between Richard’s Normandy and the territories of the French king.
It was supposed to be impregnable but fell to the French in 1204.
The chateau is among 100 forts featured in Abandoned Castles by Kieron Connolly (Amber Books,).
The world is littered with castles, once majestic but now standing as ghostly reminders to the way we once lived.
Image Credit: Photograph by Francis Cormon/Alamy
Source: Travel photo of the week: The Lionheart’s castle, Normandy | Travel | The Guardian