An essay by Marina Warner, in the excellent British online magazine The Liberal, meditates on the meaning of myth:
WRITERS don’t make up myths; they take them over and recast them. Even Homer was telling stories that his audience already [...]
Archive for February, 2008
On Myth
Posted in Aegean, Religion/Mythology, classics, tagged Aeneas, Aeneid, Apollo, Artemis, Bill Moyers, Delos, Greek mythology, Joseph Campbell, Mediterranean, mythology, odysseus, Odyssey on February 29, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
R.W. Apple, Jr.: In Memoriam, and Bon Appetit
Posted in Croatia, fine dining, guest lecturers, tagged Croatia, Dalmatian Coast, food writing, seafood, writing on February 27, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
We at Travel Dynamics International were very saddened to learn of the death of R.W. Apple, Jr. in 2006 — gourmand, politico, and one of the New York Times’ very best writers. In 2004, he traveled with us along the Dalmatian Coast, and was so inspired by the fantastically fresh seafood he encountered there, [...]
Governors’ Palace Uncovered in Ephesus
Posted in Aegean, Turkey, tagged archaeology, Ephesus, Hadrian, Turkey on February 27, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Next time you go to Ephesus (unless you haven’t been there a first time, and shame on you for that) — you’ll be able to see something new.
What? See something new? In a city that was a ruin 1,300 years ago, and totally abandoned by the 16th century?
Well, that’s the fantastic thing about old places. [...]
Timbuktu: The Hard Way, and Our Way
Posted in Africa, tagged Mali, Senegal, The Gambia, Timbuktu on February 27, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
A reporter for The Washington Post has a very entertaining and informative article on the road to Timbuktu –
“Then, as the sun dipped below the horizon, the truck beached itself on a mound of hard sand between the tire tracks. We spun the wheels to no avail. We had no shovel and no [...]
Socrates in the 21st Century
Posted in classics, tagged Apology, classics, Death of Socrates, Phaedo, Plato, Socrates on February 27, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
The reviewer from The Chronicle of Higher Education ultimately gives a negative review of Luis E. Navia’s Socrates: A Life Examined, but the review itself provides an interesting history of the perception and reception of Socrates and his philosophy.
2,300-year-old wine ship discovered off Cyprus
Posted in Mediterranean, maritime archaeology, tagged ancient ships, cyprus, maritime archaeology, Mediterranean, sea trade on February 27, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
“The shipwreck looks very promising about shedding light on the nautical and economic history of the period in the east Mediterranean,” Demesticha told the Associated Press on Thursday.
Learn more from MSNBC.
Ahh, Salvador!
Posted in Brazil, tagged Brazil, Salvador da Bahia, South America on February 27, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
IN Portuguese, “amado” means “beloved,” and in more than a score of novels, the Brazilian writer Jorge Amado made clear his eternal passion for Salvador da Bahia, the city that took him in as a teenage boarding student and became his home. Salvador, in turn, loved him back, and even now, more than six years [...]
It’s an amazing time to visit the Parthenon
Posted in Aegean, Greece, tagged Ancient Greece, engineering, Parthenon, restoration on February 27, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Sometimes something is so iconic, so lodged in our collective memory, its image so reproduced time and time again, that it becomes washed out, and decayed of meaning. It happens with everything great and old; consider van Gogh’s “Starry Night,” or Michelangelo’s “David.” The same thing certainly has happened to the greatest, most perfect construction [...]
Journeys of Faith
Posted in Al-Andalus, Maghreb, Morocco, Religion/Mythology, Reviews, Spain, tagged Christianity, comparative religion, Islam, Morocco, Spain on February 27, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Newsweek reports:
‘One new trend has been to combine a luxury cruise with a pilgrimage. In March, Travel Dynamics International hosted a 12-day cruise to Spain and Morocco, titled “Coexistence of Cultures and Faiths.” Passengers attended lectures on the interaction of the three monotheistic faiths, led by a rabbi, a minister and an imam. “People came [...]
Clelia II returns to service for Travel Dynamics International!
Posted in Aegean, Mediterranean, Reviews, tagged Aegean, Clelia II, cruise on February 27, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
…and Mary McDowell of CruiseMates.com delivers an enthusiastic report about this lovely ship.
” This is how it was told to me: For her 27th birthday, a Greek woman named Clelia received the mother of all presents from her wealthy father: a luxury yacht. The young woman named the yacht after herself, and uses the ship [...]
