The element of fantasy is a recurring theme in the written accounts of visitors to the pink Rococo palace of Queluz. One such description is that of Cecil Beaton, the celebrated photographer who, visited the palace in 1942. His diary he recalls his enchantment at this fantasy world with its...Read more
At the close of the nineteenth century, Antarctica remained the only continent on Earth that had yet to feel the imprint of humankind. Until that time, only the heartiest of men had even spied her frozen wastes at a distance as they combed Antarctica’s ice-choaked waters in pursuit of whale and...Read more
Homer called this island “Ogygia,” where the divine nymph Calypso held the “master mariner and commander” captive for seven long years, but the Maltese call it Gozo. The cave itself is said to be a grotto high in a cliff overlooking the beach at Ramla Bay, on the north side of the island, the...Read more
The thirteenth century Buddhist monastery of Itum Bahal and the Teku Thapatali Monument Zone at the confluence of the Bagmati and Vishnumati rivers in Nepal were placed on World Monument Fund’s list of the 100 Most Endangered Sites in 1996, 2000, and 2002 due to increasing pressure...Read more
Following the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro and Che Guevara selected the Havana Country Club as the site for a series of National Art Schools, educating students of ballet, modern dance, music, and the dramatic and plastic arts. The architects Ricardo Porro, Vittorio Garatti and Roberto Gottardi...Read more
Private trusts such as the United Kingdom’s National Trust have been effective tools for local preservation, though they are also capable of accomplishing work on a global scale. Being relatively small, non-governmental organizations, trusts are able to avoid some of the pitfalls of...Read more
Commissioned by King Manuel I in celebration of Vasco da Gama’s 1498 discovery of a lucrative sea route to India, Lisbon’s Jerónimos Monastery is the crowning achievement of Manueline architecture. Built on the site of the Santa Maria hermitage, founded by Prince Henry the Navigator in 1460, the...Read more
Few regions of the world are as steeped in history as Afghanistan, its vast archaeological remains bearing silent witness to all who have come to reap the country’s riches—among them, Greeks, Kushans, Sassanians, and Arabs. Few nations on Earth have ever experienced the political turmoil and...Read more
The Bogd Khan Palace in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, represents a last vestige of a way of court life that had prevailed in Central Asia for centuries, until the brutal Stalinist purges of the 1930s. The residence of the eighth and last Bogd Khan ( Living Buddha), head of state and religious leader of...Read more
In 1585, three Englishmen—William Leeds, Ralph Fitch, and John Newbury— landed on the west coast of India, bearing a letter from Queen Elizabeth I. Her majesty requested that the travelers be “honestly intreated and received,” as a first step toward establishing a “mutual and friendly trafique of...Read more