Venus & Ulysses
Tips for looking at these pictures
In 2004 we went on a seven-week trip highlighted by two events a week apart in two completely different countries: the transit of Venus in Egypt, and the celebration of Bloomsday in Ireland. So it was really two trips back to back: the first trip was to Syria, Jordan, and Egypt, and the second trip was to Ireland, England, and France.
Syria
Syria is part of The Cradle Of Civilization. It's chock full of ruins of castles and citadels and cities of various empires from thousands of years ago. The people there were all very friendly, and happy to see tourists. More pictures...
Jordan
Western Jordan has a fascinating landscape, full of canyons carved by water over millions of years. It reminds one of Utah or Arizona. We visited Madaba, a town with centuries of tradition making mosaics, the Dead Sea, and Petra, ancient capital of the Nabatean empire. More pictures...
Egypt
After climbing Mt. Sinai, we relaxed for a few days at the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh. Then we flew to Luxor to see temples and tombs of ancient Egypt, and took the train to Cairo to see the Pyramids and the transit of Venus. More pictures...
Ireland
The day after the transit, we flew to Dublin to begin the second trip with a survey of Ireland, which is an extremely beautiful green friendly country. We were blessed with unusually sunny weather the whole time, with only a minor amount of drizzle now and then. We returned to Dublin for Bloomsday, and then visited the Giant's Causeway in Northern Ireland. More pictures...
England
We took a ferry from Belfast to the Isle of Man, where we spent a day. The next night we took another ferry to Liverpool, spent the next day driving to the southern coast, and spent a couple of days seeing Stonehenge, Salisbury, the Cerne Abbas Giant, and the coast itself. More pictures...
France
The mission of the last part of the trip was to have a bunch of really good dinners in France, particularly in Lyon, the gastronomic capital. We crossed to Cherbourg, visited Mont St. Michel, and spent a night in Orleans. Then we spent three nights in Lyon. After that we made our way up both sides of the eastern border of France with visits to Lausanne, Strasbourg, and Luxembourg, and ended up in Calais where we caught the Eurostar train back to London to catch our plane. More pictures...
Extras
Here are some collections of interesting works of art we encountered on the trip, many examples of old and new graffiti, a few political posters, and some photos of textures that look nice behind all those icons on the screen. More pictures...
