The Deserted City of Ani

Church of The Redeemer (source)

Ani (Armenian: Անի)] is a ruined and uninhabited medieval Armenian city-site situated in the Turkish province of Kars, near the border with Armenia. It was once the capital of a medieval Armenian kingdom that covered much of present day Armenia and eastern Turkey.

The landscape today. The Church of The Redeemer is the white building at the right side. The Cathedral of Ani is the building at the left side of the photo (source)

Called the 'City of 1001 Churches', Ani stood on various trade routes and its many religious buildings, palaces, and fortifications were amongst the most technically and artistically advanced structures in the world. Between 100.000 and 200.000 people lived here at its prime, rivaling in importance with cities like Bagdad, Cairo or Constantinople. 

The remains of the huge Cathedral of Ani (two tourists are resting at the right side) (source)

Since it is located in the border region between The Ottoman Empire (Turkey), Persia (Iran) and Russia it suffered heavily from wars (and also from various earthquakes). The city was entirely abandoned by the middle of the 18th century. Today only a few buildings still (albeit just partly) stand.

city walls: the Kars gate (source)

birds eye view (source)

next episode: a tip

Saarland

Zurück zum Vaterland! 1935 Volksabstimmung Saarbrücken (Bernt Zander, 1935).

The Saarland is one of Germany's sixteen federal states. The capital is Saarbrücken and it has a population of 1 million inhabitants.

Saarland is located at the German-France border .

After WWI, under the Treaty of Versailles, the 'Territory of the Saar Basin' (with a wealth of coal deposits and large-scale industrial exploitation) was occupied and governed by the United Kingdom and France for a period of fifteen years. Prior to its creation as a territory the Saarland did not exist as a unified entity. The inhabitants voted to rejoin Germany in a plebiscite held in 1935.

 

After WWII the Saarland was a French-occupied territory (the Saar Protectorate). In 1955, in another plebiscite, 68% of the voters rejected the independence offered by France, despite the public support of West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer for this plan. The rejection was interpreted as support  to join Germany, and so Saarland did on January 1, 1957.

next episode: Ani

Zwolle City Wall

Zwolle (2010 population: 120.000), a former member of the Hanseatic League, has some parts of their city walls beautifully restored. Zwolle is located 50 miles northeast of Amersfoort.

The Sassenpoort (late 14th - early 15th century) (source:albertscorner.web-log)

A piece of restored city wall  

Wijndragerstoren (Wine Carrier Tower) (photo by Michiel Verbeek)

next episode: Saar

The Villa Aldobrandini at Frascati

 Caspar Van Wittel  - A view of the Villa Aldobrandini from the Piazza Municipale at Frascati

Caspar Van Wittel (aka Gaspar Vanvitelli) (Amersfoort, 1653 - Rome, 1736). Click on the image for a larger version.

Streetview:

Grotere kaart weergeven

next episode: Zwolle

German invasion of The Netherlands

 Motorcyclists of the SS-Regiment ‘Der Führer’ in the Hoogstraat in Wageningen driving to the Grebbeberg, 13-15 May 1940 (source). 

On the morning of May 10th, 1940 the Dutch awoke to the sound of aircraft engines roaring in the sky. Germany had commenced operation Fall Gelb (Case Yellow) and attacked the Netherlands, Belgium, France and Luxembourg, in the case of the Low Countries without a declaration of war given before hostilities.

next episode: Italy

Amersfoort Liberation Day

Parade of British Troops (photo Fortgens, Amersfoort) 

On Monday May 7th, 1945 the Canadian Allied Forces entered Amersfoort. The photo shows a parade of British troops on the Hof square a few days later. Welch Fusiliers, the Gloucestershire Regiment and the Essex Regiment paraded on the central town square. In those days the Amersfoortse Kei, the town symbol, was exhibited over there.

Nationwide Liberation Day is celebrated on May 5th. On May 4th the victims of World War II are commemorated.

next episode: invaded.... 

The 335 Years' War

Dutch Fleet (Willem van de Velde the Younger, 1658)

There has been a state of war between The Islands of Scilly and The Netherlands for 335 years. This war has been extended for so long by the lack of a peace treaty. Without a single shot being fired, it makes it one of the world's longest wars and a bloodless wars.

During the English Civil War the Roundheads (Parliamentarians) led by Oliver Cromwell had fought the Cavaliers (Royalists) led by king Charles II to the edges of England. In 1648, Cornwall was in the hands of Cromwell and the Royalist Navy was forced to retreat to the Isles of Scilly.

Oliver Cromwell (usurpator)

The governor of the Scilly Isles was John Grenville, a close friend and adviser of king Charles. During 1649-51 he directed Royalist pirates from Scilly in a lucrative campaign against English and Dutch merchantmen to raise prize money for Charles II's court-in-exile (The Dutch Republic was allied with the Parliamentarians).

Charles II (king)

The Dutch Navy was suffering heavy losses, so they dispatched twelve warships to the islands. On 30 March 1651, Admiral Maarten Tromp arrived in Scilly to demand reparation for the Dutch ships and goods taken by them. After receiving no satisfactory answer war was declared specifically upon the Isles of Scilly.

Maarten Tromp (Dutch naval hero)

The Parliamentarians promised to resolve the problem and in June 1651 they forced the Royalist fleet to surrender. Tromp, who was cruising the neighborhood looking for places to attack, left without firing a shot. Due to the obscurity of the declaration of war the Dutch did not officially declare peace.

In 1985, Roy Duncan, historian and Chairman of the Isles of Scilly Council, wrote to the Dutch Embassy in London about the myth that the islands were still at war. The embassy staff found the myth to be accurate (although a real declaration of war could not be found, it is questionable Tromp was to qualified to declare war). Duncan invited the Dutch ambassador Huydecoper to visit the islands and sign a peace treaty. Peace was declared on April 17, 1986, 335 years after the 'war' began.

next episode: veteran

The Isles of Scilly

Tresco Abbey Gardens (source: ukriversguidebook)

The Isles of Scilly form an archipelago 278 miles off the southwestern tip of the Cornish peninsula of Great Britain. There are 5 inhabited islands (population:2.200) and around 140 islets. Influenced by the North Atlantic Current the climate is almost subtropical. 

Scilly has been inhabited since the Stone Age. The islands have been visited by among others Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans and even Viking king Olaf I of Norway. At certain low tides the sea becomes shallow enough for people to walk between some of the islands, and ancient field walls become visible below the high tide line. It is therefore likely that the islands used to be joined together into one island; rising sea levels flooded the central plain around 400–500 AD, forming the current islands.

The 'c' in Scilly is silent, so the pronunciation is the same as the word 'silly'. Therefore the Scillonians prefer the islands to be referred to as 'The Isles of Scilly' instead of 'The Scilly Islands'.

next episode: The Scilly's at war with the Dutch

Penzance

Panorama of Penzance (Cornwall) by Mark Twyning.

Penzance (population: 21.000) is the most westerly major town in Cornwall, UK. In medieval times and later, Penzance was subject to frequent raiding by Barbary Pirates.

 

Penzance was the birthplace of the chemist Sir Humphry Davy. He invented the process of electrolysis, was the first person to discover laughing gas, and he proved (with Michael Faraday) that diamonds are made of pure carbon.

Penzance is the home of the pirates in Gilbert and Sullivan's famous comic opera, The Pirates of Penzance (1879).

The seal of Penzance with the head of St. John on a platter.

In June, during the Golowan Festival, a Mock Mayor is elected as a parody of the official office of Mayor ( a tradition found in a number of communities throughout the British Isles)

From Penzance you can fly or take the ferry to the Scilly Islands.

next episode: Scilly Islands

Gene Tierney

Gene Eliza Tierney

"With her blue-green eyes, brown hair, prominent cheekbones and what many young men of the 1940′s regarded as the most appealing overbite of the day (Miss Tierney said her movie contract stipulated that her slightly protruding front teeth were never to be fixed)" (NYT obituary)

next episode: back to Cornwall

John Wilkes Booth's Grave

The unmarked grave of JW Booth with some Lincoln pennies on top (source).

John Wilkes was named after the English radical politician John Wilkes, a distant relative (Booth's uncle Algernon Booth is the great-great-great-grandfather of Cherie Blair, wife of former British PM Tony Blair). After the government released his remains to the Booth family in 1869, John Wilkes rests under a small unmarked stone at the corner of the family plot, dwarfed by the memorial obelisk at its center.

Gravesite of the Booth family at Baltimore’s Green Mount Cemetery where the famous actor Junius Brutus Booth and several other family members are buried (source).

Junius Brutus Booth (the father of John Wilkes) was named after the lead assassin of Julius Ceasar. He was born in London but ran off to America with a London flower girl (while married to a Belgium-Dutch wife) in 1821 to start a new family and career. They settled in Harford County near Baltimore and built a house named Tudor Hall which still survives.

Obelisk (source)

As a noted Shakespearean dramatist Booth helped popularize theatre in the United States. He also wrote a letter in a fit of drunken anger to president Andrew Jackson with the threat of assassination. He is the father of Edwin Booth, the foremost American Shakespearean actor of his day who founded The Players, a New York City actors' club which continues to the present day.

next episode: a brighter subject