Summer Travel: Exploring Cappadocia

Disclaimer: Today’s summer travel destination isn’t exactly the most widely recognizable corner of the world. In fact, some of you seasoned travel vets out there might be scratching your heads and searching for the nearest world map. But we’re guessing that after a few hundred words or so, we’ll have you dreaming about a trip to Cappadocia.

We’re not talking…

HISTORY OF TUNISIA

The Barbary coast: 16th – 20th century AD

With the decline of the local Berber dynasties in the 15th and 16th centuries, the valuable coastal strip of north Africa (known because of the Berbers as the Barbary coast) attracts the attention of the two most powerful Mediterranean states of the time – Spain in the west, Turkey in the east.

The…

The Central and Southern Aegean Coast

The Central and Southern Aegean Coast Travel Guide

The central and southern Aegean is a region of rolling hills, mountains surrounded by clear blue seas, and glorious white-sand beaches are just a few of the reasons why. Wandering through historic ruins, boating, scuba diving, basking in the Anatolian sun, and eating fresh fish are just some…

HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE

Fall of Constantinople: AD 1453

A month after his twenty-first birthday, in April 1453, Mehmed II applies to Constantinople the stranglehold which has been a tacit threat for nearly a century, ever since the Ottoman capture of Adrianople (Edirne in its Turkish name) in 1362. He initiates a tight blockade of the city by both sea and land.

The inhabitants,…

HISTORY OF LIBYA

The Barbary coast: 16th – 20th century AD

With the decline of the local Berber dynasties in the 15th and 16th centuries, the valuable coastal strip of north Africa (known because of the Berbers as the Barbary coast) attracts the attention of the two most powerful Mediterranean states of the time – Spain in the west, Turkey in the east.

The…

Venice

Venice Travel Guide

It’s called La Serenissima, “the most serene,” a reference to the majesty, wisdom, and monstrous power of this city that was for centuries the unrivaled mistress of trade between Europe and the Orient and the bulwark of Christendom against the tides of Turkish expansion. “Most serene” could also describe the way lovers of this miraculous city feel…

HISTORY OF ISLAM

The Umayyad caliphate: AD 661-750

Mu’awiya, the leader of the struggle against Ali and his supporters, establishes himself after Ali’s death in 661 as the undisputed caliph. His power base has been Syria. Damascus now becomes the capital of the first Muslim dynasty and the centre of the new Arab empire.

Mu’awiya is a member of one of the most prominent…

HISTORY OF GREECE

Doric and Ionic: from the 12th century BC

In muted form Mycenaean Greece survives this first assault. But it suffers a final blow later in the 12th century at the hands of the Dorians – northern tribesmen, as yet uncivilized, who speak the Doric dialect of Greek. The Dorians move south from Macedonia and roam through the Peloponnese. They have…

HISTORY OF ANATOLIA

Centre of innovation: from 7000 BC

The high plateau between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean is the setting for many of the most significant advances of neolithic man and his successors in the early stages of civilization.

In the use of metals Anatolia is regularly first, or among the first. Copper implements are found here from…

HISTORY OF ALGERIA

The Barbary coast: 16th – 20th century AD

With the decline of the local Berber dynasties in the 15th and 16th centuries, the valuable coastal strip of north Africa (known because of the Berbers as the Barbary coast) attracts the attention of the two most powerful Mediterranean states of the time – Spain in the west, Turkey in the east.

The…

HISTORY OF TURKEY

Ancient Anatolia: to the 11th century AD

Anatolia, linking Asia and Europe, has a long and distinguished record as a centre of civilization – from one of the world’s first towns (Catal Huyuk), through the successive periods of Hittites and Trojans, Ionians and Lydians, Romans and Byzantines.

But the region acquires its present identity and name, as…