Jerónimos Monastery. Photo by Sandra Floyd, Fujifilm XT-20 camera with 27mm lens
On the night of 7 July 1497, Vasco da Gama and his crew gathered in a dilapidated church in Belém to pray, before departing on the voyage that would take them to India and launch a global commercial and colonial empire. The church was then maintained by the monks of the military-religious Order of Christ (formerly the Templars), who provided aid and comfort to mariners passing through Lisbon harbor.
But the Portuguese king, Manuel I (r. 1495-1521), had already determined to replace the decrepit old church with a monastery which would become the final resting place for himself and his successors of the Portuguese royal dynasty, the House of Avis. In subsequent years, flush with cash obtained from taxes on the spices brought back by da Gama and his successors, Manuel began construction of the new monastery in a new, sumptuous and ornate fashion which became the national style of Portugal, known ever after as the Manueline. But he selected a different religious society, the Order of St. Jerome, to manage the monastery; thus it became the Mosteiro dos Jerónimos, or Jerónimos Monastery, the Monastery of the Hieronymites. However, the new monastery church continued to be known as the Igreja (Church) Santa Maria de Belém.
The monastery was not completed at the time of Manuel’s death in 1521. Construction was resumed in 1550, but stopped again after Philip II of Spain seized the Portuguese throne in 1580 – he was spending all available funds on his new monastery-palace near Madrid, the Escorial. Yet some work was done even before the restoration of Portuguese independence in 1640, when the monastery regained its pre-eminence, becoming the necropolis for the new Portuguese dynasty, the House of Braganza.
The National Museum of Archaeology (Museu Nacional de Arqueologia) and the Maritime Museum (Museu da Marinha) are housed in the western wing of the Jeronimos Monastery, which had been the monks’ dormitory. Lisbon’s Naval Planetarium, an adjunct to the Maritime Museum, is located nearby. I would have been happy to explore all of these, but the time available limited us to visiting the Church of Santa Maria de Belém. It was a good choice, because the Church proved to be an artistic wonderland.
We entered the Church through its west portal, the main entrance, at the rear of the church, which is aligned east-west, with the choir and altar at the east; there is also a south entrance, which is quite spectacular, but it was closed.
Jerónimos Monastery Jerónimos Monastery Museu Nacional de ArqueologiaChurch of Santa Maria de BelémOrnate church windowChurch of Santa Maria, by SandieSanta Maria Bell TowerSandie’s take on the Bell Tower
The original architect, Diogo Boitac, designed a three-aisled structure with five bays (recesses) under a vaulted ceiling. In 1517 a Spanish architect, Juan de Castillo, took over; he was responsible for providing the church with a unique single-span ribbed vault supported by six slender columns, 25-metres (82 feet) high, decorated with ornate floral elements in Renaissance style.
View from the VestibuleThe NaveThe Vault
Castillo also discarded Boitac’s plan for a three-bay transept with supports in favor of a bold, innovative single-vaulted transept unsupported by any piers or columns. The result is considered a masterpiece, one of the finest examples of Manueline architecture.
The columnsThe chancel or sanctuary
This impression only deepened as we moved through the church. The nave or central section, where the congregation sits, is of the same height as the aisles to either side of it, enhancing the spacious appearance of the church. At the east end is the chancel or sanctuary, the section of the church reserved for choir and clergy, separated from the nave by steps. The chancel also contains the tombs of King Manuel I and his successor King João (John) III and their wives.
I am fond of stained-glass windows. The Church of Santa Maria de Belem, being a Late Gothic/Renaissance edifice, has a number of them and Sandie and I tried to photograph as many as we could.
Stained-glass window above the south side entry portalDepicts the Virgin Mary with the Baby JesusTall Side WindowManueline window ornamentation Another full-length side windowWindow above OrganAisle with window and altars
Santa Maria has an organ, which is nothing special as organs go, but it sits underneath a splendid stained-glass window and next to the glorious south transept. Castillo’s unsupported transept vault, lacking support by piers or columns, gives the impression of floating in the air.
South transept of the Church of Santa Maria. Another view of the south transept.The church organ stands at the end of the south aisle, with three alcoves behind it and a window above.
At the ends of both aisles are alcoves with altars and images of religious figures such as Christ, the Virgin Mary, and St. Jerome.
Western PortalAlcove with Christ bearing the CrossAlcove ImageBalcony with ribbed ceilingElaborately decorated aisle urnWoodwork on doorThe unique ribbed vault spans the entire 19-meter (62 feet) width of the church.
In the lower choir, near the end of each aisle, are the stone tombs of Vasco da Gama and of Luis Vaz de Camões, considered Portugal’s greatest poet, who celebrated the voyages of discovery in his epic Os Lusiades. The tombs are the work of a later age, carved in the late nineteenth century by the sculptor Costa Mota, but in a neo-Manueline style that blends in seamlessly with the rest of the monastery. Vasco da Gama’s remains were relocated to his Jerónimos Monastery tomb in 1880. The same was ostensibly done for the remains of Camões, except that they had been lost in the earthquake of 1755, so the bones in Camões’ tomb are almost certainly someone else’s.
Tomb of Vasco da Gama (1460-1524)Da Gama’s Neo-Manueline sarcophagusRemains of the explorer were transferred here in 1880.Tomb of Luís Vaz de Camões (1525-1580)Camões is considered Portugal’s greatest poet.
Torre de Belém, formally named the Torre de São Vicente, one of Lisbon's most iconic landmarks, completed in 1519
Sandie and I flew into Lisbon on the morning of November 4 and were met by a jovial native of Madrid named Manuel Sueiras, who would be our tour leader. He dropped us off at our hotel, the Novotel Lisboa, and encouraged us to start seeing Lisbon on our own, while he rounded up the remaining members of the tour group, who trickled in as the day wore on.
We hopped into a taxi and went to lunch in central Lisbon, somewhere on the Avenida da Liberdade, but we were too tired from the long flight to follow Manuel’s suggestion any farther, so we returned to our hotel and acquainted ourselves with its amenities, primarily the bed.
Novotel Lisbon – Children don’t payA nearby hotel, not ours.The Go-Ahead group gathers in the Novotel lobby. Sandie checks out a bicycle at our hotel. Portugal is a very bicycle-friendly country. Portugal has been a bicycle-friendly country for some time. Didn’t go hungry here.Our tour group waits for the bus in front of the hotel. on the morning of November 5.
We took it easy until later in the day, when everyone assembled in the hotel lobby for our introductory meeting, followed by an inaugural banquet at a nearby restaurant, the Pano de Boca. The name translates literally to “cloth of mouth,” in other words “napkin,” or its more elegant French equivalent, “serviette.”
It was already dark when we walked to the restaurant. On the way we passed several interesting landmarks, most notably the Lisbon Central Mosque. This is a very distinctive ultra-modern structure, inaugurated in 1985, and is Europe’s third-largest mosque outside Turkey. It features a highly unusual spiral-shaped minaret. We also encountered a sinister figure, known as The Masked Malefactor, who stalks Lisbon at night; some say that he is the Portuguese equivalent of El Zorro, California’s version of Robin Hood. His photograph is included in the gallery following. But he did NOT write the graffito in the next photo, which reads “Portugal – um país venoido aos estrangeiros.” I’m not sure what the author of this oeuvre was trying to say – my best guess is “Portugal – a country sold to foreigners”. If so the fourth word should be “vendido”. But the graffitist wasn’t necessarily fully literate. Neither am I in Portuguese, but I wouldn’t make that mistake.
At the Pano de Boca the libations flowed freely and we were introduced, among other delicacies, to the Portuguese national dish, bacalhau, which is a preparation of dried, salted cod. It can be prepared in many different ways; some say there are over a thousand recipes for bacalhau. (It should be noted that Portugal is credited with the highest consumption of fish per capita in the European Union.) I enjoyed my fill of it at the Pano de Boca. I’m usually happy as long as the wine flows freely, as it did on this occasion, but it was a special treat to experience my first taste of real Portuguese cuisine.
Lisbon at nightLisbon Central MosqueOur Dinner SpotThe Masked MalefactorGraffitoDining on BacalhauThe libations flowed freelyLisbon traffic at night
Next day, refreshed from a night’s rest, we embarked upon our tour of Lisbon. I should mention that in each place we visited, in addition to Manuel, we had a local guide who was intimately acquainted with the attractions and expounded upon them in exquisite detail. In Lisbon our local guide was an attractive blonde woman whose name I unfortunately cannot remember, but I haven’t forgotten her vivacity and eloquence.
One of the first things to know about Lisbon, which most people aren’t aware of — though I myself am well acquainted with it from reading Voltaire’s Candide — is that on 1 November 1755, All Saints Day, Lisbon was struck, and essentially destroyed by, one of the greatest earthquakes in recorded history, a magnitude 9 temblor. The earthquake and the resulting tsunami and fires caused up to 50,000 deaths. As Voltaire noted in Candide, the earthquake struck in conjunction with an auto da fé conducted by the Portuguese Inquisition, which might have been taken to signify divine displeasure with the persecution of heretics; but that didn’t happen, any more than the destruction of the Spanish Armada in 1588 persuaded Philip II that it wasn’t part of God’s plan to suppress heresy in England and Holland. However, at least the Marquis of Pombal, who presided over the restoration of Lisbon after the earthquake, did abolish autos-da-fé in 1773, though the Portuguese Inquisition itself was not terminated until 1821.
Quite significantly, King Joseph I and his chief minister, the aforesaid Marquis de Pombal, saw the destruction as an opportunity to build a new city free of the constraints of its medieval inheritance; they adopted a design which envisioned expansive public squares linked by broad avenues, lined with structures built to be earthquake-resistant. The results were enduring, and the present appearance of Lisbon can in large part be traced back to the Pombaline rebuilding of the 18th century.
We first visited a relatively low-key, indeed almost tranquil, location – the Parque Eduardo VII, or King Edward VII Park. The eponymous king was not Portuguese but English, and the park was named for him because of a visit he made to Lisbon in 1903 to reinforce Anglo-Portuguese relations and reaffirm a long alliance between the two countries — Britain having been Portugal’s staunch ally against France during the Napoleonic Wars a century earlier. The park constitutes a long north-south rectangle, at the north end of which is an observation deck with an expansive vista southward down to the Tagus River. There also is a monument, Ao 25 de Abril (“To the 25th of April”), which commemorates the Carnation Revolution of 1974, when the authoritarian Estado Novo regime was overthrown. Over it flies the largest Portuguese flag in the world.
Park Observation DeckWorld’s largest Portuguese flagApril 25 MonumentThe Long ViewFlag and MonumentView from April 25 Monument to Tagus River Morning sun over the TagusSidewalk MosaicMonument to Marquis of Pombal
At the south end of the park stands a monument to Sebastião José de Carvalho e Melo, the Marquis of Pombal. He was a scion of the country gentry who rose from obscurity to become head of the diplomatic service, and eventually the chief minister of King Joseph I (r. 1750 – 1777). He secured his pre-eminence primarily by his management of Lisbon’s recovery from the earthquake of 1755. He was for the most part a proponent of the 18th-century Enlightenment, and implemented significant reforms, over the opposition of reactionary aristocrats. He also gave his name to the style of architecture associated with the reconstruction of Lisbon. We encountered numerous examples of Pombaline architecture during our excursions around the city.
Present-day Lisbon has a population of half a million (545,000) within the city limits, but the greater Lisbon area is home to over three million. It is patently one of the great cities of the world, one of the oldest European capitals, and was the hub of a great colonial and commercial empire from the sixteenth century down to the mid-twentieth. For my part, I found it to be a beautiful, prosperous and richly endowed metropolis. Before moving on to focus on the specific major attractions, I’m presenting a panoply of random landmarks and scenes Sandie and I captured on camera – mostly from the windows of our tour bus – as we wended our way around the city.
I’ll make just a couple of notes on these random shots. The Ponte 25 de Avril, or 25 April Bridge, spanning the Tagus River, was built in 1966 and originally named for Antonio de Oliveira Salazar, who ruled as dictator of Portugal from 1932 to 1968. Salazar died in 1968 and his Novo Estado regime was eventually overthrown in the Carnation Revolution of April 25, 1974, so called because people drove out Salazar’s successors by throwing carnations at them, just like Pepperland citizens got rid of the Blue Meanies in the Beatles movie “Yellow Submarine.” The Salazar bridge was then renamed the 25 April Bridge. Later another bridge was built across the Tagus, a much longer one, upstream of the 25 April Bridge; it is named after Vasco Da Gama.
We frequently encountered election posters sporting the hammer and sickle of the Communist Party of Portugal. I remarked to our guide that I thought we had pulled all the Commies’ arms and legs off at the end of the Cold War, but she informed me that Portugal still has a vibrant and vital Communist Party. (I don’t recall seeing any such posters in Spain, though.)
Our tour bus in Lisbon.Lisbon is a picturesque city with many hills.Lisbon is also a city of pastels.Vintage StructureStately but colorfulAmoreiras, the first mall built in Portugal (1985).Amoreiras has over 200 shops and 50 restaurants.Amoreiras Mall is said to boast the best panoramic view in Lisbon.Centro Cultural de BelemMany buildings in Lisbon are decorated with beautiful azuelos (tiles).Founded 1864, for many years Portugal’s most prestigious newspaper.El Corte Ingles Department StoreEl Corte Ingles has many outlets in Spain and Portugal. The Navy PlanetariumThe Commies are backPonte de 25 Abril
From King Edward VII Park, we moved on to the Belém district, the site of some of Lisbon’s most famous and historic monuments. The most iconic, one that is always pictured in travelogues (including this one), is the Torre de Belém, officially the Torre de São Vicente. It was built by order of King Manuel I (1469-1521), as a fortification to reinforce the defenses of Lisbon at the mouth of the Tagus River, and completed in 1519. It proved its worth, or lack thereof, in the succession crisis of 1580. Two years prior, in 1578, Sebastian I, the childless King of Portugal, had foolishly undertaken a crusade in Morocco and was killed in battle. His uncle, who succeeded him as king, was a cardinal of the Roman Catholic church, and died two years later, also leaving no heirs. King Philip II of Spain, whose mother was a Portuguese princess, then claimed the throne and sent the Duke of Alva with an army to enforce his claim. The garrison of the Torre de Belém surrendered after only a few hours of resistance, causing Philip II to refer to it as “useless” and order plans drawn up to replace it with something more substantial (which never materialized). From that time the Torre was used as a prison until 1830. In the later 19th century it fell into decrepitude, but was extensively restored in the 20th.
The Belém Tower was originally built on a small island in the Tagus, just off the riverbank, but in the centuries since then development has moved the shoreline toward the island, so that it now appears to be a mere peninsula, or rather peninsulette (if that’s a word). Along with the Jeronimos Monastery and a few other sites (most of the rest having been leveled by the 1755 earthquake), the tower is considered one of the principal examples of Manueline architecture (King Manuel I having been its chief sponsor), a sumptuous style characterized by complex ornamentation in portals, windows, columns and arcades. Starting with Portuguese Late Gothic, it incorporates elements of various other styles, and initiates a transition to Renaissance architecture.
Torre de BelémTorre de São VicenteA Useless DefenseParasail Cloak
The line to get into the Tower was rather long, and one woman apparently tried to circumvent it by using her cloak as a parasail. It didn’t work.
The Torre de Belém is on the north bank of the Tagus; from there we had a wonderful view of the river and is south bank. It was easy to imagine Vasco da Gama departing in his caravel on the voyage that would take him to India, initiate a global colonial empire, and establish Lisbon as one of the great commercial centers of the world.
Vasco da Gama departs for IndiaSouth bank of the TagusFarewell to Vasco da Gama
A short walk from the Torre de Belém one encounters what looks like an old biplane equipped with floats to land in the water. This is a British-made Fairey III-D Mark II seaplane named the Lusitania (“Lusitania” is the Latin name for Portugal). It serves as a monument to Gago Coutinho and Sacadura Cabral, two Portuguese aviators who completed the first aerial crossing of the South Atlantic Ocean in 1922. They set out from a naval air station near Belém Tower and island-hopped over the Canaries and other Atlantic islands toward Brazil. Upon reaching the first islands in Brazilian waters, they tried to land in rough seas, but the plane sank. Fortunately, the aviators were saved by a Portuguese cruiser which had been sent to support the mission. Another Fairey III, named the Pátria, was sent from Portugal, and they were able to resume the journey. Unfortunately, engine failure brought them down again in the middle of the ocean, and the Pátria was lost; this time they were rescued by a British cargo ship. This time the Portuguese government dispatched a third Fairey III, the Santa Cruz , aboard another Portuguese cruiser. After it arrived they resumed their journey, and the third time proved to be the charm. They made landfall at Recife, Brazil, and flew on to Rio de Janeiro, arriving on 17 June 1922, arriving two and a half months after their departure on March 30. The Santa Cruz, the only one of the three planes to survive the journey, is now housed in Lisbon’s Maritime Museum, which we did not visit; a very realistic replica of the original Lusitania was made to put on display near Belém Tower.
Lusitania MonumentFairey III-D Mark II seaplane
I can’t help but marvel that less than half a century after the first aerial crossing of the South Atlantic, jet airplanes were making nonstop flights across entire oceans and continents, whereas four centuries separated the first circumnavigation of the globe and the invention of the airplane, and thousands of years lapsed between the invention of the sail and the voyages of Columbus and Magellan. Technological progress has accelerated at an astounding pace. Will it continue to do so, and if so, what will the future be like?
A propos of voyages, no less significant than those of Columbus and Magellan were those of the Portuguese, who began the Age of Discovery and were the first actually to reach the East Indies. Their exploits are commemorated with the Padrão dos Descobrimentos, or Monument to the Discoveries, which stands a little way down the shoreline to the east of the Tower of Belém. Unlike the Tower, it is a modern creation, originating in 1939, when a temporary version was created for an exhibition celebrating the 800th anniversary of the founding of Portugal and the 300th anniversary of the restoration of its independence from Spain. That version was demolished after the exhibition closed, but a larger version was completed in 1960 in connection with the commemoration of the 500th anniversary of the death of Prince Henry the Navigator (1394-1460), who sponsored the early Portuguese voyages of discovery.
Both the original and the current versions of the monument are the work of the Novo Estado regime of Antonio Salazar, and as such are an idealized version of the Age of Discovery, glossing over the myriad hardships suffered by the explorers during their voyages, not to mention the torments they inflicted on the peoples they encountered. The monument is a huge concrete slab, 52 meters (171 feet) high; it takes the stylized form of a caravel, the type of ship used in the early explorations. The base represents the hull of the ship, with a statue of Prince Henry standing in front, and the top of the monument depicts the sails. Lining the sides of the “hull” are statues of various significant figures connected with the voyages of discovery, including Bartolomeu Dias, discoverer of the Cape of Good Hope, Vasco da Gama, discoverer of the sea route to India, Luis Vaz de Camões (Portugal’s greatest poet, who celebrated da Gama’s voyages in his epic poem Os Lusiades), Ferdinand Magellan (who was Portuguese, though he sailed under the flag of Spain), and Pedro Cabral, discoverer of Brazil. There are 33 figures in all; in addition to the major explorers, they include members of the Portuguese royal family, scientists, artists, cartographers, and missionaries. Some of the people represented are only remotely connected with the discoveries, such as Philippa of Lancaster, an English princess who in 1387 married King John I of Portugal, thereby becoming Queen of Portugal. The marriage cemented what was to become an enduring alliance between England and Portugal. Queen Philippa was also the mother of Prince Henry the Navigator.
I didn’t realize it at the time, but the monument is hollow and contains a 101-seat auditorium, a theater and several exhibit halls, as well as a staircase affording access to the top of the monument. We didn’t know that because for some reason the interior was closed the day that we were there; otherwise I would have attempted to climb to the top and photograph the great views that are available there.
Padrão dos Descobrimentos View from the WestView from the EastView from the NorthCommemorative GlobePigeons on the SquareAn intrepid sea voyager, just returned from the Indies.
We did however enjoy the open square on the north side of the monument, which features a Rosa-dos-Ventos (compass rose) 50 meters (160 feet) in diameter, with a 14-meter (45 feet) wide mappa mundi depicting the routes of the voyages of discovery. The cost of constructing the square was donated by the government of the Union of South Africa. Different types and colors of limestone, including a rare variety found only in Sintra – a town north of Lisbon, which we visited in the afternoon – were used to pave the square and constitute the compass rose. The result, to me, is a work of stunning elegance, which I was unable to capture with my camera in its full glory because I had no tear gas grenades handy to clear away all the people on the square who churlishly thronged on it, blocking the view.
Rosa-dos-Ventos (compass rose, not the guide)Mappa Mundi
Looking west down the north bank of the Tagus from the Padrão dos Descobrimentos, we caught sight of the Museo de Arte Popular (on the right in the picture below) and the tall Farol de Belém (Belem Lighthouse), with the Torre de Belém between them.
View from west side of Padrão dos Descobrimentos, with Museu de Arte Popular (Folk Art Museum) at right; Farol de Belém (Belem Lighthouse) and Torre de Belém (Belem Tower) in the distance at left
Across the Tagus River, just to the right of the southern terminus of the 25 April Bridge, we caught sight of a tall structure with what looked like a cross on top. The cross turned out actually to be a statue depicting Christ with arms stretched wide, as if to embrace the city of Lisbon. The statue is 28 meters/92 feet tall and stands on a pedestal 82 meters/160 feet high. It is part of a complex known as the Santuário de Cristo Rei (Sanctuary of Christ the King), which itself stands on a hilltop 133 meters/436 feet above the Tagus. It was built in the 1950s as an expression of gratitude by the Portuguese for having been spared the horrors of World War II. The monument has been compared to the statue of Christ the Redeemer atop Corcovado Mountain in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, which was its inspiration.
A view across the Tagus from the north bank, near the Padrão dos Descobrimentos, looking toward the Santuário de Cristo Rei on the south bank, with the Bridge of 25 April at left.
Our next stop, after the Padrão, was the Mosteiro dos Jerónimos (Jerónimos Monastery), another landmark associated with the Voyages of Discovery. Since this post is already overly long and cumbersome, I’ll start a new one to accommodate the proliferation of photos we took there.
Hagia Sophia, built in 537 CE as a Christian basilica, was converted to a mosque in 1453, then in 1935 became a museum, and as of 2020 is again a mosque..
We flew from Cleveland to Boston on American Airlines on February 22, 2023. We were scheduled to fly from Boston to Kinshasa via Istanbul on Turkish Airlines, and we arrived on time to catch our flight. But when we checked in at the Turkish Airlines ticket counter, we encountered a hostile ticket clerk who, for reasons still unknown, seemed determined to hinder our departure in any way possible. She found a pretext in Jay’s COVID card, which recorded his latest booster shot but not his original vaccination, and refused to let him board. After a bit of heated wrangling, we signed an agreement with the airline which involved a promise to get Jay vaccinated at Istanbul airport in return for being allowed to board.
Thinking our troubles were over, we arrived at Istanbul on time. Then the task was to find the COVID testing office. We had 3 hours. Plenty of time, right? We asked for directions beaucoup times, and often the directions conflicted. In any case, it was outside the security perimeter, which meant going through immigration and customs. We finally found Passport Control, bought our Turkish visas, went through customs, and reached the COVID testing site. They promptly informed us that the test took 1-1/2 hours. Well, you guessed it. We were at the complete opposite end of the airport from the departure gate, outside Passport Control, outside security, and had little time to make the flight. Daryl had joined us at IST, and he tried to convince the agent to hold the flight for a few minutes longer. They told him to get on the plane and closed the gate.
We went back outside Passport Control to Ticket Services and received our next shock: $480 apiece to rebook the three of us. Add the COVID test in ($500), and we had now incurred almost $1900 in needless charges.
By the time we finished rebooking our flights, it was late and we were frustrated and tired. We could either wait at the airport until the following evening or find a hotel. Near the airport exit were a series of rooms all in a line under a sign reading, “Hotels”. They were populated by men who smiled at us and gestured for us to come over. That should have been warning enough, but we were tired, right? So we went over to one of them and told them we needed a hotel. They nodded enthusiastically and suggested that we combine it with a tour the next day. There would be a shuttle cost, but that would be absorbed into the tour cost. Since Istanbul is over a half hour away from IST, we agreed.
The hotel was on a quaint, narrow street in the city. The building was pretty small, and the rooms were smaller. Two single beds. Oh yes, Jay got his own room at no additional charge (they had probably padded the charges enough to make that possible). We didn’t care, getting horizontal was the priority. Next morning there was a complimentary breakfast, which was quite good. The van picked us up, and off we went on our “tour”.
The hotel where we spent our unplanned night in Istanbul was on this quiet street.
Istanbul is one of the most storied cities in the world, with a history stretching back to the 7th century BCE. First known as Byzantium, it was renamed Constantinople in 325 CE, when Emperor Constantine the Great made it the new capital of the Roman Empire. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire to Germanic invaders in the fifth century, Constantinople remained the capital of the Eastern Roman, or Byzantine, Empire until 1453, when it was conquered by the Ottoman Turks. After the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in 1922, the capital of the new Turkish Republic was established in Ankara, but Istanbul, as the city was renamed in 1930, remains the economic and cultural hub of Turkey; with over 15 million residents, it is home to 19% of the country’s population.
Of all the countless marvels of Istanbul, the one above all not to be missed is the basilica of Hagia Sophia, or Aya Sophia as it is known in Turkish. Hagia Sophia was built in the reign of the Eastern Roman Emperor Justinian I and completed in 537 CE. At the time it was the world’s largest church and remained so until the completion of the Roman Catholic cathedral in Seville, Spain, in 1520.
The name Hagia Sophia does not refer to any particular saint but rather means “Holy Wisdom,” alluding to Jesus Christ.
Over the centuries Hagia Sophia has undergone many changes, as a result of both natural disasters and human events. The first and greatest disaster was collapse of the dome in 558. The dome had to be completely rebuilt, but the result has survived, with some reinforcement and repair, down to the present day.
In 1204, as a result of various machinations by the Venetians, who by then had become serious trade rivals to the Byzantines, an army of Western Europeans embarked on the Fourth Crusade but ended up besieging Constantinople instead of Jerusalem, and under the leadership of the Venetian doge Enrico Dandolo, they sacked Constantinople and plundered many of its treasures, not excepting Hagia Sophia. Nevertheless, the basilica survived, as it did the conquest of Constantinople by the Ottoman Turks in 1453. Sultan Mehmet II the Conqueror turned Hagia Sophia into a mosque, which was how it came to be surrounded by four minarets. The Ottoman regime made various changes to the interior, such as plastering over the Christian-themed mosaics depicting Jesus, Mary and the saints in accordance with the Islamic prohibition on representations of humans and animals. After 1935, when Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, founder of the Turkish Republic which replaced the Ottoman sultanate, declared Hagia Sophia a museum, the mosaics were restored to public view. (Since the government of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan reconverted Hagia Sophia into a mosque in 2020, the mosaics and other Christian images have to be covered with curtains during services.)
The picture of Hagia Sophia included here is a stock photo because the one I took didn’t turn out very well.
The basilica and mosque of Aya Sophia, one of the world’s greatest and most enduring architectural masterpieces.
At the other end of Sultanahmet Park from Hagia Sophia, where the Grand Palace of the Byzantine emperors once stood, is another majestic structure, the Blue Mosque, officially known as the Sultan Ahmed Mosque. When in the early 17th century the Ottoman Empire suffered a series of military reverses at the hands of the Habsburg Holy Roman Empire and the Safavid Persian Empire, Sultan Ahmed I, the namesake of Sultanahmet Square, saw these setbacks as an omen that he was losing the favor of Allah. In order to win it back, and to reassert the glory and majesty of the Ottoman empire, he decided to build a new mosque that would rival Hagia Sophia as a work of art and engineering. The Blue Mosque, begun in 1609 and completed in 1617, was the result.
The Blue Mosque
Next stop was the Topkapı Palace, home of the various Sultans of the Ottoman Empire until the mid-nineteenth century, when a new and more modern palace, the Dolmabahçe, was built on the Bosphorus. We also visited the mausoleum of the sultans and their sons. It is considered a holy place, so shoes must be removed inside. I was in the midst of removing my shoes and didn’t realize that I had placed my shod foot on the upper step. Immediately someone said “No shoes inside!” and a woman swatted me on the side. Oops!
JoAnne, Chuck and Jay at the Gate of Salutation, entrance to the second courtyard of the Topkapı Palace.
Next we went to a candy shop. This was when my realization of what we had gotten into became clearer. Very friendly people, and they all knew each other. We were given several samples of Turkish Delight and various teas, and then the sales pitch began — very persuasive, aggressive, and assuming we wanted everything. We had a pretty good bag load of stuff at the end of that experience. Good quality stuff, but quite a bit more than I figured on buying.
Turkish Delight of many shapes and flavors on sale at a confectioner’s shop in Istanbul. Who could resist this?
The final stop was the Bosphorus. The picture I am including is a stock photo because the location the guide took us to for pictures was uninspiring. The guide probably chose it because there was a bazaar nearby, to which he gestured with a smile. We walked through the bazaar quickly, looking neither to the right nor the left (except I did keep my eyes on the driver). I leaned over to him and told him we were ready to return to the airport. He looked a bit surprised but did not attempt to persuade us otherwise. Into the van, and a half hour later we were let off at the airport. I cannot tell you how relieved I was!
Bosphorus Bridge and Ortakoy Mosque
Built in 1970-73, this is one of several great bridges over the Bosphorus in the Istanbul area. The mosque is a Baroque Revival piece commissioned by Sultan Abdülmecid I and built in 1854-56. It is noted noted for its high bay windows, which are cunningly contrived to stage a “light show” using both sunlight and reflected light from the water.
JoAnne, Jay and Chuck standing on a dock with the Bosphorus Bridge as a backdrop.
Back at the airport, our flight to Kinshasa was listed on the departure schedule along with a bevy of others, many of them to exotic destinations which we have never heard of (and neither have most other people). Where in the world, for example, are Astana, Ercan and Minvodi?
Flights leave to exotic places all over the world from Istanbul Airport.
Finally, a few hours later, we were on our way at last to Kinshasa.
Just to clear up one possible point of misunderstanding, one must be aware that there are two Republics of the Congo – one north of the Congo River and the other south of the river. The one north of the river is a former French colony, part of what was once French Equatorial Africa, and is now named the Republic of the Congo, but to distinguish it from the country south of the river it is often called Congo-Brazzaville, since Brazzaville is its capital. The country south of the Congo River is officially named the Democratic Republic of the Congo, usually abbreviated DRC. It is by far the larger of the two (108 million people to 5.5 million), and is in fact the second largest country in Africa by land area (Algeria being the largest). It has at various times been known under other names. In 1885 King Leopold of Belgium occupied the area and turned it into his own private property, infamously putting the population to work as slave labor and committing horrific atrocities; in Orwellian fashion he named the country the Congo Free State. In 1908 Leopold was induced by international pressure to give up his personal rule, and the country became officially a colony of Belgium, and was then known as the Belgian Congo. It won its independence from Belgium in 1960, taking the name Democratic Republic of the Congo. The first few years of independence saw a period of instability, which was resolved in 1965 with the seizure of power by army colonel Joseph Désiré Mobutu (later known as Mobuto Sese Seko), who with the support of Western powers established a dictatorship which ruled the country until 1997; he changed the country’s name to Zaïre. After the fall of the Mobutu regime the name reverted to Democratic Republic of the Congo, as it remains today. The capital city, which under Belgian rule was known as Leopoldville, was renamed Kinshasa in 1966, and that has not changed since. It is now a city of 17 million people.
Our first impressions of Kinshasa were mostly about the depth of poverty. We were surprised to find that such a great metropolis lacks a modern airport; the terminal is a decrepit building looking like a 70 year old gas station that has seen no care in all that time. One gate, no jetway.
A typical back street in the Congolese capital.
There is a saying that applies to much of Africa: “The ground is your trash can”. There is no waste disposal service in Kinshasa and no outside trash cans. Places where people congregate fill up with trash quickly. So what is their solution? That’s right – burn it. And much of the trash is plastic. Considering that there are trash fires all over, imagine the toxic compounds that everyone is breathing every day.
Small store selling shoes. Trash on ground is the norm in Kinshasa. 02/25There is no refuse pickup in Kinshasa, so all trash must be burned.
We stayed at a 4-star hotel in Kinshasa, the Royal. We found that it was host not only to humans, but to a few non-human guests as well. The latter included a male and female of an unknown species; the male wanted to mate with the female in the worst way, and she was willing, but he seemed to share the common African aversion to PDA, and kept shying away.
Hotel residents of unknown species.
One of the interesting Third World experiences is driving. I finally figured it out in Congo. Driving is one gigantic game of chicken. If you don’t mean it, you lose. If you mean it, you win, unless you come up against someone else who means it.
I missed out on recording the fearsome driving tactics of some of the locals, but I shot a video of us proceeding down a street crowded with people shopping at booths set up along the curbs. The congestion is incredible. Oh, and those yellow vans – they really pack people in. I would guess 25 people per van.
You’ve probably seen the shape of especially the taxis and vans. Scrapes and dings everywhere. Not surprising, I guess.
When we were driving down the street and were stopped by traffic, vendors would descend on us. They sold all sorts of products – mostly fruits and vegetables, but also other things like USB cables, windshield wiper blades, etc. Whip out the Congolese francs and make the deal.
Vendor at the car window, selling some type of cake. 02/27
Another thing. When we were doing something simple like looking for a parking space (not necessarily all that simple in Congo) someone would start gesturing us to follow him. The first thought is that he represented some of the shops along the street. He would then tag along with us attempting to “help” along the way. Of course we should have known. He was just a guy angling for a tip. Josué’s in-laws, who drove us around, would often blow them off, but not always.
Congolese version of Office Depot? On another back street. 02/25A street vendor dispenses his wares.
We very much enjoyed our African kids. It can be tiring but is worth it. In some ways they are quite different from us westerners, and in other ways they are much the same.
Local boy watching a soccer match who ran up to visit us on a back street in Kinshasa – 02/25Two local boys watching a soccer match who ran up to visit us on a back street in Kinshasa – 02/25
We did hand out gum to kids when we were out and about. They would have preferred money, but we didn’t think that wise. On a trip to a village along the Congo River, two 8-9 year old kids became our guides. They ran ahead of us at least a mile and then accompanied us after we parked. They would help us get into a dugout canoe and do anything else to assist. I ended up giving one of them my UCLA cap. Probably the only UCLA cap in Congo. But when we departed the village, things changed. One of our vehicles got stuck in the mud, and the boys helped push it out. I’m sure, as small as they were, their help was of no effect, but they asked the driver for a tip anyway. He refused. From that point on, they stayed in front of the car, trotting slowly, blocking us as best they could, even risking their lives to stay ahead of us. We didn’t get around them until we reached the main highway.
On one occasion we took a ride to a park and came across an army bus that was stuck. Jay and I tried to help push it out of its predicament, but in vain.
This army bus got stuck; Chuck and Jay tried to help push it out of its trap, to no avail.
Josue and Sharon’s wedding took place on Sunday, February 26. It was very nice; they wouldn’t let us take pictures of it, but I nefariously shot a video anyway. Here are some excerpts from it.
Africans seem to have a bit of an aversion to public displays of affection (PDA), and Josué was no exception. When he and Sharon started dancing, they just held hands, and the photographer then forcibly placed his hands around her waist and her hands on his shoulders, and then they danced rather clumsily after that.
Josue and Sharon after tying the knot.
The day after the wedding, February 27, we went to the wedding feast, which was held in N’Sele, a village on a river to the east of Kinshasa. It was extremely congested driving into it, with shops (portable shops) lining both sides and shoppers clogging the streets. We finally reached an open area next to an outdoor restaurant, and we parked there.
Along N’Sele River, strewn with trash. 02/27
Down to the water we went (where you saw all the trash). As elsewhere in the Congo, there were people willing to help us find our way, assist us in finding transport, etc., of course in hopes of a bit of remuneration.
Along N’Sele River, near area for boarding dugouts. Boy in striped shirt “helped” us. 02/27
A jolly boatman paddled and poled us across the channel in a dugout canoe.
N’Sele boat ride. Pirette and children, genial boatman. 02/27
Accompanying us on the boat was Pirette, a dear friend from Cleveland, who was in Congo helping her mother. She has a natural gift for languages. She even knows a Namibian “click” language!
Dugout ride across N’sele River. Seated stern to bow – Joel (Josue’s brother-in-law), Pirette and her two children, a money-changer, boatman. 02/27
They paddled and poled us across the channel, where there were lots of women selling different species of fish, some of them quite large, as well as a very large eel, with a huge circumference (unfortunately I accidentally deleted the picture I took of it).
In dugout, behind Jo Anne on N’Sele River. 02/27
They even had a live Western African crocodile all bound and gagged, so it wouldn’t eat the rest of the catch or any of the vendors and customers. It must have been a hungry crocodile.
West African Crocodile at fish market, N’Sele River. 02/27
I contemplated buying the crocodile to have it made into a new purse for JoAnne, but time was short, and other matters took precedence. We wanted to reach the river itself, but it was too far away; evening had arrived, and it was time to show up for the wedding feast.
We hopped aboard another dugout canoe, piloted by another friendly boatman, who took us back to the village of N’sele.
As we pushed off the riverbank, I was able to capture one final shot of the fish market with the sun reflecting on the water.
Evening scene from dugout on N’Sele River. 02/27
The wedding feast was held in the outdoor cafe near our parking place; it had the appropriate name of “Sous les Bambous.” Here the cook grilled the fish we had bought in the market.
At outdoor restaurant cooking our fish purchased at market on N’Sele River. 02/27
Here we see, on the right-hand side of the picture, the restaurant manager in front, behind her Pirette and our driver, Jefferson; while on the left Daryl and Jay dig greedily into the appetizers.
Beginning of the feast in outdoor restaurant in N’Sele. L-R Daryl, Jay, Joel, Jefferson (driver), Pirette, restaurant owner or manager. 02/27
The feast featured an entree of fish, accompanied by all sorts of other goodies. The fish looked like a variety of catfish, but whatever it was called in Lingala or French is lost to us.
The main course at the wedding feast.
Some of us wanted to party all night, but we had to cut short the festivities and return to our hotel, since we were scheduled to depart at 2 AM the next morning.
Chuck, Jay, Joel and Daryl at Royal Hotel in Kinshasa before departure. 02/28
When we returned to Kinshasa Airport to board the plane for our return flight, Jay couldn’t find his passport. Nightmare! We called my son Daryl back at the hotel, but he couldn’t find it. Not in the car. Not with the family we had been visiting. I had just finished telling Jay to go back to the hotel, and Daryl would take him to the US Embassy tomorrow when JoAnne announced she had found Jay’s passport in her backpack. Whew! I couldn’t be angry with her because I have been mixing up and misplacing papers all week!
To board the plane, we had to present our passports about six times and our COVID vax cards three times, each time punctuated by a request for a tip. Everyone wants a tip. We did not have anything under a $20, so they made out like bandits.
After the climactic experience of the total solar eclipse we had a few more days to continue our enjoyment of Australia in the elysian city of Adelaide and its environs.
I have seen few places on earth that approach the city of Adelaide in livability. Getting around was easy and everyplace we went in and around the city was primo.
Our hotel, the Stamford Plaza on North Terrace, was five-star and close to several attractions that we were quick to enjoy. One was the South Australian Museum, almost across the street from our hotel, where we toured exhibits on the natural history of Australia and what is claimed to be the largest and most comprehensive collection of Australian aboriginal cultural material in the world. Our souvenirs of that experience include paintings by aboriginal artists which still hang on the walls of our house. Another was the Rundle Street Mall, where we visited the store of the Australian Geographic Society – Australia’s counterpart to the National Geographic Society of the USA – and I bought my first Aussie leather hat.
Although the Stamford Plaza was a perfectly fine hotel, we didn’t stay there long. After the first night back, the organizer of the Arkaroola trip, Rob Hill, invited us to stay with him and his wife Janita in their lovely home in Aldgate, an upscale suburb just east of Adelaide. (By then Chuck and Elouise Mattox had departed for Sydney and points beyond; in contrast to us, they did their extra-eclipse Australian tour post-eclipse, instead of pre-eclipse.) Rob showed us around his neighborhood, where there were a number of beautiful homes, including an estate owned by Mel Gibson, the actor. Unfortunately no one was home at the time, so we only got to see it from outside the property.
Note: I’ve also included a photo of Rajah Hashish Yi-Jen Guy-Jean Pierre, my Abyssinian cat, in the following gallery. He didn’t accompany us on the trip to Australia – he wouldn’t have enjoyed the plane rides – but he wasn’t forgotten, and he was of course happy to see us upon our return. He came to me in 1992 from Al and Judy Potthoff, whom he left on account of feeling crowded by their new son Paul, and stayed with me through my move to Long Beach in 2002, until he passed away in 2004. He was a highly intelligent, affectionate and gracious being (not to mention haughty, incredibly stubborn and majestically aloof), true royalty, and I greatly treasure his memory.
Rob was also kind enough to chauffer us around to visit some of the premier sights in the city and its environs.
Among other sights, Rob showed us a monument to Colonel William Light, the first Surveyor-General of South Australia, and also the founder and designer of the city of Adelaide. His plan called for the city center to be arranged in a grid of five squares, surrounded by parklands. His vision was controversial at first but eventually proved to be sound, ensuring that the city would have wide multi-lane roads, an easily navigable grid layout and extensive green areas.
Thanks to Rob, we also visited a monument to Matthew Flinders, who circumnavigated Australia and explored the South Australian coast, and became better acquainted with his somewhat tragic history. He began his naval career as a midshipman in the 1790s, and his early experiences included service under Captain William Bligh, though not on the voyage noted for the celebrated mutiny on the Bounty. He went on to serve on a series of voyages of exploration to Australia, as a result of which he was given command of a 334-ton sloop, the HMS Investigator, with the mission of charting the coast of Australia, then known as New Holland – Flinders was among the first to call it Australia. Sailing from England in July 1801, Flinders made for the southern coast of Australia, and explored it extensively, including the area where the city of Adelaide was later to be situated. He also gave the large island at the mouth of St. Vincent Gulf south of Adelaide its present name of Kangaroo Island.
On a subsequent expedition, lasting from July 1802 to June 1803, Flinders accomplished the first inshore circumnavigation of Australia. But on the completion of that voyage his ship Investigator was found to be rotten and unfit for further service. He sailed for England on another ship, which was wrecked on the Great Barrier Reef, a fate which befell many ships in that era. He then took command of still another ship, the schooner Cumberland, and set sail for England, but that ship was in such poor shape that he had to put in for repairs in December 1803 at the island of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean. Unfortunately that island was a possession of France, with whom the British were then at war, and the French governor took Flinders and his ship captive, despite his protests that he was on a purely scientific expedition and had a passport exempting the Investigator (but not the Cumberland) from hostilities. He was not freed until 1810, when a British fleet blockaded Mauritius.
Before leaving for Australia in 1801, Flinders had married his longtime sweetheart, Ann Chappelle, intending to take her with him to Australia, in defiance of British Admiralty rules forbidding wives of captains accompanying their husbands on voyages, but his plan was discovered and he was forced to leave her behind. Thus he had not seen her for nine years when he returned to England. They did not have long to enjoy their reunion, because Flinders’ health had suffered during his captivity on Mauritius, and he died of kidney disease in 1814 at age 40. However, he had managed to father a daughter, Anne, in 1812; she later married a man named William Petrie, and the couple became the parents of Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie, a famed archaeologist and Egyptologist noted for his discovery of the Merneptah Stele and the proto-Sinaitic script which was the ancestor of most alphabetic scripts.
Rob Hill also took us to the highest point in the Adelaide area, Mount Lofty, which at 710 meters or 2330 feet is not exactly Mount Everest, but provides great views of Adelaide and the surrounding area. It’s also a favorite destination of hikers and mountain bikers, although we were able to ride up in Rob’s car.
From Mount Lofty we descended to the Barossa Valley, 60 km (37 miles) east of Adelaide, one of Australia’s premier wine-producing regions, famous for its Shiraz vintages, of which I am inordinately fond. Shiraz is of course the name of a major city in Iran, which used to be famous for its production of the wine, but under the current repressive regime wine is outlawed there. However, the grapes to produce Shiraz were imported not from Iran but from the Rhone Valley in France, where the wine is known as Syrah, and that is its name in most places, but the Aussies like to call it Shiraz, and that’s fine with me. It’s good under any name.
The Barossa Valley was settled largely by German immigrants in the 1840s, and the German influence is still apparent there. The town of Hahndorf, not far away in the Adelaide Hills, was founded by German immigrants even earlier, in 1838, making it Australia’s oldest German settlement. They came from a village in Prussia which was transferred to Poland after World War II, as part of the relocation of the western Polish border to the Oder-Neisse line. German heritage is reflected in the architecture of Hahndorf. Its pleasant appearance and welcoming atmosphere make it a major tourist attraction in the area, and we thoroughly enjoyed our brief time there.
Rob Hill also took us to the beaches near Adelaide, which were pristine but a trifle chilly; you could feel the breeze blowing up from the South Pole there. Unfortunately none of my pictures from that locale have survived; by an oversight I shot them on the same film that I used to take some of the pictures in Port Douglas, and all of them were thus rendered unsalvageable. The same happened to the pictures I took of our outing with members of the South Australian Astronomical Society. That happened on our last night in Australia, before we flew back to the US on December 7. It began before sundown and extended into the late hours of the evening, with members setting up their scopes in a park and showing us views of the amazing sights of the austral sky, which put to shame those of the north. The SAAS people were a splendid lot and I wished we could spend lots more time with them, but the evening we did have was great fun and a fitting sendoff for our stay in the land of Oz.
On December 4, 2002 our tour group piled into two buses and set out for the eclipse viewing site, which was in the Outback, a six-hour bus ride from Arkaroola. The site was near Mt. Hopeless, which was appropriately named because there was obviously no hope of ever getting back to civilization, or even surviving, if you were stranded out there without motor transport. Quite simply, it was in the middle of nowhere.
It’s often said that getting there is half the fun. This is true, if you define “getting there” as traversing mile after mile of desolate, featureless landscape, then stopping halfway for lunch and finding out that one of the buses has a hole in the radiator and all its coolant has leaked out, so that it can neither go on nor go back, because there is no water the rest of the way, and you can’t risk having the other bus break down and leave everyone stranded in the middle of nowhere, so it looks like everyone will have to pile onto one bus, where the passengers will take turns standing up and sitting down while it wends its way back to Arkaroola, hoping that it doesn’t break down too.
Fortunately, that didn’t happen. We had a few bad moments while Rob Hill and the bus drivers discussed the situation. But they had a backup plan, and soon a Toyota truck showed up with a large tank of water in the bed. It followed us the rest of the way to the viewing site and back to Arkaroola, and whenever the bus radiator ran short of water, we stopped while it was refilled from the truck. I don’t know where the water truck came from nor whether this had been long planned for beforehand, but I have to hand it to Rob Hill and the bus operators for covering this contingency, because it saved the trip.
Finally we arrived at the viewing site. It was the most godforsaken place I’ve ever seen. It was completely flat for miles around. The landscape was absolutely featureless. There was nothing there – no gas station, no souvenir shop, no hot-dog stand, no toilets, no trees, not even a billboard or a beer can – nothing. It was absolutely perfect for our purposes, except maybe for one issue: the wind. I set up my camera on a tripod and the wind blew it over. But it was undamaged, and after righting the tripod I photographed the eclipse without further hindrance, except from my own ineptitude.
I had been advised not to try to photograph my first eclipse, because you risk becoming so involved in operating your equipment that you miss seeing the eclipse. I completely disregarded that advice. I had an Olympus OM-1 film camera and used a 70mm TeleVue Pronto scope for a lens, with a mylar filter over the aperture. I had the setup mounted on a TeleVue Telepod, which is just a plain tripod, suitable for holding a TeleVue scope but not equipped with any tracking or guiding capability. I had Ektachrome 200 and 400 color film, and some Fujifilm – I don’t remember what I actually wound up using.
Although completely inexperienced as a solar eclipse photographer, and hardly an expert at photography in general, I managed to capture a respectable sequence of images. I was a little slow in finding the right combination of optics. The solar image didn’t fill the scope’s field of view as much as I would prefer, so I tried using eyepiece projection to magnify it, but that made it too large, so after a couple of shots I switched back to the unmagnified setup. I also fumbled around for a while trying to nail down the appropriate exposure settings, and missed shooting first contact (the second when the Moon’s shadow first reaches the Sun’s disk) as a result.
We were seeing the eclipse almost at the very end of its path across the Earth. It began over the South Atlantic, continued over Africa and the Indian Ocean, and finished up in Australia, a bit to the northeast of our site. The maximum duration of totality was 2 minutes, 4 seconds, but that was in the middle of the Indian Ocean. At our viewing site totality occurred about 7:45 PM and lasted about 30 seconds. The partial phase began about 6:40 PM. Shortly after the end of totality, the sun set, still partially eclipsed.
Photographing totality is tricky. Until it arrives, you have to keep the filter on your scope; if you look at the unfiltered sun, even when partially eclipsed, you will blind yourself and destroy your equipment. But when totality arrives, it instantly becomes dark, and you have to jettison the filter quickly – otherwise you’ll get no picture at all. You also have to speedily readjust your camera settings to compensate for the change in light levels. Especially with as short a duration of totality as we had in 2002, if you fumbled around trying to find the right settings for long you would miss totality entirely! Fortunately I managed to avoid this pitfall and captured some decent images of the totally eclipsed sun.
Normally the post-totality phase of a solar eclipse is something of an anticlimax, and many people ignore it altogether, packing up and going home right after the Sun begins to emerge from the Moon’s shadow. That wasn’t the case for the 2002 eclipse in Australia. The sight of the partially eclipsed setting on the horizon was spectacular and kept people mesmerized until the last tip of the crescent disappeared off the edge of the world.
The organizers had planned carefully, and they had brought along equipment to provide a superb barbecue using organic beef contributed by local ranchers. Once dinner was over, we climbed into the buses and began the six-hour drive back to Arkaroola, which most of us spent in an unconscious state. Arriving back at our lodgings in the middle of the night, we were able to get just a few hours more sleep before we had to rise and pack for an early-morning departure for Adelaide.
On Day 3 of our stay in Arkaroola we were scheduled for the Ridgetop Tour, an outing that would take us into the wildest parts of the Flinders Range in 4-wheel drive vehicles. Before embarking on that excursion, though, Chuck and Elouise, feeling the need for more physical activity than riding around in trucks would provide, decided to do a morning bushwalk in the immediate vicinity of the resort, and I joined them.
The Ridgetop Tour is justly considered one of the premier experiences offered at Arkaroola Resort. It lasts about four and a half hours and goes through the most picturesque and rugged parts of the Flinders Range, taking the visitor to dizzying precipice lookouts and awe-inspiring gorges.
The Ridgetop Tour culminates in a climb to the top of Sillers Lookout, a vertiginous promontory near the northern end of the Flinders Range; it provides some stunning views of the different kinds of terrain encountered in this part of the world.
Since all of the next day, December 4, would be devoted to seeing the eclipse, December 3 was in effect our last full day at Arkaroola, so as a valedictory I’m going to present some of the scenes we encountered during our stay that I haven’t already posted.
Of particular interest to me was the telescope setup I encountered outside one of the lodges. It sat out there the entire time we were at Arkaroola, but I never saw anyone using it, and I never found out who owned it or made it. It was not a commercial setup; except for the telescope itself, it was obviously all homemade, by somebody who must have known what they were doing. They had cobbled together an equatorial mount, which consisted of a box presumably containing a motor and gears which would run the clock drive that turned the scope to follow the motion of the stars across the sky. The box was mounted at an angle suitable to match the latitude, so that the scope could be polar aligned. The scope was a Takahashi, I don’t know what model, but it was somewhere in the 100-110 mm range. Takahashis are among the highest quality refractors made, and they are quite expensive; this one would have cost upwards of $4,000 USD.
We flew from Cairns to Adelaide on November 30 and met up with Chuck and Elouise Mattox at our hotel. They knew a couple in Adelaide, the Fosters, and we were able to spend a most pleasant time at their house in Adelaide that evening. We boarded our bus for Arkaroola the following morning, December 1, 2002.
A couple of hours after leaving, we stopped for lunch in Burra, about 180 kilometers (112 miles) from Adelaide. Burra began in the mid-19th century as a mining town; when the mines gave out it kept going as an agricultural market town, but eventually developed a new identity as tourist center as well, a kind of gateway to the Outback. We found it a charming place. Sandie said it had the ambience of a Midwest American small town fifty years ago; I would have said pre-World-War II as well. Lads on bicycles greeted us with “G’day, mate” as we strolled the main street.
As we continued on from Burra, we began to encounter the real Australian Outback, and signs of civilization became few and far between. The land became barren and desolate, reminiscent of the Mojave Desert of California. Only the occasional kangaroo popped up to remind us that we were really in Australia.
After many uneventful hours we finally arrived at our destination, which rose up as a welcoming oasis in the endless wasteland. We settled into comfortable quarters – ours were in Greenwood Lodge, one of several hostels at the resort and conveniently close to the office, bar and lounge.
It turned out that Arkaroola had a couple of observatories, each equipped with an 11-inch Celestron Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope, the same model as the one I had at the time (I still own it, actually). Douglas Sprigg, the proprietor of Arkaroola, took us up to one of the observatories and showed us the wonders of the southern sky. It was the first time that I had seen with my own eyes the Magellanic Clouds, the Jewel Box, Alpha Centauri, Eta Carinae and other fabled objects that lurk too far south to see from Southern California.
We had a couple of days to pass in Arkaroola before the eclipse on December 4, and a number of interesting activities had been scheduled to keep us busy during that period. The first was a bushwalk conducted by aborigine guides, who acquainted us with the local flora and fauna, and provided instruction in the ways of the tribes, their techniques of obtaining sustenance and otherwise coping with the exigencies of life in the Outback.
Evenings were occupied with parties in the lounge, featuring aboriginal song and dance, and also instructional sessions provided by Victor and Olga Gostin. Olga, professor of anthropology at the University of South Australia, acquainted us with the history and culture of the Australian aborigines in general and the local tribes in particular. Victor, a geologist, held forth on the geology of the area, in particular the Lake Acraman impact crater, the second-largest in the world, of which he was co-discoverer. The fact that both Victor and Olga both come from Russian emigre family backgrounds gave me a special interest in becoming acquainted with them and greatly enhanced the Arkaroola experience.
I can’t omit mention of the cuisine at Arkaroola. It was all superb, but the barbecue dinners were especially memorable. I should mention I love barbecue and do it all year round at home, since the Southern California climate is amenable to outdoor cooking. I would guess that the same is true in South Australia. In any case, it was summer, the days were long and warm, and barbecues were de rigeur as well as most welcome. Naturally one would expect a livestock-abundant country like Australia to have beef, lamb and pork aplenty, and this was indeed the case; but we also had the opportunity to try new and exotic (to us) meats such as camel, emu, kangaroo and koala.
By the way, I’m just kidding about the koala. Even if one were so unfeeling as to barbecue a koala, it would be illegal; they are a protected species.
Unfortunately, I don’t have much to show for the day we spent on the Great Barrier Reef. I didn’t want to take my Olympus film camera on the boat to the Reef, so I bought a waterproof throwaway camera in Port Douglas which was able to take pictures underwater. I used that camera to take pictures in Port Douglas as well. This worked fine at the time, but years later, when I went back to scan the pictures, I discovered that the film had deteriorated to the point where most of them were illegible.
From Sydney we flew up north to Cairns in Queensland and then took a bus to our hotel in Port Douglas, an hour east of Cairns. The next day we came back to Cairns to catch a train on the Kuranda Scenic Railway.
It was at this point that I discovered that my brand-new Nikon E5700 digital camera was no longer working. To get it fixed I would have to ship it to the Nikon service center in Torrance, California, and that obviously had to wait until I got home. Fortunately I had a backup – my trusty Olympus OM-1 film camera. So I pressed it into service for the rest of the trip. Unfortunately, some of the film that I used on the Kuranda trip and subsequent peregrinations in Australia seems to have deteriorated over time, and maybe wasn’t the best to begin with, so the photos on this page are not up to the quality of those taken in Sydney; they range from rather grainy to wretchedly murky or blurry.
As soon as the train leaves the station in Cairns, it starts to climb up into the hills, approximately following the course of the Barron River for most of the way. It enters a dense rain forest, which crowds closely along the railroad tracks. The railroad was originally built in 1891 and runs 37 kilometers, or 25 miles, through the jungle and the mountains until it reaches Kuranda on the Atherton Plateau. Many tunnels and bridges had to be built to accommodate the railroad, and the construction is said to have cost many lives. The route is subject to rock falls and in 2010 had to be closed for repairs for several months after 5 passengers were injured when the train was derailed by a landslide.
The train passes through the spectacular gorge of the Barron River, and as it nears Kuranda it stops at a lookout, with a sweeping view of Barron Falls. There we were able to disembark for a few minutes and take pictures of the gorge and falls unobstructed by the train windows. The flow of water over Barron Falls is somewhat restricted by a dam, which also provides hydroelectric power to the area, so that for most of the year it is a mere trickle and only reaches full volume after a heavy rain during the wet season; we were there during the dry season. It was a spectacular view nonetheless.
After a two-hour ride, we arrived at the village of Kuranda, where we explored the shops, enjoyed the slightly quaint, thoroughly pleasant late 19th/early 20th-century ambience, ate lunch and bought a few souvenirs. I got a boomerang and a didgeridoo, and a sturdy long-sleeved shirt to protect my skin from the fierce Queensland sun.
After sampling the delights of Kuranda, we headed back to Cairns. We did so on a different mode of transport from the one we had taken to get there: the Skyrail aerial tram. This took us above the impenetrable jungle and gave us some more spectacular views of Barron Gorge, the falls and the river, and also made a couple of stops where we could get off and descend into the rain forest to view the magnificent trees and abundant foliage.
The Skyrail runs above the Queensland Wet Tropical Forest, the world’s oldest tropical rainforest, even older than the Amazon. There are unsubstantiated rumors that dinosaurs still roam its unexplored depths. The Skyrail was completed in 1995, and it was the world’s longest gondola cableway at the time. Helicopters had to be used to construct the cable towers, because there were no roads in the rain forest, and all efforts to build roads there failed because the construction crews were eaten by T. rexes.
