So, There’s This Place In Paris …
by Jett & Kathryn Britnell
“That was the greatest and finest moment of my life!” proclaimed a smallish man in a white raincoat loudly as he exited the domed church at the Hotel des Invalides in Paris. Moments before, this man stood trembling with excitement and removed his cap out of respect as he gazed for a very long time at an ornate marble tomb. It was June 23rd, 1940; just three days after the French capital had become German-occupied territory. The following day during his official sightseeing city tour, Adolf Hitler made a second visit to the Église du Dôme with his sycophant generals to again pay homage to his military idol, Napoléon Bonaparte. In his first and only visit, Hitler made Napoleon’s tomb among the sites to see in La Ville Lumière.
Beneath the golden vault of the Eglise du Dome Church lie the remains of the slight statured Corsican who became France’s greatest soldier. Within his massive crypt, Napoléon’s mystique looms large in death as it did during his lifetime. Hitler was so moved by his visit that as a tribute to the French emperor, he decreed that Napoléon’s son’s coffin be moved from Vienna to lie beside his father.
Architect Louis Visconti designed Napoléon’s tomb in 1842, but construction of this grand monument was not completed until 1861. The fifteen-foot-tall deep red sarcophagus is carved from aventurine quartzite, and not red porphyry as is so often stated, and rests upon a green granite pedestal. Inside the large sarcophagus, Bonaparte’s remains are entombed by six progressively larger concentric coffins all nested inside the other and built from different materials, including mahogany, two others of lead, ebony, and oak and encircled by 12 marble victory statues mounted up against the pillars of the crypt. On the mosaic floor, a crown of laurels motif surrounds the sarcophagus, and on the mosaic floor are inscriptions referencing the great victories of the Empire.
Napoléon himself once stated, “Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever.” Today, the biggest draw of the expansive Hotel des Invalides military complex is what lies beneath the dome – the Tomb of Napoléon. Completely over the top, and something you must absolutely see with your own eyes. Napoléon’s ego would swell with pride if he knew his grave had become one of the biggest tourist attractions in Paris.
Skip-the-Line: Les Invalides Dome with Tomb of Napoleon Private Guided Tour
If You Go:
♦ The Paris Pass
♦ Napoleon Foundation website
Jett & Kathryn Britnell, are two internationally published travel writers, photographers, scuba divers, shark advocates, lecturers, book reviewers, marine conservationists and devil may care adventurers. Email: info@thenomadictribes.com
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Photos are by Jett & Kathryn Britnell.
The coastal town of Salobrena is 10 km east of Almunecar. The coastline to Salobrena along the tropical coast is wild and rugged. To the left the awesome peaks of the Sierra Nevada and to the right the glistening blue of the Mediterranean. Salobrena stands unmolested by mass tourism, although now boasts an eighteen hole golf course. In the winter, the snow capped Sierra Nevada provides a magnificent backdrop to the green of the third hole.
Further down the coast Almeria is home to yet another imposing castle. The drive from Salobrena takes about an hour and the terrain changes dramatically. Gone are the orange groves and fertile valleys to be replaced by a sea of plastic posing as green-houses – a scar on the landscape. From these eyesores the mountains become rocky, yielding neither crop nor greenery.
The castle underwent changes under different Moslem governors, such as Almanazor and Havran the Slave, the fist independent ruler-lord of Almeria, who extended the walled area of the city towards the plain by three times the size of the original city of Almedina. The time of Banu Somahdis brought an era of splendour and was the setting for a cultured and literary court in the 11th Century. Later, in the 14th and 15th Centuries, under the Kings of Granada, it retained only its role as a coastal defence. It underwent two sieges, which demonstrated its effectiveness as a fortress; one in 1147, when it fell for the first time to the Christians of Alfonso VII, who was helped by the Genoese, the Catalans and the people of Pisa; and the other in 1309, which lasted a year, when James II of Aragon failed to take the castle.
In 293 BC, Rome suffered from one of the many pestilences which proved the tribulation of the Ancient world. Seeking divine aid, a delegation of high priests and doctors made a pilgrimage to Aesculapius’ temple at Epidaurus. In response to their prayers and offerings, one of the temple’s sacred The success of the quest was thus assured. Upon the ship’s return to Rome, the snake slithered into the Tiber and crossed to the reed-covered island, which lay opposite the city’s port. This was so obvious a sign Aesculapius desired a temple here, not only was one built but the island itself hewn to resemble a ship. Large structures of white travertine were built at either end to augment the resemblance to prow and stern, complete with a bust of Aesculapius and his caduceus. In the centre of the island an obelisk was raised to suggest the main mast of a Roman galley. Thus dedicated to the powerful god of healing, the Isola Tiberina has been associated with the care of the sick ever since.
With the growth of Rome, the reputation of the Isola Tiberina’s temple and its doctors grew such that the sick ventured here from all over the Empire to seek healing. Like its namesake at Epidaurus, the temple became famous for the drinking of its miraculous waters, and for dream cures. Most probably opium (or a similar opiate) was used to produce a drugged state filled with dreams, hallucinations, and a susceptibility to suggestion. Hypnosis was a key factor; priests appeared in the dim, smoky light dressed as Aesculapius, and sacred snakes and dogs flickered their tongues over ailing body parts. The fame of these cures was to outlast both the Roman and Greek Empires.
The hospital can be reached from the Left Bank via the Ponte Fabricio, which links the Old Ghetto to the island. At the junction of the two join stands the Pierloni-Caetani Tower. Built by the Pierloni family before 1000 AD at one of the most strategic approaches along the Tiber to Medieval Rome, it was used first by the Pierlonis and then the Caetanis for control of the river. Jewish in origin, the Caetani family was to produce a pope, Anacletus II. The Adjacent Pierloni-Caetani Castle, which fronts onto the Piazza San Bartolomeo, served as a fortress for several fugitive popes in the Middle Ages. It became a Franciscan monastery in the 17th century, and is now the Tiber Island History museum.
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Seeming to grow out of the craggy mountaintop, the castle has panoramic views of the Bay of Palma, the mountain range and much of the flat Mallorcan hinterland. Starting at the foot of the mountain the walk, which takes you past an agrotourismo hotel, takes around two hours. If you have faith in your driving reflexes and you have a hire car with a relatively good ground clearance you can continue to drive, shortening the walk to about forty-five minutes, and park amongst the goats at the smallholding adjacent to the Es Verger restaurant. Inside, the family are inevitably sat having one meal or another, while the wooden furniture, assorted mismatched objects around the walls (and the local matriarch) emit a faint smoky smell; a mixture of tobacco and the winter fires fuelled by the tonnes of wood piled up around the courtyard all year round. The jangling bells of the goats, which starts echoing down here and follows you all the way up to the castle, are enchanting and, were it not for the refrigerator of cola in the restaurant, you could be in a long-forgotten world of knights, serfs and Saracens.
From this point, again, you can continue the drive but it’s not advisable. The few vehicles that do brave the stony track are usually taking supplies up to the hostel and ‘bar’ which is located within the 17th century church complex in the castle. Even these must stop at a final way-station where the last few hundred metres up the ancient steps are made with the help of donkeys, who you may see tethered in the shade along the flat ridge beneath the castle. Up here, in the still, warm air, with the craggy parapets looming down like an old eagle waiting to pounce from its precipitous eyrie, it’s easy to understand how this castle was a key defensive centre for both the pre-Islamic inhabitants of Mallorca and the subsequent Muslim and Christian rulers.
The Balearic Islands came under the dominion of Islam perhaps as early as 707-8 AD but, as the Muslim world fragmented with civil wars, which saw the Abbasids emerge triumphant, the now independent Umayyad Emirate of al-Andalus, today’s Spain and Portugal, was forced to wage a series of wars in the Western Mediterranean to solidify its authority. It is from this period that we have the earliest historical mention of the Castell d’Alaro.
The remaining walls around the castle are still an impressive sight and as you meander up the steps, cut out of the cliff to serve the pilgrims who would later trek to the church in the 17th century, you can feel the history coursing through the stones. Unlike many of the other castles in Mallorca there has been relatively little done to ‘restore’ the walls and what modern work there is tends to be associated with the church buildings which now house the hostel and bar.
At the side of the mountaintop opposite to the gatehouse there is a completely sheer drop down to the farms in the valley below where birds swoop in out of their nests in the cliff’s crevices. Apart from them, and the deafening cicadas, it is completely still and you can almost imagine a scene from El Cid playing out on the plains far below. There are few views on the island to rival this and the ruin, unadulterated by heavy handed restorers, has maintained an allure that is unrivalled by the busier historical sites like Palma’s Almudaina and Capdepera. Just as the Banys Arabes offer a retreat from the clamour of modern Palma, Alaro transports you back in time to the age of chivalry, crusades and Andalusi enlightenment.
If you’re ever thinking about visiting Belgium, there are many, many places that are worth visiting. An excellent suggestion would Flanders Fields. The historic area known as Flanders Fields is the part of the province of West Flanders that had the misfortune of being one of the front lines during the First World War.
After the war, Ypres was rebuilt from scratch and nowadays it’s a nearly perfect replica of the pre-war city. Although there is not a single building that is older than a century, the city center looks exactly like the old medieval city that was leveled by mortars. Its beautiful town square, lined with typical narrow Flemish row houses with crow-stepped gables, is dominated by the magnificent Cloth Hall, now the home of the downright fabulous Flanders Fields Museum. This is the place where you should start your visit of Flanders Fields, emerging yourself in the interesting history and unimaginable horrors of the Great War. By being aware of what happened in this region, you’ll look at the following landmarks, which are now set within a peaceful landscape of flat fields and slowly meandering rivers, from a completely different perspective.
After exploring the Flanders Fields Museum in the morning, head out of the city for a tour of the surrounding area. The Trench of Death is located near the River Yser and the city of Diksmuide. This was by far the most feared part of Belgian front, a part where the Allied and German trenches were only a few dozen steps apart. The trench was feared by all front line soldiers, for being positioned there meant almost certain death. Nowadays, a section of the trench system has been beautifully preserved and is free to visit. The remains can be explored on foot and offer an impression of what life in the trenches must have been like.
Another nearby highlight is the 84-meter-tall Yser Tower, which is the tallest peace monument in Europe. You can get to the top with an elevator, enjoy great panoramic views of Flanders Fields and head back down the stairway, leading through a museum of war, peace and the emancipation of Flanders.
Properly visiting Flanders Fields can’t be done without a visit to a few war cemeteries. The region is home to literally hundreds of those, so you’ll have to make some choices. The most notable cemeteries are the Vladslo Soldatenfriedhof (the resting place of more than 26,000 German soldiers), the Langemark Soldatenfriedhof (the largest German war cemetery, with more than 44,000 soldiers), the iconic British Tyne Cot War Cemetery, and Polygon Wood Cemetery and Buttes New British Cemetery. All of these cemeteries were built near battlefields, making it easy to bury the dead after the battles ceased.
Back in Ypres, you should definitely head to the imposing Menin Gate, where the Last Post ceremony is still held every evening at 8pm sharp. The ceremony has taken place every evening since 1928 in commemoration of the British soldiers who gave their lives for the Belgian people. The huge Menin Gate in itself is a major landmark, a war memorial dedicated to fallen British and Commonwealth soldiers whose bodies were never found. The enormous Hall of Memory contains nearly 55,000 names of missing soldiers, but, as large as it may be, is still too small to contain all names. The rest of the names of missing soldiers are inscribed on the wall that surrounds the British Tyne Cot War Cemetery.
