Jaap van 't Veen's photos

The rocky landscape of southwest America features many ravines; a remarkable form is the slot canyon. A slotcanyon is a gap with high vertical walls, which are very close to each other. Most slot canyons can be found in dry areas, where occasional heavy flooding occurs. During such natural disasters, the water with stone and other debris rubs through the softer rock layers, creating the narrow gorges. Little Wild Horse Canyon is considered being one of the most beautiful slot canyons in the south of Utah. Little Wild Horse Canyon was our first slot canyon, so we were quite impressed by its beauty and diversity. Sometimes with very narrow passages where we only just could walk straight on, but there were also wider stretches with trees and shrubs. Especially in the beginning of the canyon the walls were hanging over and some alcoves were created. We regularly came across small boulders that we had to climb over. Our walk was an experience we would not have liked to miss.

Nafpaktos is a town with a history of 3.500 years. It is well known for the naval battle of Lepanto, which took in place in 1571. It was a clash between the fleet of the allied Christian and Ottoman forces in the Gulf of Corinth close to Lepanto (as Nafpaktos was called that days). The victory of the so called Holy League was significant as it stopped the expansion of the Ottoman Empire into the Mediterranean. Nafpaktos is dominated by a Venetian castle on the top of a hill some hundred meters above the town. The castle has some of the largest and most well-preserved fortifications in Greece and offers breathtaking views towards the Gulf of Corinth with the beautiful Rio-Antirio bridge, the opposite coasts of Peloponnesus and Nafpaktos and its Venetian harbour. Nowadays Nafpaktos is considered being one of the most picturesque places in mainland Greece with a medieval character, beautiful beaches and green hilly surroundings.

The archaeological site of Delphi is located a couple of hundred meters east of ‘modern’ Delphi on the slopes of Mount Parnassus. The ancient Greeks did believe that Delphi was the center of the world. According to the mythology Zeus sent out two eagles from the two ends of the world. The eagles crossed their paths above the area of Delphi and since then the place was considered to be the center of the world. The sanctuary of Delphi, set within a most spectacular landscape, had the most famous oracle of ancient Greece. The Pythia was the name of the high priestess of the Temple of Apollo, who also served as the oracle of Delphi and was consulted about important decisions. The Temple of Apollo was the most important building of the Sanctuary of Apollo, also containing treasuries, theatre and a stadium. The original temple - built in the 7th century BC - was reconstructed many times. The present Doric temple - or at least the remains - is dating back to the year of 330 BC, during the reign of Alexander the Great. It has the same plan and roughly the same dimensions - 21.6 x 58.2 meters - as its predecessor, with six columns at the end and fifteen at the sides. The temple's foundations survive today along with several columns made of porous stone and limestone which is fairly soft material and have allowed for the temple's advanced decaying. Nowadays Delphi is an extensive archaeological site and is recognised by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site.

Goblin Valley is a small State Park, about 2 miles long and 1 mile wide. In the valley are thousands of amazingly shaped rock figures, most of them no more than two or three meters high, surrounded by a wall of eroded cliffs. The shapes of these rocks result from an erosion-resistant layer of rock atop relatively softer sandstone. In 1949 the valley was named "Mushroom Valley", because many of the rock figures resemble mushrooms. Later the name was changed into Goblin Valley, which is also a well chosen name because one can easily see an army of gnomes in these hoodoos. Goblin Valley State Park (and Bryce Canyon National Park) contain some of the largest occurrences of hoodoos in the world. The goblins, like the surface of the valley, all have the same chocolate brown colour. Plants and flowers can hardly survive in this dry, warm environment, so there is no vegetation at all here. It is also allowed to walk into the valley and wander between the goblins. Goblin Valley was granted the status of State Park in 1964.

The Bamberg Cathedral - officially the Cathedral of St. Peter and St. George ( Bamberger Dom St. Peter und St. Georg - is a late Romanesque building. The church founded in 1002 by emperor Heinrich II and dedicated on May 6, 1012, the birthday of the emperor. Two fires in 1081 and 1185 destroyed huge parts of the original building. The entire northern part was rebuilt; the church became its present late-Romanesque form in the 13th century. The cathedral is about 94 meters long, 28 meters broad and 26 meters high. The four towers are each about 81 meters high. Personally I found the interior quite sober, although it has a couple of treasures. One of the highlights is the tomb of Heinrich II and his wife Kunigunde (PiP1). Another treasure is the Bamberger Reiter (Bamberg Horseman); an equestrian statue full of mysteries (PiP2). No one knows who the figure is, although it is said that he is Stephan I of Hungary, who was said to have ridden to the cathedral to be christened Pope Clemens II is buried in the Bamberg Cathedral. He was the local bishop before he became pope in 1046, but he died in 1047. Bamberg Cathedral is the site of the only papal burial outside of Italy and France. The dedication of the cathedral was also the foundation of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Bamberg. The cathedral has been the seat of the Bamberg Archbishop ever since - by now for more than a thousand years! (The main picture shows the so called Princes’ Portal ( Fürstenportal ), located in the centre of the north wall. It is used only on holy days. )

The Tholos of Delphi is one of the ancient structures of the complex of the Temple of Athena Pronaia (locally known as the Marmariá, the marble quarry). The circular temple - tholos means dome - shares an immediate site with other ancient foundations of the Temple of Athena Pronaia, all located a couple of hundred meters east of the main ruins at Delphi. The tholos is considered being one of the most characteristic monuments at Delphi and the most important building of this small sanctuary. Twenty Doric columns - three have been reconstructed - supported a frieze with triglyphs and metopes. The building is dating back to 380 BC. The tholos was partially restored in 1938. Several architectural members and the surviving sculptures were restored and are now on display in the Delphi Archaeological Museum. The tholos is part of the Delphi UNESCO World Heritage Site.

For millions of years, the Green River, Colorado River and their tributaries have carved their way through the rocky landscape of Utah. This has created one of the most rugged areas in the United States, an almost impenetrable labyrinth of gorges with countless natural arches, bridges and the most irregular rock formations. The rivers divide the park into three parts, each with its own character. With more than 1.300 square kilometers park is Canyonlands the largest national park. The most visited part of the park is the Island in the Sky District, with a couple of overlooks providing spectacular views over the surroundings. With less than half a million visitors per year, this is the least visited National Park in the state of Utah. Main picture : view through Mesa Arch over the spires and canyons with the La Sal Mountains in the background. PiP1 : White Rim Overlook with a view of the Colorado River Canyon, and the spires of Monument Basin. PiP2 : Green River Overlook with the Stillwater Canyon with the Green River.

Gerolimenas is a small sleepy village with some fishing boats along its shore on the Mani peninsula. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries it was an important harbour, from where goods were shipped to Piraeus and other Greek islands. Once Gerolimenas was one of the most remote villages in the Peloponnese and till the 1970’s it only could be reached by boat or donkey. Gerolimenas means “Old Harbour” and derives from the ancient " Ιερός Λιμήν " (Ieros Limen). In the past a fishing village, nowadays the village - with some hotels and restaurants - is a popular destination for tourists. Although during our visit it was very quiet and peaceful. The traditional stone buildings are scattered around the natural harbour and a small pebble beach.

The Rhine Falls is one of the most impressive and powerful waterfalls in Europe. The falls have a width of 150 meters and are ‘just’ 23 meters high. The capacity of flow is in summer about 600.000 liters per second and in winter about 250.000 liters. The Rhine Falls were formed 15.000 years ago - in the last ice age - by erosion-resistant rocks narrowing the riverbed, forcing the Rhine River into a new riverbed. The Rhine Falls Rock ( Rheinfall Felsen ) - a mighty rock in the midst of the falls - offers one of the most spectacular views. This rock can be reached by boat.

Petrified Forest National Park is well known for its many chunks of petrified logs ( www.ipernity.com/doc/294067/45523794 ), but it offers more fascinating and intriguing scenery. The Blue Mesa area of the park is part of the second-oldest layer of the so called Chinle Formation, deposited approximately 220 - 225 million years ago. This formation can be seen across the park with the multi-coloured Painted Desert (PiP 1) and the Blue Mesa badlands. Blue Mesa (main image) - easy accessible by a three mile long loop road - is a very desolate landscape of mudstone and sandstone layers in blue, purple and greys. The landforms have been sculpted by erosion. The Tepees (PiP 2) is a part of Blue Mesa with tall, cone-shaped hill striped with almost perfect layers of reds, pinks, blues, greys, purples, and white.

The oracle of Dodoni - a way of communication between the Greek people and Zeus - dates from before 1000 BC and is the oldest in Greece. It consisted of a sacred oak tree surrounded by bronze cauldrons, which were placed in such a way that they touched each other. Predictions were made using sounds by the cauldrons in connection with the rustling of the oak leaves. At the beginning of the 3rd century BC the Zeus sanctuary was extended with several buildings, which is related to the increased importance of the sanctuary. The ruins and remains, including an acropolis, a bouleuterion, a amphitheatre and a Byzantine basilica, bear witness to the fact that a flourishing marketplace was located here. The amphitheatre of Dodoni had (and still has) a capacity of about 17.500 seats and is one of the largest and best preserved in Greece. The walls rise to a height of twenty-one meters and are supported by solid towers. The ancient Greeks used it for theatre, but it was later transformed by the Romans into an arena for animal fights. Bulls and big cats were locked in two triangular cages on either side of the stage. In the 6th century AD, when the Roman Emperor Justinian decided to found the city of Ioannina, Dodoni fell into disrepair. (Ancient) Dodoni was rediscovered and excavations and restorations of the ancient site of Dodoni began in 1875 and continue until today. The amphitheatre was restored in the early 1960s. Every year in August, a summer festival is held in which classical tragedies, folk music and dance from Epirus are performed.

The Bridge of Arta is a stone footbridge crossing the Arachthos river on the outskirts of town. The current bridge is Ottoman and most probably built from 1602 till 1606. However the history of a bridge on that place goes even back to the Roman period. From the annexation of Arta in 1881 to the outbreak of the First Balkan War in 1912, the highest point of the bridge was the border between the Ottoman Empire and the Kingdom of Greece. The bridge has a length of 145 meters and the width is 3.75 meters. It has four semicircular arches with no symmetry. The Bridge of Arta received many restorations and additions throughout its history. A major restoration took place during the decade of 1980, after which the bridge got back its beauty. A folk tale tells a story of how builders were building the bridge, but its foundations would collapse each night. Finally a bird with a human voice informed the master builder that he should sacrifice his wife in order to complete the construction. She was buried alive in the foundations of the bridge. She first curses the bridge, but then turns the curse into a wish once she realizes her brother may cross the bridge. Thus the sacrifice is fulfilled and the spirits of the river all the bridge to be built successfully. In 1931, during repairs, a small room was discovered in one of the bridge pillars: it is claimed that a skeleton was indeed found there.

Devil’s Garden - or officially Devil’s Garden Outstanding Natural Area - is a rather small part of Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. It is a real hidden gem, only accessible via a quite bad gravel road and not very well signposted. This has the advantage that there are not so many tourists like in the more well known parks in Utah (during our visit we were just the two of us). Devil’s Garden consists of a collection of irregularly shaped sandstone rock sculptures, which are the result of wind and water erosion over the centuries. There are three different sandstone layers and one can see very well that the erosive forces on each layer have had a different effect. The bottom layer forms a kind of pedestal, on which are short hoodoos that consist of a narrow dark layer with a wider hood above it that is much lighter colored. Besides the hoodoos you can see many other small rock formations and some arches.

Near the village of Agios Georgios lies the Roman aqueduct over the river Louros. The aqueduct was built by thousands of slaves after 31 BC on the orders of Octavian Augustus - a Roman statesman and military leader and the first Emperor of the Roman Empire - who founded the city of Nicopolis. (More recent research has assigned its construction to Hadrian’s rule, in the 2nd century AD). The complete aqueduct carried potable water with the method of height difference from the springs of the river Louros to two cisterns in Nicopolis over a distance of fifty kilometers. It was consisted of a pipe, which was constructed in three ways: by carving a ditch, tunneling the area and constructing columns bridging the pipe over valleys. In the second half of the 5th century the aqueduct stopped functioning. From 1978 till 1980 the arches near Agios Georgios were restorated. The aqueduct bridge over the Louros is one of the very few remaining in Greece today.

The (former) Cistercian abbey in Ebrach was founded in the year of 1127 by a nobleman Berno and was the oldest and most important of its kind in Franconia. The abbey was settled by twelve monks from Morimond Abbey in Burgundy. The first church was dedicated in 1134. Throughout the centuries the monastery has endured wars, fires and looting. In the Thirty Years War (1618 – 1648) it lost its precious church treasure, which was captured by the Swedes. It was not until the 17th century that the economy improved. The abbey was dissolved during the secularisation in 1803 and the properties were transferred to Bavaria. The abbey church became the local parish church of Ebrach. The construction of the present abbey church started in 1200, after which the consecration took place in 1285. The church unites many architectural styles: the building is early Gothic in style, the interior is mainly in baroque style with elements in rococo -, renaissance - and classicist style. Particularly striking is the colour scheme in yellow and white - the Catholic colours - mixed with light pink. Columns in marble style, ornaments, reliefs and figures in white, the beautiful play of light and the large rose window (see: www.ipernity.com/doc/cammino/47482756 ) give the church a special look.

Monument Valley - or officially Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park - is without doubt one of the most striking examples of the breathtaking beauty of the empty desert in the southwest of the USA. The vast plain serves as a backdrop for the silhouettes of the red rock formations. With its natural beauty it is one of the most majestic and photographed places on earth. Before human existence, the area was a lowland basin. For hundreds of millions of years, materials that eroded from the Rock Mountains deposited layer upon layer of sediment which cemented a slow and gentle uplift, generated by ceaseless pressure from below the surface. These horizontal strata were quite uniformly elevated one to three miles above sea level and the basin became a plateau. Millions of years ago there were many more rocks in this area, which consisted of various types of sandstone rock. The softer layers are worn away by the natural forces of wind and water, causing the so-called mesas. These are wide rocks that are flat at the top. The continuous erosion process ensures that even a mesa wears away very slowly. The harder top layer wears less quickly than the softer sides, so a mesa gets narrower and narrower. If the width of rock is eventually smaller than its height, it is no longer a mesa, but a butte. Also the butte slowly wears away, until a spire remains. Even those rock needles will slowly disappear completely. Most of the park is located in Arizona, the northernmost point belongs to the state of Utah. Window is one of the most visited stops so the viewpoint can get rather crowded. Main picture: North Window, between Elephant Butte and Cly Butte, looking towards East Mitten Butte, with Castle Butte, Bear & Rabbit and Stagecoach in the background PiP1: the famous panorama with the Mitten Buttes and Merrick Butte PiP2: Merrick Butte, along the Valley Drive PiP3: classic image of Monument Valley, taken at mile marker 13 along the road from Mexican Hat (US Highway 163)

The church of the Panagia Parigoritissa, dedicated to the Annunciation, was built at the end of the 13th century by the despot Epirus Nikiphoros Komninos Doukas and his second wife Anna Paliologina. It was formerly the katholion (= main church) of a large monastery. It became a dependence of the Kato Panaghia monastery, when it went bankrupt. The church is mentioned for the first time as a convent for nuns 1578. Seen from outside the church is a large, almost cubic three-storey building. It is of the octagonal type with a central dome and also four smaller domes on each corner of the church's flat roof. The interior of the church is extremely elegant and lavishly decorated with wall paintings, sculptures (16th century) and a iconostasis, which replaced the original marble one. The nave is square and has no internal supports. The dome (main picture) - adorned with mosaic depictions of the Pantocrator and the Prophets - rests on eight pilasters, on each of them stand three rows of smaller columns. This kind of architecture most probably has not been used to other Byzantine monuments. This makes the church very fascinating and quite unique. Nowadays Panagia Parigoritissa is a (kind of) museum, where one has to pay a small entrance fee. But it allows visitors to take pictures.

Veitshöchheim Palace (Schloss Veitshöchheim) is located in the town, nearby the river Main and a couple of kilometers from Würzburg. It was built as a summer palace - originally used as a hunting lodge - for the Prince-Bishops of Würzburg between 1680 and 1682. It was enlarged to its present appearance in 1753 by famous German architect Balthasar Neumann. The palace is surrounded by one of the most beautiful rococo gardens in Germany. The garden - as it can be seen nowadays - dates back to the second half of the 18thcentury, when Adam Friedrich von Seinsheim was Prins-Bishop. The gardens - 270 x 475 meters - offer lakes and waterworks (PiP3) and about 200 hundred sandstone sculptures (PiP4) of gods, animals and allegorical figures. Around the palace is a beautiful flower garden created; on the north side it has also a kitchen garden (PiP5) with herbs and vegetables. In the1950s and 60s the gardens were restored in its rococo form of 1779.