Ruins of a long lost palace and Royal Stables have been found during the construction of a tunnel in downtown Madrid.
Read MoreHistory
The 11th century cave churches of Göreme
Rediscovered by Europeans in the 18th century, Göreme has been inhabited for millennia. The Romans used it as a necropolis and it was a very important Christian location in the early Middle Ages. The small city is just one example of many towns carved into fairy chimney rock formations in Cappadocia, central Turkey.
Read MoreBasilica Cistern: A Forest of Roman Columns under Istanbul
The center of tourist attractions in Istanbul is Sultanahmet Square. On one side you have Hagia Sophia, on the other the Blue Mosque, and right beside that the Hippodrome, all a hop and skip away from the majestic Topkapi Palace. What you don’t see - and I walked past it on my first visit to Istanbul - is that right next to Hagia Sophia: an underground forest of Roman columns called Basilica Cisterna.
Read MoreThe 7 wonders of the ancient world: Mausoleum at Halicarnassus
I visited the ruins of the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus, one the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, in Turkey, and the statues which used to be there and are now in the British Museum.
Read MoreThe Buddhist temples of Kyoto are full of cute Japanese kids
Kyoto is possibly Japan’s most important city historically. It was not only the imperial capital of the country for over a thousand years, but also the birthplace of none other than Super Mario. And Nintendo. Yeah, I like Nintendo.
In 2011 I was in Japan shooting the FIFA World Cup of Clubs, which Barcelona F.C. eventually won. I was on my way from Tokyo to Toyota, where one of the matches took place, and stopped for a day trip on Kyoto.
Read MoreThe ruins of the great city of Angkor
Machu Picchu, Tenochtitlán, Heracleion. The list of lost cities found in jungles, deserts or under the sea by modern archaeologists goes on. Once myths, now part of history. El Dorado, Atlantis, Z and many others still fuel the imagination of dreamers who hope to one day stumble upon ruins.
The city of Angkor was never lost, per se, but so much of it's history has been forgotten that it's almost as it has. The Khmer Empire was the greatest on earth and to this day parts of it are still being unearthed.
Capital of the great Khmer Empire in the 12th century, Angkor must have been a magnificent place to be in it's time. With a population estimated at the time of more than a million people, it's total area was greater than today's Paris and has more stones than all structures in Egypt combined.
In Angkor (word that stands for capital in sanskrit) we find the symbol of Cambodia, pictured in the country's national flag, the Angkor Wat (Temple City or Pagoda City).
The Angkor Wat was the first temple I visited during my stay in large complex. It's the largest religious monument in the world covering 162.6 hectares of land and was built by Suryavarman II in dedication to the Hindu god Vishnu, the guy that unified the empire.
Cambodia is HOT and HUMID. I can't stress more these two words more without waking up the neighbors. Go early and take tons of water. I mean at least 3 liters per person. There will be vendors selling you stuff everywhere. Water is one dollar.
Here is a map so you can better understand the place.
It is truly a breathtaking experience to visit Angkor Wat. So much raw history right in front of your eyes and still so much to be uncovered.
What's next? Machu Picchu, Tenochtitlán, Heracleion? Maybe. If I'm lucky I might stumble upon Atlantis too.
Ruins of the Old Summer Palace
Known as the Gardens of Perfect Brightness 圆明园, the ruins of the old Summer Palace are a memory of one of the most beautiful palaces in China. During the second Opium War, in 1860, European forces plundered and destroyed the place, taking relics that dated back 3500 years. Charles George Gordon, a French captain, wrote "You can scarcely imagine the beauty and magnificence of the places we burn. It made one's heart sore to burn them; in fact these places were so large, and we were so pressed for time, that we could not plunder them carefully." Many Chinese artifacts in western museums today are the result of plundering and looting of ancient China. Then in 1900 again the eight nations, during the boxers rebellion, came back and tore down whatever had survived.
The ruins are one of the very few remaining "unrestored" ancient sites of Beijing I know of. Most places have been either completely restored to look like they would have in ancient times or simply torn down to give space to modern buildings.
I used quotation marks because although these are ruins, I can't say I'm completely convinced this is all original. While I don't have proof of anything, several facts lead me to believe these aren't simply the ruins of what was once the largest palace in the history of China. Many of the stone pieces and their engravings seemed to me too well conserved for such an old piece, specially when thousands of people are stepping on them and handling them everyday.
Another notable fact is that - and architects or engineers reading, please correct me if I'm wrong - some of the stones were noticeably different. It seemed that several blocks were actually marble, while others were of a simpler material, not cement, but of the likes.
The pictures in this post are from two very different times of the year, winter 2015 and spring 2016.
The Dongyue "Temple of Hell"
Along with the Imperial Palace and Tiananmen Square, one of the most famous landmarks of Beijing is the Temple of Heaven, in the southern part of town. It's in every guidebook and about every tourist that passed through the city since Marco Polo has been there.
What a lot of people don't know is that hidden in what is now the Russian shopping district lies the TEMPLE OF HELL HELl HEll Hell hell *echoes and fades just like in Fraggle Rock*
In reality, it is a Daoist temple called Dongyue, which was named after Mount Tai, one of the Five Sacred Mountains of Daoism.
The place is known informally as the Temple of Hell because of it's scary statues of death and punishment.
Well, that seems like an awesome place to bring the kids, right?
The ancient town of Qibao
In the outskirts of Shanghai is the little ancient town of Qibao 七宝镇. The name means "Town of Seven Treasures".
According to legend, the seven treasures are
- iron Buddha made in the Ming Dynasty
- a bronze bell that came out of nowhere
- Gold Script Lotus Sutra written by a 10th century concubine
- 1000-year-old catalpa tree
- jade axe
- gold cockerel
- jade chopsticks
The place has been inhabited for over 1000 years and is the only ancient town in central Shanghai. It's easy to get from downtown, just take the subway.
The Marco Polo Bridge and the start of WWII
Described by the famous Venetian traveller Marco Polo in his book, the Lugou Bridge, as it is known in China, became internationally known by the adventurer's name. Written 20 years after his visit to Cathay, in The Travels of Marco Polo, the explorer described the bridge as a wonder of the orient, although his faulty memory played some tricks on him.
When you leave the City of Cambaluc and have ridden ten miles, you come to a very large river which is called PULISANGHIN, and flows into the ocean, so that merchants with their merchandise ascend it from the sea. Over this River there is a very fine stone bridge, so fine indeed, that it has very few equals. The fashion of it is this: it is 300 paces in length, and it must have a good eight paces of width, for ten mounted men can ride across it abreast. It has 24 arches and as many water-mills, and 'tis all of very fine marble, well built and firmly founded. Along the top of the bridge there is on either side a parapet of marble slabs and columns, made in this way. At the beginning of the bridge there is a marble column, and under it a marble lion, so that the column stands upon the lion's loins, whilst on the top of the column there is a second marble lion, both being of great size and beautifully executed sculpture. At the distance of a pace from this column there is another precisely the same, also with its two lions, and the space between them is closed with slabs of grey marble to prevent people from falling over into the water. And thus the columns run from space to space along either side of the bridge, so that altogether it is a beautiful object.
The Travels of Marco Polo, apud Historic Beijing in Pictures
Marco Polo did get a few things wrong. I can't blame him, it was a long time after his journey. He said the bridge had 24 arches instead of the actual 11. Then again, the bridge was destroyed and then reconstructed in 1698, 400 years or so after Polo's visit. Who knows what other modifications it went through over the years.
A very interesting thing about the Lugou bridge are the hundreds of lions sculpted all over. Legend says they are uncountable. Some have tried and say they are between 482 and 496. Originally were supposed to be 627. It's also important to note that not all lions were carved at once and were added along the centuries in different dynasties.
Just like in real life, there are basically two types of lions, the male and the female. But unlike the furry live animals, you can't tell the gender apart by the mane. It is what is under their foot that shows their sex. Male lions have balls (duh) under one paw and females have little cubs.
Now you might be asking yourself "how come there is no consensus on how many lions there are?" Shouldn't it be simple as taking the time and counting? Well, it's not that simple. You see, not only are some statues worn out with time, many lions are hidden, such as cubs popping out of their mothers mane or the ambiguous one at the beginning of the bridge.
The Marco Polo Bridge Incident and WWII
While westerners know this bridge because of Marco Polo - myself included-, this place is known for something completely different in China. It was exactly on this spot that the Second Sino-Japanese War and World War II started in 1937. What about the invasion of Poland? Well, that happened in 1939. The two continental wars merged eventually.
On this bridge the Japanese attacked the town of Wanping, now a part of Beijing municipality. Bullet and cannon holes can still be seen on the fortress walls.
The WWII Database has loads of historical photos and details of the incident.
In China this place is very symbolic of the resistance against Japanese invasion. When I took these pictures, several families with older folks were there. Some of those men, visiting with their grandchildren, probably lived the war when they were kids. The Japanese committed unspeakable war crimes against the Chinese in Beijing, Jinan, Nanjing and several other places. The forces of Japan are said to have issued an order to not consider Chinese people human, therefore international war law would not apply to them (Haruko Taya Cook & Theodore F. Cook, Japan at War 1993 ISBN 1-56584-039-9, p. 153 apud Wikipedia).
The war only finished after American intervention and the bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki with Japanese surrender in 1945. This part of history we all learn.
China's participation was the first to start, and the last to finish.