ancient
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 MoreStanding 64m tall and with a history of almost 1000 years, the Giant Wild Goose Pagoda is an unmissable historical spot in Xi'an.
Outside the city walls of Xi'an, next to the Shaanxi History Museum, is the Giant Wild Goose Pagoda. This building was originally built in 652 with five stories to house treasures gathered by the traveler Xuanzang. Fifty years later the whole thing, made of rammed earth, collapsed. By then, empress Wu Zetian had the pagoda rebuilt making it five stories taller. It remained like that for 800 years until a powerful earthquake knocked down three floors leaving it the way it is now. Let's do the math: 5+5-3=7. Or you can just count from the photo.
At the bottom is the Da Ci'en Temple 大慈恩寺, said to be the "most splendid" temple in ancient Chang'an, how Xi'an was called when it was the great capital of the Chinese Empire.
The temple was specially busy on the first days of the Lunar New Year. Worshipers light incense and say their prayers facing a big Buddha statue.
Originally, the area of the temple was three times as big as it is now. In the thousand years it's been here it has survived several dynasties and changes.
Apparently, the pagoda is crooked to the west several degrees, kind of like the leaning tower of Pisa. I read about this later and personally did not notice it.
You can pay and climb all the way to the top. Some relics are still on display. For obvious safety reasons the number of people inside is limited. For China reasons, that number is way more that it should be. Going up was insane. Stairs packed of people barely giving space for one to pass.
On a polluted day, this is what it looks like from one of the mid-section windows. In case you are wondering, yes, I went there more than once, that's why the pictures have both blue and gray skies.
You can tell in which dynasty a building was made by the roof. The Tang dynasty architecture had those horn-like structures on top.
