You may have heard of Anokhi shops where they sell beautiful clothes using traditional Indian fabrics for contemporary designs. Well in Jaipur Anokhi have a very interesting museum of hand printing. It’s housed in a beautifully restored haveli and takes you through different printing techniques. They have a collection of fabrics and also have some people giving demonstrations of techniques. One man was doing block printing whilst another was making the wooden blocks used.
Arrived in vibrant Jaipur and went out for a wander
Fatehpur Sikri is an ancient fortified city 40km west of Agra built in the 16th century. For a short time it was the capital of the Mughal empire but was abandoned because of lack of water.
It it contains three ‘palaces’, one for each of the three wives of the Emperor Akbar.
We travelled to Agra on a super fast train from Delhi- the Gatimaan Express. It turned out we had tickets in the extremely comfortable executive class which included a complimentary breakfast. This was just as well as we had been picked up from our homestay at 7am.
In this part of our trip organised by a company called ‘India Connections’, we have a driver and car for the next three weeks, and here in Agra we had s guide for the day. First stop was the Taj.
I’ve seen so many pictures of it, but when you’re there it is just exquisitely beautiful.
Our guide, Ricky, told us a lot about the importance of the number four to the Greeks and the Romans and then the Moguls in relation to architecture, symmetry and what is pleasing to the eye. He explained that the Taj complex is made up of combinations of blocks of four.
Namaste
We went on a half-day jeep safari in one of the Wayanad national parks. The safari itself was a bit disappointing as we only saw monkeys, deer and bones, but the forest/jungle was beautiful.
Went on a 16km trek in the forest. It was very hot with a very steep ascent. On the way we saw …
and
When we were in Portugal last year we went to an amazing tapestry factory in Portalegre. The process of creating the tapestry designs from the original works of art was extraordinary to see. They told us that some of their tapestries were in the Ritz in Lisbon, so on this visit we decided to go and see them. They were stunning, massive tapestries hanging on the walls of the lounge, absolutely beautiful. And these three are just some of them.
Evidently the Four Seasons Hotel Ritz is well known for its collection of modern and contemporary art. They gave us the details of an iPad App which provides s walk through of all the art works
http://bit.ly/FSArtApp
Pretty little town with a castle and a replica of the Pinta in the harbour – the first ship that returned from the ‘New World’ bringing news of the West Indies. It’s so small!!
Today we visited Delphi. Unusually for us we managed to get off early to catch the local bus and be the first at the gates when they opened at 8am and for a short period we pretty much had the whole site to ourselves, which was wonderful. Definitely recommend the early start as it gets hot very quickly and the coach tours arrive. The site is absolutely amazing and the position and views are spectacular.
The on-site museum has a fantastic amount of material recovered from the site.
The Charioteer was covered and hidden as a result of an earthquake and so didn’t get looted but was found pretty much intact during the excavations.
What an amazing place. It’s 3500 years old built on a massive hill with walls several metres thick. Here’s the Lion Gate entrance.
The excavations discovered these ‘beehive’ tombs with shafts going into the ground and a conical roof. This one is the tomb of Clymenestra surrounded by all sorts of beautiful artefacts. She murdered her husband Agamemnon then she and her lover were then killed by her two children.
Evidently the potters wheel was introduced in the 3rd millennium changing the nature of pottery and some of the pieces in the museum are wonderful.
(As an aside the owners of campsite where we’re now staying at Delphi who also produce olive oil have very old olive trees which they say are 3,000 years old!!!! )
