Weekly Photo Challenge – Up

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These are a few pictures that I have shared before but fit together so well with this theme.  It’s so true that we rarely take time to look up but when we do it can be magical.  Ten things I have seen by looking up:

1. Clouds racing across the sky.
2. An eagle being chased by a blackbird.
3. Clouds morphing from one thing into another.
4. Glimpses into other people’s lives.
5. The beauty of days past.
6. The creativity of someone now long dead.
7. Unintended glimpses up someone’s skirt (I was at the bottom of the Eiffel Tower trying to take a picture – completely unintentional).
8. Crazy geometrical shapes.
9. The arms of trees reaching out  to each other.
10. And very occasionally, because you really have to be in the right space, the hand of God.

And here are a few new shots of “up”.

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And the unintentional photo in Paris…

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Ruins of Carthage

Just to the northeast of Tunis, on the coast, in the suburb of Carthage, lie the ruins of ancient Carthage. The political and military reach of Carthage in the 5th century BC extended all across north Africa, from Morocco to Libya and Mediterranean islands such as Corsica, Sicily, Crete Cyprus, and Sardinia.

My first foray into international travel introduced me to the magic of wandering through stones and structures that were built and used in people’s lives literally thousands of years before. It was awe inspiring, even though I really didn’t understand it fully at the time. I’m sure that my experiences of being able to touch history in this way played a real role in my becoming a history teacher.

Castle Owner

My last post was of a castle in Capizzi. In this photo, the grinning young man who is working on restoring this beautiful work of art is the youngest of the family who owns the castle. Unlike many – not all but many – of the young people you find in the big Italian cities who are enamoured of American pop culture, fashion, films, etc. the group of young people that we met who were restoring the mother church’s artwork were not just content, but happy to live in their village and to be active participants in their own history.