Travelin' Tuesday: Italy

Before World War I, Trieste was the fourth-largest city in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. After the war it, like the South Tyrol and other pieces of the former empire, was taken over by Italy in accordance with the Treaty of London. The city was part of the Free Territory of Trieste, under direct control of the United Nations, from 1947 until it was returned to Italy in 1954. Long before these events, the city - then called Tergeste - was part of the Roman Empire. The forensic basilica was built in the 2nd century CE; its ruins are located on San Giusto Hill next to the 14th-century Cathedral of San Giusto (St Justus) and San Giusto Castle.

Picture taken 19 Jun 03.

Medal of Honor to be awarded for Afghanistan

ZUI this article from the New York Post:

His name is William “Kyle” Carpenter. He’s a corporal who was medically retired for wounds suffered when he used his body to shield a fellow Marine from a Taliban grenade.

Some 30 surgeries after he was written off for dead, he will next month become the 15th member of an elite company of men: those who have been awarded the Medal of Honor for their actions in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Travelin' Tuesday: Shenandoah

The Shenandoah Valley, part of the Great Appalachian Valley, runs between the Blue Ridge Mountains to its east and the Ridge-and-Valley Mountains to the west.  Stonewall Jackson, the only Confederate general to have a submarine named after him, led the Yankees a merry chase up and down the valley a couple of times in 1862; Jubal Early was much less successful two years later.  Shenandoah National Park, established in 1935 as the 18th US national park (and only the second one east of the Mississippi), is in the Blue Ridge Mountains.  Here you see the view looking west across the valley from a spot near the northern end of the Park.

Picture taken 17 Aug 08.

Travelin' Tuesday: Gibraltar

The so-called Barbary ape (Macaca sylvanus) is actually a monkey - a tailless macaque.  They're the only macaque that occurs outside Asia; most live in North Africa, from Morocco to Libya, but a couple hundred live in Gibraltar - the only primates other than humans native to Europe.  Legend has it that if they disappear from Gibraltar, the British will lose control of the colony.  They therefore receive good care; the British Army's Royal Gibraltar Regiment was responsible for them until 1991, when they turned the apes over to the government of Gibraltar.

Picture taken 25 Jul 03.

Travelin' Tuesday: France

This mural is on the outside of a building on the Rue Chevalier-Paul, in Toulon; the building's front faces straight down Place Gambetta.  The current picture in Google Maps street view, dated July 2012, shows that what was the Bar Le San Francisco is now La Balagne, but the mural is still there.  (It's continued down on the ground floor, by the way, beneath the - um - lady in the blue dress.)

Picture taken 4 Aug 98.