Wondrous Silk

Fabulous silk!  These Soufli Silk Museum exhibitions endeavour to display the entire silk manufacturing process. 

I can't help but feel amazed at how the Silk Road had such a great impact on civilization. The Silk Road- the most well-known trading route of ancient Chinese civilization- played an important role in the establishment of cultural and economic relations between East and West.

Daydreaming...would you love to travel the ancient Silk Road? The scenery along the road must be incredibly fascinating and unique! Don't you think? xx

P.S. I'm having a great, relaxing day. Why does it feel like a weekend? At least to me! I'm happy...I guess. :) xx

A Feeling of Mystery

French Railway Station, Adrianople, Turkey.

Steam engine and wagons of the Orient Express train. 

Orient Express was the name of the most famous train ever to ride the rails.          

This legendary train , leaving from Paris, it steamed through the
Alps, Budapest and Bucharest to Constantinople. Originally the

Orient Express was an international train, providing service from

Paris to Istanbul, and eventually became associated with luxury.
It first ran in October of 1883 operated by the Companie
International des Wagons-Lits, a French Railway Company.
   

Today, mention of the Orient Express conjures up a vision
of great luxury travel, and its name has become synonymous with
romance, intrigue and mystery.

Poster advertising the Winter 1888-89 timetable for the Orient Express.                                  

Great movie directors love trains. So here are a few films with
trains:
"Murder on the Orient Express" by Sidney Lumet is a 1974 

British mystery film based on the 1934 novel of the same name

by Agatha Christie.

"The Lady Vanishes" by Alfred Hitchcock.

                    
"Strangers on a Train" by Alfred Hitchcock.

                    
"Once Upon a Time in the West" by Sergio Leone.

                     
"High Noon" by Fred Zinnemann.

                                  
"High and Low" by Akira Kurosawa.

I've always been fascinated by trains and I always get a feeling

of mystery when I watch trains go by...
Trains always brought out the romantic in me I guess.
Not only do I love to ride in them, I love to photograph them. I always thought they would make an interesting photo subject as well.
Ever since childhood, I have seldom heard a train go by and 

not wished I was on it!

Do you like trains? Are you intrigued by old trains?

P.S. I hope you all had a wonderful long weekend and can't wait 

to catch up on your blogs! xx

(Poster photo via Wikipedia.)

Worn

...by good use but still beautiful and distinctive. These photos are literally reflective; they suggest an essential harmony between time and culture.  

Numismatic Museum of Athens, Greece. 

A work of Ernst Ziller, 19th century, Athens, Greece. An impressive and glorious building of imposing architecture. ABOVE

The Numismatic Museum in Athens is one of the most important museums of Greece and houses one of the greatest collections of coins, ancient and modern, in the world. 

The museum itself is housed in the former mansion of Heinrich Schliemann, the famous German archaeologist, formally known as Iliou Melathron, "Palace of Ilion".   

{Ernst Moritz Theodor Ziller was a Saxon architect who later became a Greek national, and in the late 19th and early 20th centuries was a major designer of royal and municipal buildings in Athens, Patras and other Greek cities.}

We are born at a given moment, in a given place and, like vintage years of wine we have the qualities of the year and of the season of which we are born. xx   

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            

Albert Kahn The Visionary

Albert Kahn (1860-1940) was a millionaire Parisian banker and philanthropist who in 1909 launched a monumentally ambitious project:
To produce a colour photographic record of the world in the early 20th century just on the brink of being lost forever. 

He strongly believed that showing the diversity of the world and its inhabitants would promote cross-cultural understanding and peace.

He called it "The Archives of the Planet". Over 72,000 colour photographs. More than 180,000 metres of

films. Hundreds of letters, testimonies and diaries.

An internationalist and pacifist, Albert Kahn believed that he could use the new autochrome- the world's first portable, true-colour photographic process. The autochrome was invented in 1907 by the Lumiere Brothers- Pioneers of Cinema and Colour Photography.

Based on potato starch, it enabled the first user-friendly colour photography. Kahn was one of the first people to exploit the potential of colour photography.

He was definitely a man capable of amazing grace.

A colour photo of a river in Ireland.

Kahn's team of photographers documented many world cultures,

including Ireland's Celtic villages, the late days of the
Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empires, and the birth of new
states in Europe and the Middle East.                          

Hand painted portrait photo. I've always been fascinated by vintage cameras and the photographs they produce...                                                                                                    

(Images via NET TV Archives)