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Wandered down to Esfahan , south of Tehran. I was especially looking forward to visiting Esfahan since I had booked a room at the legendary Abassi Hotel, which if not the city’s best hotel is certainly the most historic and picturesque. Location of Esfahan  (click on photos for enlargements). The Abbasi Hotel was originally a caravanserai built during the time the the Safavid Sultan Husayn (1668—1726). It was restored and remodeled in the 1950s into an upscale hotel. Film buffs may recognize the hotel as the set for the 1974 movie Ten Little Indians starring Oliver Reed and German bombshell Elke Sommer. I had read some on-line reviews that groused about the small size of some of the rooms at the hotel. This was certainly not the case with my first floor room, which opened directly onto the courtyard. A troop of dancers, had one been available, could have bivouacked in the room with space left over for a camel or two.  This etching was made in 1840.  The basic layout of t...

Of all the treasures looted by Doge Enrico Dandolo and the Venetians during the sack of Constantinople in 1204 perhaps the most famous are the four horses now on display in St. Mark’s Basilica Museum in Venice. Where these horses were originally made and by whom is a matter of great scholarly debate. I intend to investigate this matter in due course. For the moment suffice it to say that they eventually ended up on top of one of the gates of the immense stadium in Constantinople known as the Hippodrome . After being seized by the Venetians in 1204 they stood for centuries on the facade of St. Mark’s Basilica. When Napoleon Bonaparte seized Venice in 1797 he had them carted off the Paris, a fittingly prize for what he considered to be the new center of world civilization. After the Little General met his Waterloo they were returned to Venice and placed back on the facade of St. Mark’s. Air pollution from industries on the mainland, however, wrecked havoc on the copper statues. In the 1...