Tag Archives: monuments

Visit Sweden with Mona

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We spent a week in Sweden in the nineties and more recently, a Baltic Cruise allowed us to pay a new visit to Stockholm with a bus tour of the city, followed by a boat ride in the Baltic Sea.

Stockholm, the capital of Sweden, encompasses 14 islands and more than 50 bridges on an extensive Baltic Sea archipelago. Ferries and sightseeing boats shuttle passengers between the islands.

Stockholm has a mix of opulent, traditional architecture in the form of royal palaces and state buildings, as well as the sleek minimalism the country is famous for today.

The City Hall Tower is 106 meters tall, with a beautiful panoramic view of central Stockholm. 

Stockholm City Hall became famous for its grand ceremonial halls and unique art pieces, but especially for being the venue of the Nobel Prize banquet which is held each year in the Blue Hall on December 10, the anniversary of Alfred Nobel’s death.

 Parliament House (Riksdag) was constructed between 1897 and 1905. n 1889, a competition had been held to select a design for the new Parliament building, that Johansson won. Upon opening, it replaced the Old Riksdag Building. The two buildings of the complex were originally constructed to house the Riksdag in one, and the Sveriges Riksbank (Swedish National Bank) in the second, of a semicircular shape.
In this picture taken from the boat, we can see the Storkyrkan Church, the oldest church in Stockholm that lies in the center of Stockholm in Gamla stan, between Stockholm Palace (on the right) and Stortorget, the old main square of Stockholm (on the left). 

The cobblestone streets and ochre-colored buildings of Gamla Stan (the old town) are home to the 13th-century Storkyrkan Cathedral, the Kungliga Slottet Royal Palace and the Nobel Museum, which focuses on the Nobel Prize.

Stortorget is the main square in Stockholm’s old town, and the oldest square in the city. It was mentioned as early as 1420.

Stortorget (“Grand Square”) in Gamla Stan was created gradually, with buildings and blocks surrounding the square, still sloping west, occasionally added
haphazardly. The old square is an
artistic and shopping hub, renowned for its annual Christmas market, traditional handicrafts and culinary delights.
In this picture taken from a bus, we can locate a plaque on the royal palace with the name of King Carl XI.

Riddarholmen Church is located on the island of Riddarholmen, close to the Royal Palace. Initially, the church was the former medieval Greyfriars Monastery in Stockholm. Now it serves as the final resting place of most Swedish monarchs.

The historic Riddarholmen Church dates back to the 13th century. Since 1807, it has been used as a funeral and memorial church, with several chapels dedicated to the various kings of Sweden.

An interesting contrast between old architecture and modern one in Stockholm.

What is special about Stockholm, Sweden?

The city is built on 14 islands, connected by 57 bridges. It has 96 beaches, and the people of Stockholm own around 200,000 boats. This earned the Swedish capital the nickname ‘Beauty on the Water’. Although the weather is relatively cold and the place quite expensive, if you have a chance, don’t hesitate to visit Sweden.

And don’t forget to download my latest published contemporary novels.

New Release — WE’RE ALL HEROES

They’re all heroes who pay a big price for freedom—The Ukrainian mom who spies for her country; her three small kids who struggle to survive; the wounded major who gets them out of a war-zone; Lauren, the flight attendant who brings them to the U.S.A. ; her parents who receive them in their home; and her ex-fiancé, Dr. Jake, who operates on the injured. And let’s not forget the two German shepherd puppies that dive in a pool to save a two-year old. Will the many crises they face head-on strengthen or destroy Lauren and Jake’s relationship?

We’re All Heroes is book 12 of the Love Plans Series.

New Release — WE’RE ALL WINNERS

Handsome doctors are lying, cheating, self-centered bastards, particularly Vince Cooper, the charming resident, Casey Benton had the misfortune to fall in love with in medical school. Fate protected her by sending him to the other side of the country for a fellowship. Three years later, he’s standing in her parents’ living room, and she curses her bad luck.

Vince Cooper blesses his good luck when his dog finds a lost toddler in the park and allows him to reconnect with the woman he could never forget. After Casey reveals she adopted her son–a patient’s baby—attraction sizzles between them and romance blooms. But Casey doesn’t trust him completely, and Vince has a feeling she’s hiding something. When the truth explodes and nasty secrets pop out, will there be room for love and a happy future together?

We’re All Winners is book 14 of the Love Plans Series.

An Unforgettable Vacation in Egypt.

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If you are looking for a different and memorable vacation, at an incredibly low price, I suggest you carefully read this blog. My kids have just returned from a one-week vacation in Egypt.

Riding a camel wasn’t easy, but we made it

Using the highly recommended Memphis Tours, they organized the whole trip from the US by email and paid 25% of the whole amount when they made their reservations. The rest was paid when they arrived in Cairo. The price included hotels in Cairo and Luxor with breakfast and lunch, car transportation, flight to Luxor, and visits to all the monuments. Before traveling they got their visas and recommended vaccines. My daughter and son, and their families flew to London and boarded the same British Airways flight to Cairo.

Lunch at the 9 Pyramids Restaurant. We came by camel!

At Cairo International Airport, they were met at the gate by a Memphis Tours Representative who took their passports and asked them to follow her. Bypassing the long lines, she took care of all the formalities, passport control, and customs, and led them out of the airport to their van in no time. The Rep introduced them to their driver, English-speaking guide, and bodyguard who would accompany them for the whole week. This completely reassured my daughter.

The van drove them to the Kempinski Hotel (German chain of hotels) in downtown Cairo, right on the Nile. That first night they had dinner on the terrace of the hotel and enjoyed the magnificent view of Cairo by night.

At the step pyramid of Saqqara with Emad, our tour guide, an M.S. in History and a well of information.

On Day One, they went to the Pyramids, rode camels to tour the area, visited the Sphynx, and reached the restaurant where they enjoyed a delicious lunch of grilled lamb and chicken kabab. In the afternoon they visited the step pyramid of Saqqara, and went inside one of the pyramids.

The famous Khan El Khalili Bazaar where we shop to our heart’s content.

On Day Two, they visited the Citadel, (an old fortress) and the old museum and saw the King Tut exhibit. (The new Big Museum is still not open yet). After lunch they spent time in the Khan El Khalili Bazaar and enjoyed the inexpensive shopping.

The Temple of Karnak

On Day Three, they flew to Luxor, visited the Temples of Luxor and Karnak, sailed in a felucca and enjoyed a sunset on the Nile.

Going down a tomb in the Valley of the Kings. We saw King Tut’s mummy!

On Day Four, they left the Sofitel hotel at 8 am, (the renovated old Windsor Palace where many celebrities stayed). Right after breakfast, they went to the Valley of the Kings where they visited 5 Tombs out of 63, then they drove to the Colossi of Memnon, and later to the Temple of Queen Hatshepsut. Back at the hotel, they spent their afternoon in the pool, and after dinner attended a Sound and Light show at the temple.

In front of Queen Hatshepsut Temple. Her son had her head removed from all statues and paintings and replaced with his own head!!!

On Day Five, they flew back to Cairo, and on Day Six, they visited the Old Cairo churches that dated from the second century A.C. and the Ben Ezra Synagogue, sometimes referred to as the El-Geniza Synagogue or the Synagogue of the Levantines. According to local folklore, it is located on the site where baby Moses was found.

Sound and Light at the Temple of Luxor

The six-day trip to Egypt cost them less than any cruise or local vacation. The dads were happy to have a driver, the moms enjoyed the inexpensive shopping, and the girls were delighted to have Internet in both hotels. They were able to post their pictures on Instagram from day one. They are already planning another fabulous trip for next year to discover more wonderful monuments in Egypt.    

The Gods of Dark Love

The book is based on the Legend of Isis and Osiris. This is a sensual dark romance, with explicit love scenes, but not erotic in frequency or type.)

According to the legend, the evil Egyptian god of storm, Seth, killed his brother Osiris, chopped him into fourteen pieces and flung them all over Egypt. Isis, goddess of family, reassembled thirteen of his body parts. Since she couldn’t find his supernatural male member, where his godly power was stored, she reattached a human one. Isis has always loved Osiris, the charming god of labor. While dreaming of marriage, family and a son, she helps him fight Seth. Together they struggle to survive iniquities and perils.

His trip to the Afterlife has changed Osiris. He regrets his past womanizing. Guided by oracles she utters when they make love, they search lands and seas for his missing organ so he can recover his godly attributes. Osiris has fallen in love with Isis but the sins of his past and their unexpected consequences threaten to separate them more painfully than Seth’s mayhem and curses.

SECRET KISSES

The story is set in Ohio, and includes a visit to Egypt and a cruise on the Nile River. For love and friendship, three best friends will defy families and society.

Katy Mahoney, Hoda Seif, and Sarah Kohn. Three girls from different backgrounds and religions pledged to maintain their friendship forever.

For five years, the three friends meet and exchange confidences and advice. Life is so confusing for a woman in love with a man from a different religion. Sarah is concerned about Omar’s narrow-mindedness and decides he has to change. Katy knows she’ll have a battle royal on her hands with her pious Catholic mother. And Hoda is in a worse shape. Her family’s religion forbids her to marry an infidel.

Will the three friends manage to convince their families to let them marry for love or will tradition tear the lovers apart?

This book is part of UNFORGETTABLE LOVE, Unforgettable Wonder

The Statue of Liberty

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From the moment of its dedication, the Statue of Liberty has been an enigmatic monument.

The colossal statue was a gift from France and the brainchild of French sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi to symbolize America’s message of liberty to the world.

The sculptor behind the Statue of Liberty, Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, was born in 1834 in France, in the Alsace region on the border of Germany. When Auguste was nine, his mother Charlotte moved with her children to Paris and allowed them to study under some of France’s most accomplished artists, braving the city’s civil unrest for her sons’ education.

After completing his first commissioned work at age twenty, a large bronze statue of Napoleonic General Jean Rapp, Bartholdi traveled with a group of French cultural ambassadors to photograph works of antiquity in Egypt.

They encountered desert landscapes where ancient cities lay in ruins but colossal statues remained, inspiring Bartholdi to write “These granite beings, in their imperturbable majesty, seem to be still listening to the most remote antiquity. Their kindly and impassible glance seems to ignore the present and to be fixed upon an unlimited future.”

As an emerging artist, Bartholdi actively searched for commissions as well as inspiration, and he secured a meeting with Khedive Isma’il Pasha of Egypt, the ruler overseeing and funding the French construction of the Suez Canal. Bartholdi presented a figurine for a colossal lighthouse depicting an Egyptian fellaha, a female serf, entitled Egypt Carrying the Light to Asia. This design was ultimately rejected by the khedive.

In 1865, a French political intellectual and anti-slavery activist named Edouard de Laboulaye proposed that a statue representing liberty be built for the United States. This monument would honor the United States’ centennial of independence and the friendship with France.

The Statue of Liberty was built in France between 1875 and 1884. Bartholdi required the assistance of an engineer to address structural issues associated with designing such a colossal copper sculpture. Alexandre Gustave Eiffel, just prior to creating his famed Eiffel Tower, was engaged to design the massive iron pylon and secondary skeletal framework that allows the Statue’s copper skin to move independently yet stand upright.

Construction of the Statue was completed in France in July 1884. The massive sculpture stood tall above the rooftops of Paris. For its trans-Atlantic voyage aboard the frigate Isère, the Statue was reduced to 350 individual pieces and packed in 214 crates. The ship arrived in New York Harbor on June 17, 1885.

Back in America that same year architect Richard Morris Hunt was selected to design the Statue’s granite pedestal, and construction got underway. The pedestal was completed in April 1886. The statue was reassembled on Liberty Island in 1886, although the torch has been redesigned or restored several times since its installation. Finally, on October 28, 1886, President Grover Cleveland oversaw the dedication of the Statue of Liberty in front of thousands of spectators.

The sculptor behind the Statue of Liberty, Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi found his inspiration in the Land of the Pharaohs. You can take an armchair trip to Egypt, visit the Pyramids of Giza, and cruise along the Nile to Upper Egypt and the famous temples by reading SECRET KISSES.

Katy Mahoney, Hoda Seif, and Sarah Kohn. Three girls from different backgrounds and religions pledged to maintain their friendship forever.

On Graduation Day, Katy meets Hoda’s oldest brother Tarek, a dark and handsome medical graduate who can’t take his eyes off her. The graduation celebration ends with Hoda and Omar breaking off their engagement, Hoda exchanging a secret kiss wit Liam, Kathy’s cousin, and Omar befriending Sarah and renting a room in her house.

Three best friends, three secret and forbidden romances.

For five years, the three friends meet and exchange confidences and advice. Sarah is concerned about Omar’s narrow-mindedness and decides he has to change. Katy knows she’ll have a battle royal on her hands with her pious Catholic mother. And Hoda is in a worse shape. Her family’s religion forbids her to marry an infidel.

Will they choose the men they love and break with families and traditions? Difficult choice.

ON PREORDER

Kissing Plans: From best friend to lovers. But she’s engaged. What better way to get rid of the unpleasant fiancé? Finding him a girlfriend.
Family Plans: A plane crash destroyed their lives. Can it bring them together despite the painful secrets it uncovered?
Healing Plans: He adopted two minority children but lost his wife. Finally things settle for him, until the lovely surgeon he hires turns his life upside down.

Indiana Jones in Petra

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I visited Petra almost ten years ago as part of a cruise that took us from Italy all the way to Singapore, sailing the Mediterranean, crossing the Suez Canal, and continuing through the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean.

The blockbuster film Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade was partly filmed in the ancient city of Petra, a place unknown to much of the world before 1989. Indiana Jones was reviewed as “One of the best action-adventure films of all time,” and “One of the all-time greats. Harrison Ford is perfection-plus as Indiana Jones, so iconic a character that the AFI cited him as the second greatest movie hero of all time.”

“Archeology has never been so cool.”

Located between rugged desert canyons and mountains– in what is now the southwestern corner of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan– Petra was once a thriving trading center and the capital of the Nabataean empire between 400 B.C. and A.D. 106. The city sat empty and in near ruin for centuries. In the early 1800s, a European traveler disguised himself in Bedouin costume and infiltrated the mysterious site. In 1985, the Petra Archaeological Park was declared a UNESCO World Heritage site, and in 2007 it was named one of the new seven wonders of the world.

‘Bab Al Siq’ is Arabic for gateway to the ‘siq’. Here we discovered squared monuments, the massive Djinn blocks, and the Obelisk Tomb, carved in the 1st century AD. Above the tomb are four pyramids as well as a niche with a statue in bas-relief that is a symbolic representation of the five people buried there. An inscription indicated that the tomb was used for Abdomanchos and his family, probably in 40- 70 AD.

The Siq, the main road that leads to the city, is a rock canal that measures 3 to 12 meters in width and reaches up to 80 meters in height. The main part of the Siq is created by natural rock formation and the rest was carved by the Nabataeans.

The siq opens up onto Petra’s most magnificent façade; the Treasury, or Al Khazna (in Arabic). It is almost 40 meters high and intricately decorated with Corinthian capitals, friezes, figures and more. The Treasury consists of two floors with a width of 25.30 meters and a height of 39.1 meters, and comprises three chambers. The most recent excavation has unearthed a graveyard beneath the Treasury. 

Almost three decades ago, George Lucas decided to use the monumental Treasury, the centerpiece of Jordan’s ancient city of Petra, as the exterior of The Temple of the Sun in his movie Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Cast and crew had to travel all the way to Jordan for just one day of shooting, because that’s all it took to make those scenes work.

The Treasury is crowned by a funerary urn, which according to local legend conceals a pharaoh’s treasure. Although the original function is still a mystery, The Treasury was probably constructed in the 1st century BC. However, in reality the urn represented a memorial for royalty.

While the filmmakers were allowed to have free access to the main entrance chamber, access is prohibited to most mortal visitors. The good news is that the most spectacular part of the location is its exterior – as well as the path you need to take to get there in the first place.

The 1.2 kilometer-long walk through a cleft called The Siq is the only way to access the Treasury and come back to the entrance.

Carved directly into vibrant red, white, pink, and sandstone cliff faces, the prehistoric Jordanian city of Petra was “lost” to the Western world for hundreds of years.

Unfortunately with the pandemic going on for almost two years, I have stopped traveling. Instead I write non-stop and have finished writing a series of eight romance novels, LOVE PLANS. The five first books are on pre-order, and SAILING AWAY PLANS will be released tomorrow.

Love Plans Series:

Sailing Away Plans: The successful surgeon quits work to start a new life in the Caribbean, on his new boat and in a new clinic, but love strikes at the wrong time. [RELEASE DAY 9/2]

Dating Plans: Attraction sizzles between a divorced surgeon and a psychologist with a challenging daughter. Things get more difficult when the teenager’s father returns.

Rescue Plans: Arianna fought hard to escape the slums and become a flight nurse. Captain Lopez taught her to conquer fear. Can he help her forget the scum from the past and win her trust?

Wedding Plans: Will the doctor make the right decision between an angry fiancée and a medical emergency?

Baby Plans: They meet at the artificial insemination clinic. Zach is doing research for an article. Audrey is secretly getting a baby. But artificial insemination works in many ways…