In 2015, a series of new
tours to two different continents will be organised and hosted by Álvaro
Figueiredo, in collaboration with GAMNA (Group
of Friends of the National Museum of Archaeology, Lisbon) and Pinto Lopes
Viagens (Portugal). Detailed information concerning programmes and dates may be
obtained by emailing this site (alvaro.a.figueiredo@gmail.com) or through the
link
http://www.pintolopesviagens.com/alvaro-figueiredo/
JORDAN:
IN SEARCH OF THE PAST IN THE HASHEMITE KINGDOM OF JORDAN
8-17
March, 2015
The
Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan is a country of great geographic contrasts that are
reflected in landscapes of great natural beauty. On a par with Egypt and
Mesopotamia, urban civilizations developed here from around 5000 years ago.
Located astride caravan routes that connected Arabia and the Red Sea to the
cities of Syria and the Mediterranean, trade brought prosperity to the
region, attracting Egyptians, Assyrians, Babylonians and Persians. In the late
4th century B.C. the establishment of Hellenistic kingdoms by the successors of
Alexander the Great results in the rapid Hellenization of the territory and its
people, evident in the foundation of the great urban centres of the Decapolis –
the league of “ten cities” – such as Gerasa (Jerash), Gadara (‘Umm Qais) and
Philadelphia (‘Amman). This was also the period of consolidation and expansion
of the pre-Islamic Arab kingdom of the Nabataeans whose politico-religious
capital, Petra, is today the touristic and cultural jewel of Jordan. Jordan is
also part of a geographical and ideological space that since Romano-Byzantine
times has been known as the Holy Land, where some of the events described in
the Old and New Testaments took place.
In
this tour of 10 days, in association with GAMNA (Group of Friends of the
National Museum of Archaeology), we embark on a journey through time,
travelling along the fertile lands of the Jordanian plateau and the great
Arabian Desert (where we camp for a night in Wadi Rum), in search of the Past,
in a region of the World rich in tradition and famous for its hospitality.
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4-18
May, 2015
Located
in a region of the world that bridges the cultural spheres of the Middle East
and Central Asia, Iran is a country with a long and complex history. Situated
astride a series of trade routes that extended from China to the Mediterranean,
the so-called Silk Road, the country was the centre of vast empires that were
rule from bustling and prosperous cities, such as Susa, Persepolis and Isfahan.
Iran also possesses a landscape of great natural beauty that includes
monumental mountains, snow covered throughout the winter, extensive fertile
plains and great deserts.
This
tour of 15 days explores the rich historic-cultural heritage of Iran, as well
as the country’s great natural beauty, on a journey that also invites the
traveller to discover modern Iran, in its gastronomy and people; to walk
through the great bazars of Teheran, Kerman, Shiraz and Isfahan; to repose in a
tearoom permeated with the exotic aroma of tobacco smoke from the narguileh,
while listening to the magic poems of Hafez or Sa’di, accompanied by the
sound of Persian classical music; to see the artisans working in the bazar of
Isfahan; or to cross by dhow the turquoise sea of the Persian Gulf to
visit the fabled Island of Ormuz.
9-20
June, 2015
Algeria is the largest
country of the Mediterranean and Africa, and forms part of the territory the
Arabs call al-Maghreb – “the land of the West.” Although most of the country is
composed by desert, in the north there were always favorable conditions for
human settlement along the Mediterranean coast, while south of the Atlas Chain,
the Algerian Sahara has been for millennia crossed by important trade routes linking
the urban centres of the north with the sub-Saharan regions of the south. During
the first half of the First Millennium BC, Phoenician settlers from the Eastern
Mediterranean and, later, from Carthage in Tunisia, founded cities along the
coast. By the late 1st century BC the region was ruled by Juba II
and his wife Cleopatra Selene (daughter of Mark Antony and Cleopatra VII of
Egypt), friends of Rome and of the Emperor Augustus. Later, after the death of
their son, Ptolemy of Mauretania, the kingdom would be incorporated into the
Roman Empire, maintaining its traditions and indigenous language. After the
Romans came the Vandals and, during the second half of the 7th
century, the region would became part of a vast Arab-Islamic Empire extending
from the Atlantic to the borders of China. During the 13th-16th
centuries the country was governed by local dynasties, before being
incorporated into the Otoman Empire, at a time when coastal cities such as
Algiers were great corsair centres whose ports provided access to the products
of Africa, with magnificent bazars built along narrow streets, and white-washed
buildings with green doors, the colour of Islamic Paradise.
In this tour of 12 days we will journey through
time, through cities and villages from the Past and of the Present, through
landscapes of enormous natural beauty, between the fertile lands of the
Mediterranean coast of the Maghreb and the great desert of the Sahara, with its
diverse geology and great oases, in search of the Past, in a region famous for
its tradition and hospitality.
17-28
September, 2015
The
enchanted cities of Uzbekistan – Samarkand, Bukhara, Khiva and Shahrisabz –
situated along the Silk Road. Uzbekistan preserves relics of a past world when
Central Asia was the centre of empires and its cities great centres of
scientific learning and of the arts, remembered in the Western imagination as a
distant and enchanted world shrouded in mystery.
In
this tour of 12 days we travel from Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan, in
search of that glorious past, visiting the museum-city of Khiva, surrounded by
walls and decorated with mosques and palaces covered with blue and white tiles;
to Bukhara, jewel of the desert, once one of the great intellectual centres of
the Islamic World, dotted with great and impressive monuments and an extensive
bazar worthy of the tales from A
Thousand and One Nights. While travelling between Bukhara and
Samarkand a detour into the Kizilkum Desert will provide the perfect excuse for
a night stay in a nomad camp, in a yurt, a circular tent characteristic
of the region; before continuing to Shahrisabz, native city of Timur, and then
on to his great imperial capital of Samarkand, to visit the many monuments built
by Timur and his grandson, Ulubegh.
Uzbekistan
is like a vast museum. But it is also a living museum, in its ancestral
traditions still lived in the streets of the ancient quarters of Khiva, Bulhara
and Samarkand, with their vast bazars and numerous tearooms where tea, enjoyed
here for centuries, was one of the precious products that was once traded along
the Silk Road.
SUDAN:
IN SEARCH OF THE PYRAMIDS AND TEMPLES OF THE BLACK PHARAOHS OF THE KINGDOM OF
KUSH
21-31 October,
2015
30 Oct. - 9 November, 2015
30 Oct. - 9 November, 2015
In
this programme of 11 days we embark on a journey of discovery along the idyllic
landscape of the Sudanese Nile valley, through cataracts, cultivated fields and
the ever present spectacular beauty of the Saharan Desert, following on the
footsteps of the early explorers who came in search of the source of the Nile.
We
will travel in search of the past world of Napata and of the black Pharaohs of
the 25th Dynasty, of the fabled kingdom of Meroe, Christian Dongola and the
world of the Caliphs of Islam; but we will also travel in a Sudan of the
present, as experienced in the streets, markets and cafes of Omdurman, Dongola and
Karima, following on the trail of 19th Century explorers and travellers,
between the city of Khartoum, where the White Nile and the Blue Nile meet, and
Sudanese Nubia, once the gateway to the African interior. This journey along
the Nile also invites the traveller to discover the archaeological
wonders of the country, including the magnificent collection of the National
Museum in Khartoum, where some of the antiquities removed during the
construction of the Aswan High Dam are exhibited, the Temple of Soleb built by
Amenhotep III, the Great Temple of Amun at Jebel Barkal, the pyramid sites of
Jebel Barkal, el-Kurru and Nuri, and the temples and pyramids of the Kingdom of
Meroe.
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