Around the World with Beyondia 🧵 Mediterranean Region 🪡 Journal 7 Cairo. Tunisia. Valletta. A megacity that never sleeps, a country the world walks past, and a fortress the size of a neighbourhood that ran an empire. Cairo Cairo didn’t greet me. It grabbed me by the collar. Twenty-two million people in a metropolitan area […]
Cairo Screamed 🇪🇬 Tunisia Whispered 🇹🇳 Valletta Punched Above Its Weight 🇲🇹 Read More »
🌐 Around the World with Beyondia 🧵 Mediterranean Region 🪡 Episode 21 Valletta was designed entirely on paper before anyone laid a stone. The drawing is what the city actually became Valletta — Named after Jean Parisot de Valette In September 1565, on a small island in the central Mediterranean, an army of religious knights
Valletta 🇲🇹 Everything Here Was Built on Purpose Read More »
🌐 Around the World with Beyondia 🧵 Mediterranean Region 🪡 Episode 20 Rome destroyed Carthage twenty-two centuries ago. The land Carthage stood on is still here. Rome is not. Carthage, Tunisia In the year 146 BC, on the north coast of what is now Tunisia, a Roman army under the consul Scipio Aemilianus completed the
Tunisia 🇹🇳 The Mediterranean’s Best-Kept Secret Read More »
🌐 Around the World with Beyondia 🧵 Mediterranean Region 🪡 Episode 19 Cairo is what every other old city in the Mediterranean dreams of being when it grows up. Cairo — one of the largest cities on the planet There is a phrase Cairenes have used about their own city for almost a thousand years:
Cairo 🇪🇬 The City That Out-Lived 4 Empires Read More »
Around the World with Beyondia 🧵 Mediterranean Region 🪡 Journal 6 Santorini. Rhodes. Crete. The postcard, the fortress, and the island that doesn’t need a category. Santorini Everyone has seen Santorini before they arrive. The white domes, the blue roofs, the caldera at sunset. I stepped off the ferry already knowing what it would look
Santorini Lied to Me, Rhodes Stood Its Ground, Crete Didn’t Need Either 🇬🇷 Read More »
🌐 Around the World with Beyondia 🧵 Mediterranean Region 🪡 Episode 18 Crete is the island Greece learned from. Almost nobody outside Greece knows this. Most people inside Greece have made peace with it. Crete is the island Greece learned from In the year 3000 BC, give or take a century, while most of Europe
Crete 🇬🇷 The Island Greece Learned From Read More »
🌐 Around the World with Beyondia 🧵 Mediterranean Region 🪡 Episode 17 Rhodes is the Greek island that was everybody else’s before it was ever its own. Rhodes — The Most Wanted Island Rhodes has been wanted by almost every empire that ever existed in this part of the Mediterranean. It was founded as a
Rhodes 🇬🇷 The Island That Outlived Everyone Who Wanted It Read More »
🌐 Around the World with Beyondia 🧵 Mediterranean Region 🪡 Episode 16 Santorini wasn’t always beautiful. In 1600 BC, a volcanic eruption destroyed everything. What you see now is what grew back. Santorini exploded Around 1600 BC, give or take a few decades, the island now called Santorini exploded. Not figuratively. Volcanologists estimate that the
Santorini 🇬🇷 Beauty That Survived Its Own Explosion Read More »
Around the World with Beyondia 🧵 Mediterranean Region 🪡 Journal 5 Naxos. Paros. Ios. Three islands that don’t need the ones everyone talks about. Naxos The ferry from Mykonos to Naxos takes forty minutes. The difference takes about three seconds to feel. I walked off the boat and the Portara was right there — the
I Found Cheese on Naxos, Marble on Paros, and My Nerve on Ios 🇬🇷 Read More »
🌐 Around the World with Beyondia 🧵 Mediterranean Region 🪡 Episode 15 Ios has two reputations. Only one of them is correct. Both of them are true. There is a hilltop on the northern end of Ios Above a valley called Plakotos, where a low stone mound sits in the dry grass with a view
Ios 🇬🇷 The Greek Island with Two Reputations Read More »