What many consider the world’s most beautiful mosque is in Persia’s most captivating city, Shiraz.  Over four millennia older than Islam, over two millennia older than Persia, Shiraz was "Shirrazish," a city of ancient Elam at the birth of civilization in Mesopotamia 5,000 years ago.  Even then, Shiraz was famous for wine.  A thousand years ago, it was considered the best in the world.  Marco Polo praised it. No more.  Prior to the Islamic Revolution in 1979, there were over 300 Persian wineries. Now there are none.

Shiraz is still a city of gardens and flowers.  At the garden tomb of Persia’s most revered poet Hafez (1315-1390), young couples gather for discrete romance as they have for centuries.  The beauty of Nasr ol-Molk – with the sun shining through its stained glass windows covering the floor carpets in color, and the interior a dazzling display of pink tile ornamentation – can be overwhelming.  The same for the friendliness of the people – always welcoming with a smile for you.

Especially if you are American.  All the people we met love America and despise their rulers.  The Land of Persia is still here in today’s Iran, and someday it will be free, America’s ally again.  The wine will flow here once more.  (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #83 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

In the Mediterranean, experienced travelers know the French Riviera from St. Tropez to Menton, and the Italian Riviera from Ventimiglia to Cinque Terre.  There is one Riviera in the Med they may not know – Albania’s. The Med has many beautiful coastlines, and just about all of them have been “discovered” by jet-setters to backpackers.  Not yet, however, for Albania from Saranda in the south across from Greece’s Corfu to Vlora across from the tip of Italy’s Boot Heel.

Here you find an abundance of gorgeous coves and pocket beaches tucked away with hardly a soul there.  The one pictured above isn’t even named on a map – there’s just a tiny wharf for local fishermen.  Yes, the Albanian Riviera is getting discovered, with boutique hotels and nightclubs sprouting up here and there.  But as for now, it’s still the Unknown Riviera, gorgeous with so much untouched.  You might want to experience it before it’s overrun. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #82 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

This is Mysore Palace, home of the Wadiyar Rajas who ruled Mysore from 1399 to 1950.  It is one of the many wonders of Southern India that’s far less known than traveler’s meccas up north like Agra and Rajasthan.

There’s the Nagarhole Tiger Sanctuary, more Asian elephants than anywhere else in the world, over 100 tigers, scores of leopards, their prey in profusion. Christian churches founded by Christ’s disciple St. Thomas in the 1st century AD.  Towering Hindu temples covered with tens of thousands of eye-popping multi-colored sculptures.  The gorgeous beaches of Goa, the serene peace of the Kerala Backwaters – “one of the most beautiful locations on earth” according to National Geographic, that you explore by luxury houseboat. It goes on and on.

And here also you find the business metropolis of Bangalore, the Silicon Valley of India. We did all of this and more a few years ago, and may again in ’21 or ’22.  (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #81 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)

I showed this picture to my mother after my latest sojourn with the Afghan Mujahaddin fighting the Soviet Union and she didn’t see anything unusual.  She didn’t recognize her own son standing in the middle.  Good thing – if I had been caught by the KGB or Spetsnaz, it would have been, ahh… unpleasant.  I was there with the “Muj” at least a dozen times until they defeated the Soviet Red Army in early 1989 – which led to the Fall of the Berlin Wall eight months later and the extinction of the Soviet Union itself by the end of 1991.  It was one of the most thrilling – and consequential – adventures of modern times. ( Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #80 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

The best place to see Roman ruins is not in Rome or anywhere in Italy.  It’s in Africa – specifically on the Mediterranean coast of Libya.  This is the Roman theatre at Sabratha built in the 1^st century BC.  Over 2,000 years old, it’s still mostly intact.  Starting as a Berber village, the Phoenicians founded the city as Sabrat by 500 BC.  Then came the Greeks, then the Carthaginians, and after the Punic Wars came Rome.

The Libyan coast was a lush fertile place back then.  So much so that Sabratha and the other major Roman city nearby, Leptis Magna, produced several million pounds of olive oil per year – sale of which to Rome enabled them to achieve great wealth.  It’s a shame that Libya remains today in chaotic civil war.  Hopefully the day is not off when experiencing Rome’s most magnificent remains will be possible here again. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #79 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

Our Glimpse 77 yesterday (11/03) was of the Wakhan Corridor – a skinny finger of northeast Afghanistan separating Tajikistan and Pakistan extending all the way to China. Click on the link to get the photo.  Note the large alluvial fan in the center on the Afghan side of the Amu Darya.  Now look closely and you’ll see a tiny white dot on the edge of the fan next to the green of the river bank.

What could that be?  Well, here’s my photo of it close up.  Certainly no Afghan village.  It’s a modern windowless compound completely isolated with no roads, trails, or any other habitation for many miles in any direction, reachable only by helicopter.  Any guesses?  It’s a CIA interrogation center, where captured Taliban are brought for rather intense debriefings.  That’s the Wakhan Surprise.  I’ll bet many of you canny old TTPers, however, aren’t surprised at all. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #78 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)