Over a thousand feet on a mountain ledge above Amalfi on the Mediterranean, you’ll find the Terrazzo dell'lnfinito, considered by poets for centuries the most beautiful view in the world. It is part of the magnificent gardens of the 11^th century Villa Cimbrone, in the hilltop town of Ravello, built by the Romans in the 5^th century.

The Sorrentine Peninsula is a finger of land south of Naples sticking out into the Med’s Tyrrhanean Sea, off the tip of which is the legendary island of Capri. The main town of Sorrento is on the north side facing Naples and Mount Vesuvius. But it is the steep southern shore of the Amalfi Coast that is our planet’s most spectacularly scenic drive with its ancient ports of Amalfi and Positano.

Exploring this magical part of the world is an ultimate “bucket list” experience. And to top it off, on the way down from Naples, you get to visit Pompeii, the excavated Roman city buried and preserved by the ash of Vesuvius in 79 AD. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #115 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

The first of The Seven Pearls of Shing is called Mijnon or The Eyelash. It’s at 5,300 ft in the Fann Mountains of Western Tajikistan. At dawn, the air is still and crystal clear as is the water. The surface of the lake becomes a mesmerizing mirror with the early light reflecting the vertical cliffs above while penetrating to the translucent lake bed below. It is an epic example of the boundless beauty of our world.

Yet Tajikistan is only one of the “Stans” of Central Asia, an ultimate of the world’s mysterious, remote, and wondrous places. There are four others: Kazakhstan, Kyrghistan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan. A number of your fellow TTPers have been there with me and can tell you what a fabulously life-memorable adventure it is to explore all five.

We’ll be there again sometime soon. Be with us with your loved one, your children, or grandchildren and you’ll all have an experience to treasure for all of your lives. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #263 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

From the 900s to the 1200s, the Pagan Empire built over 10,000 Buddhist temples. 2,200 remain on the plains of Pagan today, one of the world’s most wondrous sights – especially if you see them from above in a hot air balloon. It is truly astounding how much there is to explore and experience in Burma. Hopefully, we’ll be there once more for it all next February. I hope you will be one of your fellow TTPers to join us. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #33 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

August, 1971. The gentle Mbuti people live in the Ituri rainforest, one of the world’s densest jungles, in northeastern DR Congo. They are among the most ancient of all human populations, with their ancestors having hunted in these forests for over 60,000 years. The tallest among them is under five feet.

It was on my first visit to Africa that I was able to spend time with them. They live in scattered bands of a few dozen each, always on the move in search of game, sleeping in small makeshift huts of branches and leaves, and far away from villages of Bantus who always try to enslave them.

Their music is hypnotic. To the beat of drums of hollowed-out logs, they sing with a polyphonic complexity that is extraordinary. I’ll never forget the performance they gave for me. Alas, no tape recorder – much less videocam back then! (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #65 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

The magnificent Sher-Dor Madrassa, built in the early 1600s, is part of the Registan public square complex of the ancient Silk Road oasis of Samarkand. “Sher-Dor” means “Adorned with Tigers” in Persian – flaunting Islamic blasphemy of living beings in art. Here is the mosaic depiction of a tiger chasing a deer and on its back a rising sun deity with a human face. This is honoring the pre-Islamic history of Samarkand that goes back almost 3,000 years.

It was centuries old when Alexander conquered it in 329 BC. For a thousand years as Central Asia’s great entrepot on the Silk Road between China and the Mediterranean, it was a cosmopolitan center for Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Zoroastrianism, and Nestorian Christianity. Incorporated into the Islamic world in the 700s, sacked by Genghiz Khan in 1220, rebuilt by the time Marco Polo in 1272 described it as “a large and splendid city,” Tamerlane made it his capital in 1370.

Colonized by Czar Alexander II in the 1860s within the Russian Imperial Empire, and by the Soviets in the 1920s within the Uzbek SSR, Samarkand is flourishing today in independent Uzbekistan. Come with me to explore Samarkand and so many other wonders of "The Heart of Central Asia" soon. It will be like a dream come true. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #208 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

This is Spain’s most famous and beloved castle, high on a rocky promontory above the city of Segovia some 60 miles northwest of Madrid. The site of a Celtic settlement, Roman trading post, and Arab wooden fort, when the Reconquista of the Christian knights removed the Islamic invaders from their land in the early 1200s, the building of the idyllic fairy tale castle you see began.

For centuries it was the palace residence of the Kings and Queens of Castille. It was here, on December 13, 1474, that Isabella, daughter of King John II, was enthroned as the Queen of Castille. When her husband Ferdinand, whom she married in 1469, became King of Aragon in 1475, they jointly ruled a unified Spain. As we learned in our early school years, it was Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castille who sponsored Columbus’ discovery of the Americas in 1492.

Today, the Castle of Segovia is a World Heritage Site, serving as a museum of the history of Castille and National Archive of Spain. Immaculately preserved and maintained, it’s a thrilling experience to explore. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #266 photo ©Jack Wheeler)