Rebel and I, along with our friends with us, always have a great time in Albania.  Here’s a pic she took of me with a stein of delicious Birra Tirana lager.  You’re sure to have so much fun yourself by joining us and your fellow TTPers on our Albania Wonderland experience this April.  See you in Tirana.  The beer’s on me! (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #284 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

The Himbas are a tribe of nomadic cattle herders in far northern Namibia. Himba women make a paste of butter fat and red ochre clay called “otjize,” to protect their skin from the burning African sun and braid their hair for beautification.

The Himbas’ exotic practices are not for tourists. This is the way they live as one of Africa’s most genuinely traditional peoples. Living on the move in remote roadless regions, it takes an effort to find them. But when you do, coming with an attitude of respect, you will be welcomed with smiles and hospitality in return. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #66 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)

Have you ever seen the ocean turn day-glo pink? It does here naturally during a sunset (this is not photoshopped). Between Samoa and Tonga in the South Pacific is a raised coral atoll, 100 square miles of old limestone between 60 and 200 feet high: the island of Niue (new-way), and it’s is uniquely fabulous.

With no silty river runoff, the water is incredibly clear – visibility can reach over 200 feet. There are a multitude of chasms through which you clamber to these out-of-a-movie tidal pools perfect for snorkeling surrounded by colorful reef fish. The limestone cliffs encircling the coast are riddled with caves with multi-colored stalactites and stalagmites.

You can snorkel or dive with spinner dolphins and humpback whales. The big game fishing is world class – within a few hundred yards off shore. The Niueans are unfailingly friendly and welcoming, the beautiful Matavai Resort is the best bargain in the Pacific, the food and beer is inexpensive, the weather is balmy. It’s a Polynesian paradise you never heard of. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #48 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)

In the city of Lezhë overlooking the Adriatic Sea, there is a memorial to Albania’s national hero, Scanderbeg (1405-1468). Born Giorgi Kastrioti in this city of northern Albania, he earned the title of “Lord Alexander” – Scanderbeg in Albanian – for his military genius in leading his Christian army against the Moslem armies of the Ottoman Empire.  For 25 years (1443-1468), his 10,000 Christian Knights consistently inflicted defeat after defeat upon always much larger Moslem forces.

His victory in the Battle of Albulena in 1457, where he destroyed an Ottoman army of 70,000, killing 15,000 and taking 15,000 prisoners, so astounded all of Christendom that Pope Calixtus III appointed him Captain-General of the Holy See, and gave him the title of Athleta Christi, Champion of Christ.

By the 1500s with Scanderbeg but a memory, the Ottomans conquered Albania and Islamized it for almost 400 years. With the rise of Albanian nationalism in the late 19^th century, Scanderbeg’s memory was revived. Today he is revered by Albanians who only ostensibly remain Islamic yet idolize a Christian King who devoted his life to defeating their country’s Moslem oppressors. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #247 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

Here we are at the real Atlantis in Knossos, Crete. More nonsense has been invented about Plato’s myth of Atlantis – mentioned briefly in his Timaeus and Critias and not by anyone else in antiquity – than any other legend you care to name.

Yet like many myths, it was constructed out of something that really existed. Atlantis is the Minoan Civilization of Crete, Europe’s oldest. By 2,000 BC, the Minoans had created the world’s first peaceful capitalist empire, based not on military might and conquest but on trade, with trade routes across the entire Mediterranean. They became immensely wealthy, building fabulous palaces and villas – but their cities were not fortified. Europe’s original civilization was the most peaceful in European history.

Around 1450 BC, the Minoan island of Santorini 60 miles north of Crete – known to the Greeks as Thera – suffered a colossal volcanic explosion with the resultant mega-tsunami wiping the Minoans out on Crete. It was “The wave that destroyed Atlantis.” Yet you can see for Atlantis for yourself, its excavated villas with fabulous preserved frescoes, and step back into a period of inspiring history. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #68 photo ©Jack Wheeler)