Fifty years ago – August 1971 – I was able to climb the Great Pyramid of Cheops all the way to the top. 450 feet high, 4,000 years old, the only one of the original Seven Wonders of the World to still exist, it was my first time in Egypt and I had to give it a go.

Of course, this is illegal. So I waited near sunset and all the tourists had gone, walked around to the northwest corner hidden from most views where there was one lonely guard. I gave him 20 Egyptian pounds which made him very happy, and up I went. Each block at the bottom is about five feet tall and gets smaller as you climb, with over 200 stone layers or “courses” base to apex. The top is flat, about 10-foot square – the limestone casing reaching a point gone long ago.

I was a philosophy doctoral student back then, so I sat down, took out from my daypack Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, and read my idol’s wisdom in the light of the setting sun. It was a sunset I’ll never forget, too mesmerized by the moment to take a picture. The photo is of me taken recently where I began my climb of decades ago. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #126 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)

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)

It is a profoundly somber experience to stand here on this abandoned weed-strewn airstrip. For this is Runway Able on Tinian Island in the Northern Marianas, where 76 years ago, on August 6, 1945, a B-29 nicknamed Enola Gay piloted by Capt. Paul Tibbets took off with Little Boy in its bomb bay bound for Hiroshima – and three days later on August 9, a B-29 nicknamed Bockscar piloted by Maj. Charles Sweeney flew off with Fat Boy in its bomb bay headed for Nagasaki.

As a consequence, on August 15, Emperor Hirohito announced the surrender of Japan to America. Here is where World War II was won, and the Nuclear Age begun.

This lost bit of tarmac is the most consequential airstrip on earth. Be prepared for a deep complex of swirling emotions if you ever stand here yourself. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #14 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

Built 1,000 years ago on the edge of a cliff hundreds of feet above the sea on the island of Bali, the sacred temple of Ulu Watu is one of the holiest places of worship for the Balinese people. They have retained their unique form of Balinese Hinduism for millennia that incorporates their original animism, ancestor worship, and reverence for Buddhist saints or Bodhisattva. This has resulted in a spiritual warmth and gentle friendliness matched by few other places on earth. It is little wonder so many who come here consider Bali to be a worldly paradise. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #108 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)

Yes, these are the actual legendary walls of Troy that Homer immortalized in the Iliad. Or what remains of them 3,200 years later. You see here the East Gate of Troy VIIa, the layer demolished in ashes archaeologists believe where the historical basis of the Trojan War occurred in 1180 BC.

This was Troia or Ilium for the ancient Greeks, after the city’s founder Tros and his son Ilus. They firmly believed what Homer described was real history, and the heroes portrayed – Achilles, Hector, Odysseus, Ajax, Patrocles, Paris and Priam – really lived. They knew just where it was – in the northwest corner of what is now Turkey they called the Troad where there were ruins with the tomb of Achilles.

Alexander the Great so firmly believed it was all true that when he crossed the Hellespont in 334 BC to destroy the Persian threat to Greece, he devoutly worshipped at Achilles’ tomb. 2,200 years later everyone thought Troy was a pure myth – all historians certainly did – except for a self-made German businessman named Heinrich Schliemann. He spent his fortune excavating a mound called Hissarlik in 1871 – and found Troy.

Today, you can explore these ruins of history yourself. Go there alone at night with a full moon above. Will the shade of Achilles come forth out of the moonlit shadows to greet you? (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #217 photo ©Jack Wheeler)