Yes, believe it or not, this was a 4 page story in LIFE Magazine more than sixty years ago when I first swam the Hellespont. I repeated the swim twelve years later for my book, The Adventurer’s Guide. You can see the whole LIFE story here. Quite an adventure for a 16 year-old kid. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #121 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)

At the Temple of the Peacock Angel in the Yezidi holy city of Lalish, you find this entrance to a Sacred Spring with a carved black snake, revered by Yezidis as they believe a black snake stuck itself into a hole in Noah’s Ark and saved humanity.

The Yezidis are among the most ancient of all peoples in the Middle East. Their heartland is in what is now Northern Iraq, or Iraqi Kurdistan. You may know of them through the horrific butchery perpetrated upon them by the medieval terrorists of ISIS which gained worldwide notoriety.

They are a fascinating people whose syncretic beliefs are a mélange of Zoroastrianism, Syriac Christianity, Sufi Islam spiced with their own interpretation of all three. In other words, they are their own people, no one else like them – peaceful, at ease with themselves, and immensely likeable.

Their protectors are the Kurds – an extraordinary people in their own right. We’ll be visiting Iraqi Kurdistan and the Yezidis once more soon. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #89 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)

This is Almaty, the largest city in Kazakhstan with over two million people. Originally named Alma Ata or Father of Apples, as here in the western foothills of the Tien Shan mountains is where apples were first domesticated and cultivated.

Almaty is a thriving prosperous city as the financial/economic- but not political- capital of independent Kazakhstan. And but a stone’s throw away from the magnificent snow-clad Tien Shan, a trekker’s paradise in the spring, summer, and fall, a skier’s in the winter. It’s a modern, spotlessly clean city with gorgeous parks and flower gardens- and there’s a terrific Irish Pub flowing with Guinness. What more could you want? (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #220 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

Waitangi Bay, Chatham Island. 530 miles east of New Zealand lies an isolated island of windswept rugged beauty that few people have ever heard of. Yet Chatham Island may be an ultimate Christian example of how to prevail over monstrous evil.

In the early 1400s, a Polynesian people calling themselves Moriori sailed from New Zealand across an unknown empty sea to reach an island they named Rekohu, meaning “misty sky.” For 400 years they lived in peace among themselves – and in utter isolation from the world.

But in 1835, another people arrived, and brought Hell with them. They were a group of 500 Maori cannibals from New Zealand determined to take Rekohu for themselves. The Maori killed them like sheep, men, women, children, and babies, and ate them.

The British Governor of New Zealand ignored the Maori Genocide. There were about 2,000 Moriori on Rekohu (renamed Chatham) when the Maoris arrived in 1835. Only 101 Moriori were still alive by 1862. It was Western Christian missionaries who put an end to Maori killing, eating, and enslaving Moriori. Today on Chatham Island there is a Moriori resurgence – but without rancor. The past is past, they say, what counts is the future. Like few other peoples on earth, the Moriori understand the Christian power of abandoning resentment and grievance.

Come to Chatham to experience a unique place in our world, and a people with their souls at peace. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #176 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

Italy’s Siena Cathedral, built from 1215 to 1263 is one of the great masterpieces of medieval architecture.  It contains works of art by Renaissance greats from Donatello, Bernini, and Michelangelo.  Most stunning of all, however, is the cathedral floor, entirely covered with marble mosaics depicting scenes from the Old Testament, Greek and Roman myths and history.  No one photo does it justice, it’s so immense.  Here you see Crates of Thebes (265-285 BC) atop the Mount of Wisdom casting riches into the sea for a life of tranquil simplicity.

The floor is covered over for most of the year and is only unveiled during (plus a few days before and after) September.   So plan to be there then to witness a truly magnificent artistic creation of Western Civilization. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #282 photo ©Jack Wheeler)