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)

We’re all familiar with the sufferings of Job in the Old Testament’s Book of Job. But what happened to Job after his sufferings were ended? All the OT says is that, with his health and riches restored, he lived long enough to see his great-great grandchildren.

The OT says Job lived in the “Land of Uz,” which was “beyond the Euphrates.” That would place it in modern day Iraq. There is no connection between this Hebraic name and the land of Uzbekistan – meaning the Land of Uzbeks, a Turkic people. Yet the Silk Road city of Bukhara in today’s Uzbekistan is thousands of years old.

Jews have lived in Bukhara for 3,000 years, although almost all have emigrated now (some 150,000 Bukharan Jews live in Israel). Thus it is a very ancient legend that during a terrible drought in Bukhara, Job visited the city and struck the ground with his staff – causing a spring of healing water to gush from the ground, and continues to do so today.

A shrine was built around the spring – the Well of Job – and the water is clear and drinkable. One of the many extraordinary experiences in what we call Hidden Central Asia. We’ll be here again this coming May. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #114 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

Sometimes you run across something that no matter how it grosses you out, you have to take a picture of it. The thousand year-old medina or walled city of Fez is a World Heritage Site as the spiritual and cultural capital of Morocco. Uniquely epitomizing this is the stall of the camel butcher in the medina’s vast bazaar. To garner the attention of ladies shopping for their family’s dinner, he proudly displays the head of the camel whose fresh meat is on sale. Traveling in Morocco is always an adventure. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #188 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

Let’s flashback 2.2 million Fridays to 4,000 BC, six thousand years ago, when the original inhabitants of post-Ice Age Ireland erected this megalithic “dolmen” or portal tomb. It consists of three standing portal stones suspending a massive horizontal capstone, the limestone entrance to a tomb originally covered with an earthen mound.

Eventually the mound weathered away revealing the stone “skeleton” which was a sacred shrine for the Megalithic Irish all the way to the medieval Celts even though in a remote barren rocky region of far western Ireland found now in County Clare.

When it was finally excavated in 1986, the remains of 33 humans were found in the burial chamber below who lived between 3,800 and 3,200 BC. Thus it became known as “The Hole of Sorrows.”

When you come to gaze upon The Hole of Sorrows, you realize that this massive stone structure, one thousand four hundred years older than Egypt’s Great Pyramid, has stood here for all of recorded human history and beyond. All the kings and empires of all history have come and gone, while it still stands. It’s megalithic creators of millennia ago would be proud. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #219 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

Near the town of Ubud on Indonesia’s paradise island of Bali there is a sanctuary of spectacularly luxuriant rain forest providing a haven for over 1,000 Balinese long-tailed monkeys. Here’s one communing with a group of moss-covered monkey statues that dot the sanctuary.

This is a sacred place for the Balinese people, as it contains three temples over 600 years old, and is devoted to the Hindu principle of Tri Hata Karana – “three ways to reach spiritual and physical well-being” -- harmony between people, harmony between people and nature, harmony between people and God.

There is perhaps no place on earth in which to better experience the blissful harmony of Tri Hata Karana than Bali. It is a marvelous privilege to be here and experience it for yourself. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #106 photo ©Jack Wheeler)