Dar al-Hajar, the Rock Palace, was built by Yemen’s ruler, Imam Yahya Muhammad Hamiddin (1869-1948), atop a rock pinnacle as his summer residence. It lies in a valley about 10 miles outside Yemen’s capital of Sana’a. While an iconic example of Yemeni architecture, it’s impossible to visit now with civil war raging in the country. Someday we’ll be able to safely return to Yemen again. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #143 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)

Everyone who visits Nepal falls in love with Pokhara.  One reason is views of the Himalayas like this from Phewa Lake.  You’re only at 2,600 feet while soaring far above you are the world’s 7^th highest mountain, Dhaulagiri ((26,795’) to the left, the 10^th highest, Annapurna (26,545’) in the center, and the unclimbed sacred peak of Machapuchare (match-a-pooch-a-ree, 23,000’) to the right.

The low altitude gives Pokhara (poke-a-rah) delightful spring-like weather most of the year, the town oozes charm and gracious hospitality with wonderfully fun bar-restaurants like the Moondance Café.  As Nepal’s adventure capital, there’s whitewater rafting, tandem parasailing and motorized hang-gliding, as well as the launching pad for Nepal’s most famous trek, the Annapurna Circuit.

Or you can simply relax by the lake or be paddled around it in a canoe for birdwatching.  We always end our Himalaya Helicopter Expeditions here, which we’ll do again this coming October.  Hard to imagine a better place to unwind. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #295, 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)

My skydiving buddy Chris Wentzel and I made this flag jump on Memorial Day years ago to pay tribute to those in our military who gave their lives for America. I’m on the right, Chris on the left. The jump was performed at the Skydive Perris drop zone in Perris, California. It’s only fitting I post this on TTP in honor of those whom we memorialize in gratitude on this Memorial Day weekend. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #207 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

Skinigin Village, Loch Dunvegan, Isle of Skye.  The Isle of Skye in the Inner Hebrides of Scotland is considered by many the most magically entrancing place in all Scotland.  From charming fishing villages like here to gorgeously dramatic scenery to famous distilleries like Talisker, you come here for a few days and don’t want to leave the serenity of Skye that captures you.

There could not be a more beautifully opportune place from which to offer my appreciation and gratitude to TTP’s very own Skye, who provides us with his extraordinarily insightful Links and commentary every Thursday.  Skye has been one of my dearest friends for well over half a century. I treasure his friendship and am so grateful for his continuing contribution to TTP.  So, From Skye to Skye, thanks, compadre!  (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #294, 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)

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)