Böcker av Diana Darke

Bradt´s is the most up-to-date and informative guide to Oman, the Arabian peninsula´s most welcoming destination, fully revised and updated by an author who has been living in Oman and Arabia since 1986. Oman is finally reaping the economic benefit of its location between Europe, Africa and Asia with substantial investment in major shipping ports and significant expansion of the national airline with new routes to Western Europe and East Asia. Despite being at the crossroads of great trade routes and empires, Oman has remained an independent country through much of its long history, and today tourism and travel are a major focus for Oman´s government. This new edition covers the recent substantial investment in new airport facilities and upmarket accommodation and also features the historic UNESCO towns of Sumhuram and Al Balid. If you want to live like a local, the guide also tells you how to slow cook the traditional spiced meat ´Shuwa´ and how to be a perfect guest if invited into an Omani home. Oman is not merely a desert. While it has the classic sand seas - Wahiba Sands - home to the nomadic Bedouin and their camels, this sultanate also boasts lush monsoon-soaked valleys near Salalah, mountain villages surrounded by green terraced fields of fruit trees and rose bushes, and the reef-fringed Daymaniyat Islands. With such a varied wilderness there is huge scope for adventure. Oman is increasingly perceived as a high-end cultural destination. The new Opera House has opened, directly supported by the Sultan, with top-notch international performers like Placido Domingo. The guide includes advice on property buying, since Omani law changed to allow expatriates to buy, explaining the rules and regulations. There is also a detailed overview of language schools teaching Arabic, not found in other guides. With advice on cultural etiquette, basic Arabic phrases and political history - as well as full practical information on where to stay and eat, and what to see and do.

176 sider, heraf 16 med farvefotos samt 8 detailkort. Denne reviderede udgave har nu flere kirker, slotte og klassiske ruiner samt et underholdende og grundigt overblik over landets oldtid og moderne historie. Særligt afsnit om naturhistorien, skildpadder, fugleliv samt blomster.

Who really built Europe's finest Romanesque monuments? Abbots and bishops presiding over holy sites receive mentions aplenty throughout history, while their highly skilled creators remain anonymous. But the buildings speak for themselves. In this groundbreaking book, Middle East cultural historian Diana Darke explores the evidence embedded in medieval monasteries, churches and castles across Europe, from Mont Saint-Michel and the Leaning Tower of Pisa to Durham Cathedral and the Basilica of Santiago de Compostela. Tracing the origins of key decorative and architectural innovations during this pre-Gothic period--acknowledged as the essential foundation of all future European construction styles--she sheds new light on the mystery masons, carpenters and sculptors behind these masterpieces. Her discoveries are dramatic. At a time when Christendom lacked such expertise, Muslim craftsmen, with their advanced understanding of geometry and complex ornamentation styles, dominated the high-end construction industry in Islamic Spain, Sicily and North Africa, spreading their knowledge and techniques across Western Europe. Challenging Euro-centric assumptions about the continent's built heritage, Darke uncovers the profound influence of the Islamic world in "Christian" Europe, and argues that "Romanesque" architecture, a fiction first invented by nineteenth-century French art historians, should be recognized as what it truly is: Islamesque.

This is the true story of re-building a beautiful Damascene house and a chronicle of a country where many dreams are being shattered. In My House in Damascus Diana Darke reveals the Syria that lies behind our daily headlines.