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SITE MAP AND LINKS TO THE MAJOR SECTIONS OF PARADOXPLACE
Travel and Other Links Paradoxplace Information Centre Latest Updates
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Links to other Paradoxplace pages ......
All original material on this site © Adrian Fletcher 2000-08. The contents may not be hotlinked, or reproduced without permission. Feedback to afletch at paradoxplace dot com
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ABOUT PARADOXPLACE
The Paradoxplace Chronologies and History sections have grown from a couple of pages cobbled together by Adrian Fletcher, when he was first living in Tuscany in 2000, as a help to visitors being driven around and bombarded with the names of people, places and events related to the history of this fascinating and beautiful area, the cradle of the Renaissance. Later it seemed interesting to include some of the better known people and events elsewhere in Europe, the Middle East and Asia, from the end of the Western Roman Empire, through the Early and High Middle Ages and the Renaissance, to the emergence of the Nation States of Early Modern Europe - a period spanning roughly the years 500 to 1600.
Over the years the Italian content has expanded to embrace Sicily and Puglia in the South, through the Abruzzi, Rome and Umbria to Venice, Lombardy, Piemonte and the Val d'Aosta and the Alpine Passes in the North, and has fanned out into large new sections covering Spain and Portugal, France and Britain. Inevitably (it seems) short sections on earlier classical and ancient civilizations will also appear to complete the contextual setting
The Insight Pages have been developed in parallel with the chronologies, and provide illustrated insights into a wide range of subjects. One of those subjects is World War II in Italy, which caused so much ongoing trauma and suffering and about which little is widely known.
The Chronologies are more international now, but they retain their Italian flavour and also have a better coverage of the earlier (and just as interesting) 500 to 1348 period. Several of the regional and country pages and also the artist pages contain people stuff and smaller chronologies, and much of this has not been added in to the main listing so as to keep it vaguely manageable! The overall time period covered has not expanded, and the pages have also retained their focus on people, places, food, ideas and art, as well as a bit of geopolitics.
All of this has been driven by the enjoyment of the author, who has discovered a fascinating world of insights and stories which somehow passed by unnoticed during his schooling and banking career. Hopefully the work will be enjoyably useful to other virtual or real visitors to Italy, Spain, Portugal, France and Britain, and indeed anyone interested in where our present world and ideas came from and what living several hundred years ago felt and looked like.
One of the objectives of site design has been to link limited numbers of really good photographs for each subject with concise word descriptions. Brevity, selectivity, visual stimulation and interesting writing being a rare combination species on the web. In particular it is hoped that the "photo album" layouts using a rich selection of over 6,500 Photographs will complement the high quality of Paradoxplace's content to give a good idea of "what it feels like to be there". And it is good to get regular confirmations of this from feedback emails from an audience ranging from schools through present travellers and to travellers whose physical travelling days are over.
To complete the cycle of sensory enjoyment, the site contains details of interesting food, restaurants and some hotels we have enjoyed on our European travels. For some areas in Italy we have brought these together into restaurant guides - specifically to Restaurants, Food and Wine in Chianti, Siena, Florence, Umbria, Rome and Puglia, with a special additional section also devoted to the famous White Truffle Festivals of Piedmont and Tuscany, and another indulgent set of links to photos of some of the best meals Team Paradox has been lucky to enjoy in Europe.
In modern parlance this site is a (sort of) travel blog. Pretty much all the places featured have been visited by the author, who also owns most of the books shown! Most of the commentary is original, and relies for its validity on the travel, research and observations of Adrian Fletcher (aka Adriano and Dom Paradox and other things). Bear in mind that Adriano may be mostly intelligently observant, but he does not have any formal history training - double check it if it matters, and let him know if there are mistakes.
Eight years since its inception, Paradoxplace remains an ever expanding and more enjoyable work in progress. At the moment (June 2008) 3000+ visitors a day are coming along to have a look, and unusually in the www 8% of them stay for more than 5 minutes and nearly 33% of them have bookmarked Paradoxplace. We presently make no charge for any of the listings and recommendations, though we will be joining more affiliation programs, and the only criteria are those of interest and that we or our friends have enjoyed them. If you want to help with the next developments (or meals!) then use the site as a link to Amazon USA or UK, Venere, Accor, Expedia etc.
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Links to other Paradoxplace web pages:
All original material on this site © Adrian Fletcher 2000-08. The contents may not be hotlinked, or reproduced without permission.
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