55,346 flight miles in 2013, 2.22 times around the world ... but not all at once!

2013 was a busy flying/travel year (55,346 miles), not nearly as busy as last year (2012: 62,868); here are some other recent years for comparison: 2011, 2010, 2009. 

You can look at the Google map version here, or embedded below.
This year's stats from OpenFlights.

Unique
Airports 18
Carriers 7
Countries 8
Vehicles 12

USA: East, West, South

Distance
Total flown  55,346 mi
Around the world 2.22x
To the Moon  0.232x
To Mars   0.0016x

Journey records
Longest: NRT - IAD, 6734 mi, 12:45
Shortest: FRA - MUC, 186 mi, 01:05

Average: 1677 mi, 03:59

Europe

Airport records
Northernmost FRA (50.03°N 8.54°E)
Southernmost PTY (9.07°N 79.38°W)
Westernmost SFO (37.62°N 122.37°W)
Easternmost NRT (35.76°N 140.39°E)

Overall
33 segments
55,346 miles
5 days 11:54

USA

Airports
Ronald Reagan Washin (DCA) 16
Washington Dulles In (IAD) 8
Narita Intl (NRT) 4
General Edward Lawre (BOS) 4
Charles De Gaulle (CDG) 4
Frankfurt Main (FRA) 4
George Bush Intercon (IAH) 4
Tocumen Intl (PTY) 2
San Francisco Intl (SFO) 2
Mohammed V Intl (CMN) 2
Franz Josef Strauss (MUC) 2
Seattle Tacoma Intl (SEA) 2
Incheon Intl (ICN) 2
Raleigh Durham Intl (RDU) 2
Chicago Ohare Intl (ORD) 2
Theodore Francis Gre (PVD) 2
Lambert St Louis Int (STL) 2
Firenze (FLR) 2

Asia

Airlines
United Airlines 13
US Airways 5
Air France 4
Lufthansa 4
American 3
Alaska Airlines 2
JetBlue Airways 2

Planes
Boeing 777 7
Airbus A319 5
Airbus A320 5
Embraer 190 4
Boeing 737-900 2
Boeing 737-800 2
Embraer 175 2
McDonnell Douglas MD80 2
Embraer 140 1
Canadair Regional Jet 1
Boeing 757-200 1
Airbus A330-300 1

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View 2013 Flights in a larger map

A tale of two medieval cities: Fes and Florence

Earlier this year, in May, I visited Fes, Morocco. Specifically, Fes el Bali, the oldest of the three cities of Fes. The old medina in Fes el Bali dates back to 859, is a UNESCO World Heritage site and, some say, one of the largest car-free urban areas in the world. The old medina was simply amazing and, when walking the streets, one can see why there are no cars, some streets being just a loaded donkey wide! While in Fes I was also able to briefly visit the "new" city, Fes Jdid (dating from only 1276), and the "Ville Nouvelle" built by the French in the 20th century (our group went there for pizza one night when everyone but me it seems was tired of tangines!).

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And then, just back in November, was my next medieval city, Florence. Though dating back historically to pre-Christian Roman times, Florence really hit its urban stride just about 150 years after the founding of Fes, in around 1000. From there, it was all art and architecture (and banking and warring) for the next 600 years or so. 

Like Fes, Florence was full of narrow streets (not as narrow as Fes el Bali, but generally more suited to Vespas than autos); also like Fes, Florence is surrounded by the more modern Florence of wide highways and McDonald's. Also, filled with churches (instead of mosques), religion (in Florence perhaps more historically) has an inescapable religious tint.

And speaking of tints, rich browns were a shared color of both. Roof tiles, brick walls, all contributing to the colors of the cities.

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And just as an aside, let's not forget Taos Pueblo!

Now last plus one summer (2011) I was able to visit the Taos Pueblo (another UNESCO World Heritage site and the oldest continuously inhabited area of North America (dating from 1000, just a little younger, relatively speaking) than Fes.

Qotd: When teaching a well-established truth, better to please 1 intelligent person and displease 10K fools [paraphrase] Maimonides

Here's the full quote:

[W]hen I have a difficult subject before me -- when I find the road narrow, and can see no other way of teaching a well established truth except by pleasing one intelligent man and displeasing ten thousand fools -- I prefer to address myself to the one man, and to take no notice whatever of the condemnation of the multitude; I prefer to extricate that intelligent man from his embarrassment and show him the cause of his perplexity, so that he may attain perfection and be at peace.
("Directions for the Study of this Work," The Guide for the Perplexed; Friedlander translation from 1904)

Maimonides (Mosheh ben Maimon, 1135-1204) is the author of today's quote. It's from his The Guide for the Perplexed (later 12th century), today, 12 December marks his death

And so, it just so happens, I stopped by Maimonides house earlier this year when I was in Fes (see more posts on Morocco!); here's a picture peeking in:

Peeking in the house

Maimonides was also an alum of the University of al-Karaouine (some shots of the Uni below):

Two Moroccan libraries, Al-Karaouine Library (Fes, 889) and The Mohommed VI Library (Al-Akhawayn Univ., Ifrane, 1995)

The University of al-Karaouine in Fes, Morocco is one of the oldest schools of higher education in the world. Started in roughtly 859, the university is associated with the mosque and has had a number of famous scholars through the years (e.g. Maimonides, Leo Africanus). But we're hear to talk about its library.

Located a few "blocks" (not that this term means anything in terms of the medieval streets of Old Fes) from university is the Al-Karaouine Library. I was fortunate to get to peek inside the doors of the library. There amidst the manuscripts, manuscript card catalog, and marvelous tile floor, was a site not too often seen these days, the library cat. Comfortably curled into a chair in the reading room, s/he didn't seem too upset by my visit.

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In stark contrast to the ancient university of al-Karaouine is the Al-Akhawayn University in Ifrane, an almost two hour ride from Fes. Al-Akhawayn University ("The Two Brothers") is a modern university (founded in only 1995 -- over 1,000 years (!) after al_Karouine) located in the Atlas Mountains. With an architecture that looks more like a Swiss village than an Berber village, the university as up-to-date as one would want. Likewise, the library (The Mohommed VI Library, cat-less sadly) is nearly indistinguishable from any typical university library in the world.

Lufthansa 414: MUC to IAD

Good morning on my last day in Florence / "It was pleasant to wake up in Florence, to open the eyes upon a bright bare room ..." E.M. Forster

"It was pleasant to wake up in Florence, to open the eyes upon a bright bare room, with a floor of red tiles which look clean though they are not; with a painted ceiling whereon pink griffins and blue amorini sport in a forest of yellow violins and bassoons. It was pleasant, too, to fling wide the windows, pinching the fingers in unfamiliar fastenings, to lean out into sunshine with beautiful hills and trees and marble churches opposite, and close below, the Arno, gurgling against the embankment of the road." - E.M. Forster, A Room with a View (1908)

I didn't have a "room with a view" (my window looked out on a small side street just off the Piazza Santa Croce), but a very good room it was. The Dante Room (only room on the ground floor) of the Hotel Santa Croce. All the staff at the hotel were fantastic and the location couldn't have worked out better for both work and fun.


w.hotelsantacroce.it/

Lufthansa 106: FRA to MUC

Gate A22

Incipit Vita Nova ... so long Florence

In that part of the book of my memory before the which is little that can be read, there is a rubric, saying, Incipit Vita Nova. Under such rubric I find written many things; and among them the words which I purpose to copy into this little book; if not all of them, at the least their substance.

In quella parte del libro de la mia memoria dinanzi a la quale poco si potrebbe leggere, si trova una rubrica la quale dice: Incipit vita nova. Sotto la quale rubrica io trovo scritte le parole le quali è mio intendimento d'assemplare in questo libello; e se non tutte, almeno la loro sentenzia.

- La Vita Nuova, Dante

A very successful trip ... and now, off to the airport ...

Buona notte, Firenze ... until the morning ...

"I got lost in Florence at nine o'clock, one night, and staid lost in that labyrinth of narrow streets and long rows of vast buildings that look all alike, until toward three o'clock in the morning. It was a pleasant night and at first there were a good many people abroad, and there were cheerful lights about. Later, I grew accustomed to prowling about mysterious drifts and tunnels and astonishing and interesting myself with coming around corners expecting to find the hotel staring me in the face, and not finding it doing any thing of the kind." - Mark Twain, Innocents Abroad (1869)

Well, I can't say that I ever got lost again after the first morning in Florence, of course my circle was a pretty small of the historic old city, Ciao, til the morning.

Here's a few 21:00ish shots as I walked back across the Arno to the Hotel Santa Croce:

Henry James on the "extravagant" figure of Dante as depicted at Santa Croce

"The place is the great Florentine Valhalla, the final home or memorial harbour of the native illustrious dead, but that consideration of it would take me far. It must be confessed moreover that, between his coarsely-imagined statue out in front and his horrible monument in one of the aisles, the author of The Divine Comedy, for instance, is just hereabouts rather an extravagant figure". - Henry James, Italian Hours (1909)

I must confess that James is spot on in his assessment of the sculptural renditions of Dante that have become the model for how we picture him. I can't imagine that he's always that stern or unhappy looking as depicted at Santa Croce!

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Detail of Dante's Tomb, Santa Croce

The great Florentines in Santa Croce, with some side comments by Mark Twain

One of my main goals in Florence was to visit Santa Croce and see the tombs and monuments to great Florentines. Santa Croce did not disappoint. From outside on the piazza, it's hard to grasp its size, inside it's immense. Though Santa Maria Novella is still probably my favorite of the "big three" in Florence, Santa Croce, whose bells I heard at night and which I passed every day, remains special.

Here's some comments from Mark Twain, from Innocents Abroad (1869) on the monuments of Santa Croce:

Caption

Galileo
That we had lived to see his dust in honored sepulchure in the church of Santa Croce we owed to a society of literati, and not to Florence or her rulers.
















Dante
We saw Dante's tomb in that church, also, but we were glad to know that his body was not in it; that the ungrateful city that had exiled him and persecuted him would give much to have it there, but need not hope to ever secure that high honor to herself.












Michelangelo, Machiavelli, Rossini (not Raphael)

"We went to the Church of Santa Croce, from time to time, in Florence, to weep over the tombs of Michael Angelo, Raphael and Machiavelli, (I suppose they are buried there, but it may be that they reside elsewhere and rent their tombs to other parties--such being the fashion in Italy,) and between times we used to go and stand on the bridges and admire the Arno."

(from left: Machiavelli, Michelangelo, Rossini)