Wednesday, October 26, 2022

Today I learned...

...that Petra has a sister "city" in the middle of the desert in Saudi Arabia, that has only recently opened to tourists.  It includes eye catching structures like these:



 

The place is called Hegra, and here's an article in the Smithsonian magazine (from which I nabbed most of the photos) about it. 

PS:  Looks very much like what you would expect ancient civilisation ruins on Mars to look like, no?

4 comments:

TimT said...

Wasn't there both an Indiana Jones and a Tintin adventure in Petra?

Steve said...

Yes, of course for Indiana Jones - the 3rd one, which I found disappointing.

Not sure about Tintin, but it wouldn't be surprising.

TimT said...

'The Red Sea Sharks'. Huh. I also remember there was a comic interaction with a pet leopard in that book.

What did you think of the fourth Indiana Jones movie? (I quite liked it.)(We may have discussed this before.)

Steve said...

(I quite liked it.)

Yes, I liked quite a lot of it. No 3 is the worst, by a long shot, in my opinion. Despite Sean Connery, the script just wasn't very witty; the femme fatale was very dull; and it seemed way too much of a retread of the first one - just fights with Nazis in the desert, again. Ho hum.

Yes, I am sure we have discussed it before (No 4).

But this gives me another chance to remind you that I am an enormous fan of Temple of Doom: witty/funny, 3 charming leads, thrilling, and just the right pacing. And as it happens, I saw a Youtube short about the miniature models and techniques used in filming so much of it just the other day. It is full of the pleasures that non CGI effects can give.