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Mine is big scientific instrument infrastructure sites. Been to CERN, Mauna Loa, Mt. Wilson, Greenwich. Hope to visit Mt. Palomar, LIGO. Missed Arecibo when I visited Puerto Rico and now I regret it :( Still on list: Chile telescopes, polar research stations, oceanography ships
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Interesting to note what’s close but not pilgrimage grade for me. I go to a ton of airplane and ship/boat museums whenever I can, and general engineering infrastructure sites. They have weaker pilgrimage energy.
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I think my core theme is time. Oddly enough clocks are not generally good for time as a theme. I think the long now clock will be a proper time pilgrimage site but most historic clocks are more for urbanism as a pilgrimage theme. Sorta applied time rather than time qua time.
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Hmm maybe it’s time to finish and flush out the draft post on pilgrimages in the history of mobility I’ve had sitting around for ~3 years at this point. It’s getting zeitgeisty. Post-Covid/climate-era cost ($, stress, paperwork) of travel might force us back into pilgrimage mode.
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We should bring back a culture of pilgrimages. Used to be the main kind of travel. My grandparents had no travel ambitions but did have very specific pilgrimage ambitions.
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I prompted for 4 since main Hindu pilgrimage is 4 sites (char dham). Oddly enough the oldest, Badrinath, does not have an ancient temple attached because it keeps getting destroyed by earthquakes or avalanches (it’s high in Himalayas). Some sort of moral there that escapes me.
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Post-Black Death travel appears to have been more dominated by pilgrimage, with secular travel going down. A lot of the stories in Decameron involve pilgrims. Canterbury Tales is framed by a pilgrimage. But both are full of stories of highly *impious* behavior.
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Petrarch and Ibn Batuta did a lot of secular random travel pre-Black-Death, but looks like conditions got too tough for a while except for pilgrims.
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I usually only go to traditional pilgrimage sites only as side trips from other things. I went to the Farne islands mainly to see puffins (I guess birding destinations are a 7/10 pilgrimage thing for me), and went to Lindisfarne on the side. Oldest Christian site in UK I believe.
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Theory: pilgrimage sites are the timestamps of the historical record. There’s usually significant dates attached to each. For eg LIGO’s holy date is 14th September 2015, when it first detected gravitational waves.