Lhasa
— — a city the altitude makes you slow for.
Not only on a wall.
“Lhasa sits at 3,656 metres, and the city teaches you to walk softer. The Potala rises white and red above the old town. Pilgrims circle the Jokhang at dawn, prayer wheels turning under their hands. In the afternoon the wind comes down off the mountains and the prayer flags go horizontal at every rooftop.
Lhasa, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Lhasa is the capital of the Tibet Autonomous Region of China and the spiritual heart of Tibetan Buddhism. It lies in a valley of the Lhasa River, a tributary of the Yarlung Tsangpo, at 3,656 metres above sea level. The city has been a religious centre for more than a thousand years, founded as a capital by Songtsen Gampo in the seventh century. The historic core holds the Potala Palace, the Jokhang Temple, and the Barkhor pilgrimage circuit, all inscribed together on the UNESCO World Heritage list.
The Potala Palace climbs the Marpori, the Red Hill, in thirteen stories of whitewashed stone and crimson timber. Its current form was built between 1645 and 1694 under the Fifth Dalai Lama, on the site of a seventh-century fortress. The walls taper inward as they rise, a structural choice that lets the palace stand against earthquakes and the dry plateau wind. The Jokhang Temple, founded in 652, is older still, and its central hall houses the Jowo Shakyamuni statue, the most venerated image in Tibetan Buddhism.
At 3,656 metres the air holds about 65 percent of sea-level oxygen. Most visitors arrive by train from Xining or by flight to Gonggar Airport and need a day or two to acclimatise. Headache and shortness of breath are common; serious altitude sickness is rare but real. Locals walk and eat at a measured pace, and the city's pilgrim circuits are designed to be paced rather than rushed. June through September is the warm wet season; winter is dry, clear, and cold under a high sun.