Theme Week Brussels – House of European History

31 December 2014 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, EU blog post series, Museums, Exhibitions Reading Time:  13 minutes

Eastman Building in 2012 © Agapolulu/cc-by-sa-3.0

Eastman Building in 2012 © Agapolulu/cc-by-sa-3.0

The House of European History is an initiative of the European Parliament. As a cultural institution and exhibition centre, the House of European History plans to marshal all available means to promote a better understanding of European history and European integration, through a permanent exhibition and temporary and travelling exhibitions, a collection of objects and documents representative of European history, educational programs, cultural events and publications, as well as a wide range of online content. It will be located in Brussels, close to the European institutions. The opening is scheduled for autumn 2015. The House of European History will give visitors the opportunity to learn about European historical processes and events, and engage in critical reflection about the implication of the processes on the present day. It will be a centre for exhibitions, documentation and information which will place processes and events within a wider historical and critical context, bringing together and juxtaposing the contrasting historical experiences of European people. With a surface area of approximately 4 000 m2 at its disposal, the permanent exhibition will be the centrepiece of the House of European History. Using objects and documents and an extensive range of media, it will provide a journey through the history of Europe, principally that of the 20th century, with retrospectives on developments and events in earlier periods which were of particular significance for the whole continent. In this context, the history of European integration will be exhibited in all its uniqueness and with all its complexity.   read more…

The Petworth House in West Sussex

31 December 2014 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Palaces, Castles, Manors, Parks Reading Time:  7 minutes

© Josep Renalias

© Josep Renalias

Petworth House in Petworth, West Sussex, is a late 17th-century mansion, rebuilt in 1688 by Charles Seymour, 6th Duke of Somerset, and altered in the 1870s by Anthony Salvin. The site was previously occupied by a fortified manor house founded by Henry de Percy, the 13th-century chapel and undercroft of which still survive.   read more…

William Shakespeare’s hometown Stratford-upon-Avon

29 December 2014 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  8 minutes

Mercure The Shakespeare Hotel © Green Lane

Mercure The Shakespeare Hotel © Green Lane

Stratford-upon-Avon is a market town and civil parish in south Warwickshire, England. It lies on the River Avon, 22 miles (35 km) south east of Birmingham and 8 miles (13 km) south west of Warwick. It is the largest and most populous town of the District of Stratford-on-Avon, which uses the term “on” to indicate that it covers a much larger area than the town itself. Four electoral wards make up the urban town of Stratford; Alveston, Avenue and New Town, Mount Pleasant and Guild and Hathaway. The estimated total population for those wards in 2007 was 25,505. The town is a popular tourist destination owing to its status as birthplace of the playwright and poet William Shakespeare, receiving about three million visitors a year from all over the world. The Royal Shakespeare Company resides in Stratford’s Royal Shakespeare Theatre, one of Britain’s most important cultural venues. Apart from tourism, which is a major employer locally, especially in the hotel, hospitality industry and catering sectors, other industries in the town are boat building and maintenance, bicycles, mechanical and electrical engineering, food manufacture, Information Technology, and call centre and service sector activities (both of which are growing sectors), a large motor sales sector, industrial plant hire, building suppliers, market gardening, farming, storage and transport logistics, finance and insurance, and a large retail sector.   read more…

Theme Week Carinthia – Wolfsberg

27 December 2014 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  6 minutes

Wolfsberg Castle © Neithan90

Wolfsberg Castle © Neithan90

Wolfsberg is a town and the capital of Wolfsberg District. The town is situated within the Lavanttal Alps, west of the Koralpe range in the valley of the Lavant River, a left tributary of the Drava. In the northeast, the road up to the Packsattel mountain pass connects Wolfsberg with Voitsberg in Styria. Wolfsberg’s municipal area of 279 km2 (108 sq mi) is the fourth largest in Austria. The area of Wolfsberg belonged to the estates within the medieval Duchy of Carinthia that were ceded to the Prince-Bishopric of Bamberg, probably already by Emperor Henry II in 1007. The castle above the town was first mentioned as Wolfsperch in an 1178 deed of St. Paul’s Abbey in the Lavanttal. The adjacent settlement became the administrative centre of Bamberg’s Carinthian territories and in 1331 received town privileges by Prince-Bishop Werntho Schenk von Reicheneck.   read more…

Sainte-Geneviève Library in Paris

27 December 2014 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Museums, Exhibitions, Opera Houses, Theaters, Libraries, Paris / Île-de-France Reading Time:  7 minutes

Sainte-Geneviève Library © Priscille Leroy/cc-by-sa-3.0-fr

Sainte-Geneviève Library © Priscille Leroy/cc-by-sa-3.0-fr

Sainte-Geneviève Library (French: Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève) is a public and university library in Paris, which inherited the collection of the Abbey of St Genevieve. The library contains around 2 million documents.   read more…

Theme Week Scotland – Cumbernauld

27 December 2014 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  5 minutes

Red Deer Innkeepers Lodge © geograph.org.uk - Johnny Durnan/cc-by-sa-2.0

Red Deer Innkeepers Lodge © geograph.org.uk – Johnny Durnan/cc-by-sa-2.0

Cumbernauld is a Scottish new town in North Lanarkshire. It was created in 1956 as a population overspill for Glasgow City. It is the eighth most populous settlement in Scotland and the largest in North Lanarkshire. The name comes from the Scots Gaelic comar nan allt, meaning “meeting of the streams” as, geographically, from its high point in the Scottish Central Belt burns (streams) flow west to the River Clyde and east to the River Forth. A two-time winner of the Carbuncle Award; the town has since received the award of ‘Best Town’ at the Scottish Design Awards 2012.   read more…

Theme Week Carinthia – Sankt Veit an der Glan

26 December 2014 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  6 minutes

Market Square © Binter

Market Square © Binter

Sankt Veit an der Glan is a town and the administrative centre of the Sankt Veit an der Glan District, with a population of about 12,500. It was the historic Carinthian capital until 1518.   read more…

Theme Week Carinthia – Villach

25 December 2014 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  7 minutes

View across the Drava river towards the cross church in Perau © Hrald/cc-by-sa-3.0

View across the Drava river towards the cross church in Perau © Hrald/cc-by-sa-3.0

Villach is the seventh-largest city in Austria and the second-largest in the federal state of Carinthia. It represents an important traffic junction for southern Austria and the whole Alpe-Adria region.   read more…

Bergerac on the Dordogne river

25 December 2014 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  5 minutes

Bergerac on the Dordogne river © Swanzack

Bergerac on the Dordogne river © Swanzack

Bergerac is a commune and a sub-prefecture of the Dordogne department in southwestern France. Bergerac offers some of the finest wines in the Bordeaux region. It has 12 recognized wine AOCs (Appellations d’origine contrôlée) The drainage is excellent as a result of its proximity to the Dordogne River. The town has an important tourist industry and features a tobacco museum, in which, unlike in all the other museums, no smoking is allowed. Bergerac is served by the Bergerac Dordogne Périgord Airport. Bergerac has an SNCF station with regular services to Bordeaux and Sarlat-la-Canéda.   read more…

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