Easter Island in the Polynesian Triangle

30 January 2023 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, UNESCO World Heritage Reading Time:  12 minutes

15 standing moai at Ahu Tongariki © Bjørn Christian Tørrissen/cc-by-sa-3.0

15 standing moai at Ahu Tongariki © Bjørn Christian Tørrissen/cc-by-sa-3.0

Easter Island (Rapa Nui: Rapa Nui; Spanish: Isla de Pascua) is an island and special territory of Chile in the southeastern Pacific Ocean, at the southeasternmost point of the Polynesian Triangle in Oceania. The island is most famous for its nearly 1,000 extant monumental statues, called moai, which were created by the early Rapa Nui people. In 1995, UNESCO named Easter Island a World Heritage Site, with much of the island protected within Rapa Nui National Park.   read more…

Rue du Faubourg Saint-Antoine in Paris

29 January 2023 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Paris / Île-de-France Reading Time:  6 minutes

© Chabe01/cc-by-sa-4.0

© Chabe01/cc-by-sa-4.0

The Rue du Faubourg Saint-Antoine (English: Street of the Suburb of Saint Anthony) is a street in Paris. It should not be confused with Rue Saint-Antoine, which leads from the center to the Bastille. The Rue du Faubourg Saint-Antoine owes its name to the fact that it combines the suburb of that name outside the city walls of Charles V (French: Enceinte de Charles V) with the Abbey of Saint-Antoine-des-Champs (destroyed in the 18th century).   read more…

Theme Week Caribbean – British Virgin Islands

28 January 2023 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  7 minutes

Jost Van Dyke - White Bay beach © Pinkhousejvd/cc-by-sa-4.0

Jost Van Dyke – White Bay beach © Pinkhousejvd/cc-by-sa-4.0

The British Virgin Islands (BVI), officially the Virgin Islands, are a British Overseas Territory in the Caribbean, to the east of Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands and north-west of Anguilla. The islands are geographically part of the Virgin Islands archipelago and are located in the Leeward Islands of the Lesser Antilles and part of the West Indies.   read more…

Royal Museum for Central Africa in Tervuren

28 January 2023 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Museums, Exhibitions Reading Time:  6 minutes

© EmDee/cc-by-sa-3.0

© EmDee/cc-by-sa-3.0

The Royal Museum for Central Africa or RMCA (Dutch: Koninklijk Museum voor Midden-Afrika or KMMA; French: Musée royal de l’Afrique centrale or MRAC; German: Königliches Museum für Zentralafrika or KMZA), also officially known as the AfricaMuseum, is an ethnography and natural history museum situated in Tervuren in Flemish Brabant, Belgium, just outside Brussels. It was built to showcase King Leopold II’s Congo Free State in the International Exposition of 1897.   read more…

Munich Documentation Centre for the History of National Socialism

27 January 2023 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Museums, Exhibitions Reading Time:  4 minutes

© flickr.com - Fred Romero/cc-by-2.0

© flickr.com – Fred Romero/cc-by-2.0

The NS-Dokumentationszentrum is a museum in the Maxvorstadt area of Munich, Germany, which focuses on the history and consequences of the Nazi regime and the role of Munich as Hauptstadt der Bewegung (′capital of the movement′).   read more…

Kazimierz in Krakow

27 January 2023 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, UNESCO World Heritage Reading Time:  19 minutes

Szeroka Street © flickr.com - Ana Paula Hirama/cc-by-sa-2.0

Szeroka Street © flickr.com – Ana Paula Hirama/cc-by-sa-2.0

Kazimierz is a historical district of Kraków and Kraków Old Town, Poland. From its inception in the 14th century to the early 19th century, Kazimierz was an independent city, a royal city of the Crown of the Polish Kingdom, located south of the Old Town of Kraków, separated from it by a branch of the Vistula river. For many centuries, Kazimierz was a place where ethnic Polish and Jewish cultures coexisted and intermingled. The northeastern part of the district was historically Jewish. In 1941, the Jews of Kraków were forcibly relocated by the German occupying forces into the Krakow Ghetto just across the river in Podgórze, and most did not survive the war. Today, Kazimierz is one of the major tourist attractions of Krakow and an important center of cultural life of the city. The boundaries of Kazimierz are defined by an old island in the Vistula river. The northern branch of the river (Stara Wisła – Old Vistula) was filled-in at the end of the 19th century during the partitions of Poland and made into an extension of Stradomska Street connecting Kazimierz district with Kraków Old Town.   read more…

Theme Week Caribbean – Montserrat

27 January 2023 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  7 minutes

Montserrat Cultural Center overlooking Little Bay © flickr.com - David Stanley/cc-by-2.0

Montserrat Cultural Center overlooking Little Bay © flickr.com – David Stanley/cc-by-2.0

Montserrat is a British Overseas Territory in the Caribbean. It is part of the Leeward Islands, the northern portion of the Lesser Antilles chain of the West Indies. Montserrat is about 16 km (10 mi) long and 11 km (7 mi) wide, with roughly 40 km (25 mi) of coastline. It is nicknamed “The Emerald Isle of the Caribbean” both for its resemblance to coastal Ireland and for the Irish ancestry of many of its inhabitants. Montserrat is the only non-fully sovereign full member of the Caribbean Community and the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States.   read more…

Port Jefferson in New York

27 January 2023 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  7 minutes

Danfords Hotel & Marina © Iracaz/cc-by-sa-3.0

Danfords Hotel & Marina © Iracaz/cc-by-sa-3.0

Port Jefferson (informally known as “Port Jeff”) is an incorporated village in the town of Brookhaven in Suffolk County, New York, on the North Shore of Long Island. Officially known as the Incorporated Village of Port Jefferson, the population was 7,962 as of the 2020 United States census.   read more…

Theme Week Caribbean – Dominica

26 January 2023 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  8 minutes

Scotts Head © Postdlf/cc-by-sa-3.0

Scotts Head © Postdlf/cc-by-sa-3.0

Dominica, officially the Commonwealth of Dominica, is an island country in the Caribbean. The capital, Roseau, is located on the western side of the island. It is geographically situated as part of the Windward Islands chain in the Lesser Antilles archipelago in the Caribbean Sea. Dominica’s closest neighbours are two constituent territories of the European Union, the overseas departments of France, Guadeloupe to the northwest and Martinique to the south-southeast. Dominica comprises a land area of 750 km² (290 sq mi), and the highest point is Morne Diablotins, at 1,447 m (4,747 ft) in elevation. The population was 71,293 at the 2011 census.   read more…

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