Theme Week Calabria

19 February 2024 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Theme Weeks Reading Time:  10 minutes

Cliff at Tropea © Przemyslaw "Blueshade" Idzkiewicz/cc-by-sa-2.5

Cliff at Tropea © Przemyslaw “Blueshade” Idzkiewicz/cc-by-sa-2.5

Calabria is a region in Southern Italy. It is a peninsula bordered by Basilicata to the north, the Ionian Sea to the east, the Strait of Messina to the southwest, which separates it from Sicily, and the Tyrrhenian Sea to the west. It has almost 2 million residents across a total area of 15,222 km² (5,877 sq mi). Catanzaro is the region’s capital.   read more…

Theme Week Armenia

22 January 2024 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Theme Weeks, UNESCO World Heritage Reading Time:  16 minutes

Etchmiadzin Cathedral, UNESCO World Heritage Site © Areg Amirkhanian/cc-by-sa-3.0

Etchmiadzin Cathedral, UNESCO World Heritage Site © Areg Amirkhanian/cc-by-sa-3.0

Armenia, officially the Republic of Armenia, is a landlocked country in the Armenian Highlands of West Asia. It is a part of the Caucasus region and is bordered by Turkey to the west, Georgia to the north and Azerbaijan to the east, and Iran and the Azerbaijani exclave of Nakhchivan to the south. Yerevan is the capital, largest city and financial center.   read more…

Theme Week Basilicata

25 December 2023 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Theme Weeks, UNESCO World Heritage Reading Time:  9 minutes

Sassi di Matera © Superchilum/cc-by-sa-4.0

Sassi di Matera © Superchilum/cc-by-sa-4.0

Basilicata, also known by its ancient name Lucania, is an administrative region in Southern Italy, bordering on Campania to the west, Apulia to the north and east, and Calabria to the south. It has two coastlines: a 30-km stretch on the Tyrrhenian Sea between Campania and Calabria, and a longer coastline along the Gulf of Taranto between Calabria and Apulia. The region can be thought of as the “instep” of Italy, with Calabria functioning as the “toe” and Apulia the “heel”.   read more…

Theme Week Djibouti

20 November 2023 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Theme Weeks Reading Time:  8 minutes

Moucha Island © flickr.com - Keo the Younger/cc-by-sa-2.0

Moucha Island © flickr.com – Keo the Younger/cc-by-sa-2.0

Djibouti, officially the Republic of Djibouti, is a country in the Horn of Africa, bordered by Somalia to the south, Ethiopia to the southwest, Eritrea in the north, and the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden to the east. The country has an area of 23,200 km² (8,958 sq mi).   read more…

Theme Week Puerto Rico

23 October 2023 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Theme Weeks, UNESCO World Heritage Reading Time:  12 minutes

Old San Juan with the Luquillo Mountain Range in the background © U.S. National Park Service

Old San Juan with the Luquillo Mountain Range in the background © U.S. National Park Service

Puerto Rico (Spanish for rich port), is a Caribbean island and unincorporated territory of the United States with official Commonwealth status. It is located in the northeast Caribbean Sea, approximately 1,000 miles (1,600 km) southeast of Miami, Florida, between the Dominican Republic and the U.S. Virgin Islands, and includes the eponymous main island and several smaller islands, such as Mona, Culebra, and Vieques. It has roughly 3.2 million residents, and its capital and most populous city is San Juan. Spanish and English are the official languages of the executive branch of government, though Spanish predominates.   read more…

Theme Week Patagonia

25 September 2023 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Theme Weeks Reading Time:  13 minutes

La Trochita on its Chubut Province route © PatagoniaArgentina/cc-by-sa-3.0

La Trochita on its Chubut Province route © PatagoniaArgentina/cc-by-sa-3.0

Patagonia is a geographical region that encompasses the southern end of South America, governed by Argentina and Chile. The region comprises the southern section of the Andes Mountains with lakes, fjords, temperate rainforests, and glaciers in the west and deserts, tablelands and steppes to the east. Patagonia is bounded by the Pacific Ocean on the west, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, and many bodies of water that connect them, such as the Strait of Magellan, the Beagle Channel, and the Drake Passage to the south.   read more…

Theme Week Outer Hebrides

21 August 2023 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Theme Weeks Reading Time:  7 minutes

Kisimul Castle, Castlebay, Isle of Barra © flickr.com - Conor Lawless/cc-by-2.0

Kisimul Castle, Castlebay, Isle of Barra © flickr.com – Conor Lawless/cc-by-2.0

The Outer Hebrides or Western Isles (Scottish Gaelic: Na h-Eileanan Siar or Na h-Eileanan an Iar or Na h-Innse Gall (“islands of the strangers”); Scots: Waster Isles), sometimes known as the Long Isle/Long Island (Scottish Gaelic: An t-Eilean Fada), is an island chain off the west coast of mainland Scotland. The islands are geographically coextensive with Comhairle nan Eilean Siar, one of the 32 unitary council areas of Scotland. They form part of the archipelago of the Hebrides, separated from the Scottish mainland and from the Inner Hebrides by the waters of the Minch, the Little Minch, and the Sea of the Hebrides. Scottish Gaelic is the predominant spoken language, although in a few areas English speakers form a majority.   read more…

Theme Week Auvergne

24 July 2023 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Bon appétit, Theme Weeks Reading Time:  10 minutes

Regional specialities © flickr.com - Sylvie burr

Regional specialities © flickr.com – Sylvie burr

Auvergne (Occitan: Auvèrnhe or Auvèrnha) is a cultural region in central France. Since 2016, Auvergne is not an administrative unit of France, but it is generally regarded as similar to the land area of the Province of Auvergne, which was dissolved in 1790, and the larger administrative region of Auvergne, which existed from 1956-2015. The region is home to a chain of volcanoes known collectively as the “chaîne des Puys“. The last confirmed eruption was around 4040 BCE. The volcanoes began forming some 70,000 years ago, and most have eroded, leaving plugs of hardened magma that form rounded hilltops known as puys.   read more…

Theme Week Colombia

19 June 2023 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Theme Weeks, UNESCO World Heritage Reading Time:  14 minutes

The Axis of Peace and Memory, a memorial to the victims of the Colomibian conflict in Bogotá © Felipe Restrepo Acosta/cc-by-sa-3.0

The Axis of Peace and Memory, a memorial to the victims of the Colomibian conflict in Bogotá
© Felipe Restrepo Acosta/cc-by-sa-3.0

Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country mostly in South America with insular regions in North America. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Caribbean Sea to the north, Venezuela to the east and northeast, Brazil to the southeast, Ecuador and Peru to the south and southwest, the Pacific Ocean to the west, and Panama to the northwest. Colombia is divided into 32 departments. The Capital District of Bogotá is also the country’s largest city hosting the main financial and cultural hub, and other major urbes include Medellín, Cali, Barranquilla, Cartagena, Santa Marta, Cúcuta, Ibagué, Villavicencio and Bucaramanga. It covers an area of 1,141,748 square kilometers (440,831 sq mi), and has a population of around 52 million. Colombia is the largest Spanish-speaking country in South America. Its cultural heritage—including language, religion, cuisine, and art—reflects its history as a colony, fusing cultural elements brought by immigration from Europe and the Middle East, with those brought by the African diaspora, as well as with those of the various Indigenous civilizations that predate colonization. Spanish is the Official language, although English and 64 other languages are recognized regionally.   read more…

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