(latest update: 7 December 2024) Notre-Dame de Paris (French for “Our Lady of Paris”), also known as Notre-Dame Cathedral or simply Notre-Dame, is a historic Catholic cathedral on the eastern half of the Île de la Cité in the fourth arrondissement of Paris. The cathedral is widely considered to be one of the finest examples of French Gothic architecture and among the largest and most well-known church buildings in the world. The naturalism of its sculptures and stained glass are in contrast with earlier Romanesque architecture. The cathedral is part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site Banks of the Seine and is one of the most visited attractions in Europe. Popular interest in the cathedral blossomed soon after the publication, in 1831, of Victor Hugo‘s novel The Hunchback of Notre-Dame. This led to a major restoration project between 1844 and 1864, supervised by Eugène Viollet-le-Duc, who added the cathedral’s iconic spire (the rooster at the summit of the spire contained three relics: a tiny piece of the Crown of Thorns, located in the treasury of the Cathedral; and relics of Denis and Saint Genevieve, patron saints of Paris). While undergoing renovation and restoration, the cathedral caught fire on 15 April 2019 and sustained significant damage, including the destruction of the spire and two-thirds of the roof. First investigations showed that there was no structural damage and that the destruction was confined to the spire and the wooden roof above the stone vaulted ceiling. President Emmanuel Macron vowed that Notre-Dame would be rebuilt, which will lead to at least a decade of reconstruction work, while renovation works on old structures are generally never really completed. read more…
Île Saint-Louis, eleven hectares (27 acres) in size, is one of two natural islands in the Seine river, in Paris, France (the other natural island is the Île de la Cité, where Notre-Dame de Paris is located). Île Saint-Louis is connected to the rest of Paris by four bridges to both banks of the river and to the Île de la Cité by the Pont Saint-Louis. The island is located within the 4th arrondissement of Paris and has a population of 4,453. To this day, Île Saint-Louis is one of the most sought-after and expensive places to live in Paris. read more…
Tom kha kai, tom kha gai, or Thai coconut soup (lit. ‘chicken galangal soup’) is a spicy and sour hot soup with coconut milk in Thai cuisine. Tom kha is a Thai soup that originated around 1890 and was first recorded in a Thai recipe book. The earliest recorded version of the soup was called Tom kha pet, and it featured duck and young galangal in a coconut milk-based curry. read more…
Sommarøy or Sommerøya is an old fishing village in the western part of Tromsø Municipality in Troms county, Norway. It is located about 36 kilometres (22 mi) west of the city of Tromsø and is a popular tourist destination due to its white sand beaches and scenery. The 0.41-square-kilometre (100-acre) village has a population (2023) of 304 and a population density of 741 inhabitants per square kilometre (1,920/sq mi). read more…
The Salvation Islands (French: Îles du Salut, so called because the missionaries went there to escape plague on the mainland), sometimes mistakenly called the Safety Islands, are a group of small islands of volcanic origin about 11 kilometres (6 nautical miles) off the coast of French Guiana, 14 kilometres (7.5 nautical miles) north of Kourou, in the Atlantic Ocean. Although closer to Kourou, the islands are part of Cayennecommune (municipality), specifically Cayenne 1er Canton Nord-Ouest. read more…
Castellammare del Golfo (Sicilian: Casteḍḍammari; Latin: Emporium Segestanorum or Emporium Aegestensium) is a town and municipality in the Trapani Province of Sicily. The name can be translated as “Sea Fortress on the Gulf”, stemming from the medieval fortress in the harbor. The nearby body of water conversely takes its name from the town, and is known as Gulf of Castellammare. read more…
