Theme Week Belgium – Bruges, Venice of the North

8 September 2011 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Architecture, European Union, European Capital of Culture, UNESCO World Heritage Reading Time:  6 minutes

Rozenhoedkaai Canal © Jean-Christophe BENOIST

Rozenhoedkaai Canal © Jean-Christophe BENOIST

Bruges is the capital and largest city of the province of West Flanders in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is located in the northwest of the country. The historic city centre is a prominent World Heritage Site of UNESCO. It is oval-shaped and about 430 hectares in size. The area of the whole city amounts to more than 13,840 hectares, including 1,075 hectares off the coast, at Zeebrugge (meaning “Brugge aan Zee” or “Bruges on Sea”). The city’s total population is 117,000, of which around 20,000 live in the historic centre. The metropolitan area, including the outer commuter zone, covers an area of 616 km² and has a total of 256,000 inhabitants. Along with a few other canal-based northern cities, such as Amsterdam, it is sometimes referred to as “The Venice of the North”. Bruges has a significant economic importance thanks to its port. At one time, it was the “chief commercial city” of the world.   read more…

Theme Week Venice, Queen of the Adriatic Sea

30 July 2011 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Architecture, European Union, Bon voyage, Theme Weeks, UNESCO World Heritage Reading Time:  14 minutes

Venice Collage © DaniDF1995

Venice Collage © DaniDF1995

Venice is a city in northern Italy known both for tourism and for industry, and is the capital of the region Veneto, with a population of about 270,660 (census estimate 30 April 2009). Together with Padua and Treviso, the city is included in the Padua-Treviso-Venice Metropolitan Area (PATREVE) (population 1,600,000).   read more…

Mons, European Capital of Culture 2015

28 July 2011 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Architecture, European Union, European Capital of Culture, UNESCO World Heritage Reading Time:  7 minutes

Grand'Place © Jean-Pol GRANDMONT

Grand’Place © Jean-Pol GRANDMONT

Mons is a Walloon city and municipality located in the Belgian province of Hainaut, of which it is the capital. The Mons municipality includes the old communes of Cuesmes, Flénu, Ghlin, Hyon, Nimy, Obourg, Baudour (partly), Jemappes, Ciply, Harmignies, Harveng, Havré, Maisières, Mesvin, Nouvelles, Saint-Denis, Saint-Symphorien, Spiennes, Villers-Saint-Ghislain, Casteau (partly), Masnuy-Saint-Jean (partly), and Ville-sur-Haine (partly). Together with the Czech city of Plzeň, Mons is selected to be the European capital of culture in 2015.   read more…

Theme Week Netherlands – Maastricht

31 May 2011 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, EU blog post series, European Union Reading Time:  6 minutes

Old Quarter © Mussklprozz

Old Quarter © Mussklprozz

Maastricht is a city in the Netherlands. It is located in the southern part of the Dutch province of Limburg, of which it is the capital. Maastricht is widely known as a city of history, culture, local folklore and education. The town is popular with tourists for shopping and recreation. Maastricht is a member of the Most Ancient European Towns Network. The city has a large growing international student population.   read more…

Weimar – Goethe, Schiller and Bauhaus

19 May 2011 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Architecture, European Union, European Capital of Culture, Museums, Exhibitions, Sustainability, UNESCO World Heritage Reading Time:  7 minutes

Weimar City Palace © Maros M r a z

Weimar City Palace © Maros M r a z

Weimar is a city in Germany famous for its cultural heritage. It is located in the Bundesland of Thuringia, north of the Thüringer Wald, east of Erfurt, and southwest of Halle and Leipzig. Its current population is approximately 65,000. The oldest record of the city dates from the year 899. Weimar was the capital of the Duchy (after 1815 the Grand Duchy) of Saxe-Weimar (German: Sachsen-Weimar). Weimar’s cultural heritage is vast. It is most often recognised as the place where Germany’s first democratic constitution was signed after the First World War, giving its name to the Weimar Republic period in German politics, of 1918–1933. However, the city was also the focal point of the German Enlightenment and home of the leading characters of the literary genre of Weimar Classicism, the writers Goethe and Schiller. The city was also the birthplace of the Bauhaus movement, founded in 1919 by Walter Gropius, with artists Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Oskar Schlemmer, and Lyonel Feininger teaching in Weimar’s Bauhaus School. Many places in the city centre have been designated as UNESCO World Heritage sites.   read more…

Theme Week Marseille, France’s oldest and second largest city

3 May 2011 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Architecture, French Riviera, European Union, Bon voyage, European Capital of Culture, Theme Weeks Reading Time:  9 minutes

Corniche - Petit Nice © Jddmano

Corniche – Petit Nice © Jddmano

Marseille, known in antiquity as Massalia, is the second largest city in France, after Paris, with a population of 852,395 within its administrative limits on a land area of 240.62 km2 (93 sq mi). The urban area of Marseille extends beyond the city limits with a population of over 1,420,000 on an area of 1,204 km2 (465 sq mi). 1,530,000 or 1,601,095 people live in the Marseille metropolitan area, ranking it third among French metro areas. Located on the southeast coast of France on the Mediterranean Sea, Marseille is France’s largest commercial port and largest French city on the Mediterranean coast. Marseille is the capital of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region, as well as the capital of the Bouches-du-Rhône department. Its inhabitants are called Marseillais. Marseille enjoys a Mediterranean climate. The summer/holiday season lasts for six months, from May to October, although also in April sometimes there are temperatures above 20 °C (68.0 °F). Winters are mild, with average temperature 12 °C (54 °F) during the day and 4 °C (39 °F) at night in the period December–January–February.   read more…

European Route of Industrial Heritage

26 April 2011 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, EU blog post series, European Union, Bon voyage Reading Time:  5 minutes

© erih.net

© erih.net

The European Route of Industrial Heritage (ERIH) is a network (theme route) of the most important industrial heritage sites in Europe. The aim of the project is to create interest for the common European Heritage of the Industrialisation and its remains. ERIH also wants to promote regions, towns and sites showing the industrial history and market them as visitor attractions in the leisure and tourism industry.   read more…

Plovdiv, one of the longest continuously inhabited cities in Europe

19 April 2011 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Architecture, European Union, European Capital of Culture Reading Time:  9 minutes

Street view © Nikola Gruev

Street view © Nikola Gruev

Plovdiv is the second-largest city in Bulgaria with a population of 381,738. Plovdiv’s history spans some 6,000 years, with traces of a Neolithic settlement dating to roughly 4000 BC. It is the administrative center of Plovdiv Province in southern Bulgaria and three municipalities (Plovdiv, Maritsa and Rodopi) and Bulgaria’s Yuzhen tsentralen planning region (NUTS II), as well as the largest and most important city in Northern Thrace and the wider international historical region of Thrace. The city is an important economic, transport, cultural and educational center. Known in the West for most of its history by the Greek name Philippopolis, it was originally a Thracian settlement before becoming a major Roman city. In the Middle Ages, it retained its strategic regional importance, changing hands between the Byzantine and Bulgarian Empires. It came under Ottoman rule in the 14th century. In 1878, Plovdiv was made the capital of the autonomous Ottoman region of Eastern Rumelia; in 1885, it became part of Bulgaria with the unification of that region and the Principality of Bulgaria.   read more…

Avignon, city of the Popes

18 April 2011 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Architecture, European Union, European Capital of Culture, UNESCO World Heritage Reading Time:  7 minutes

Pope Palace and Philipp Tower © Jean-Marc Rosier (de/from www.cjrosier.com + www.gordes-immobilier.com)

Pope Palace and Philipp Tower © Jean-Marc Rosier (de/from www.cjrosier.com + www.gordes-immobilier.com)

Avignon is a commune in the Vaucluse department in southeastern France on the river Rhône. The city is well known for its Palais des Papes (Palace of the Popes), where several popes and antipopes lived from the early 14th to early 15th centuries.   read more…

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