Barack Obama Presidential Center in Chicago

1 January 2026 | Author/Destination: | Category: General, House of the Month Reading Time:  5 minutes

The 44th President of the United States Barack Obama © NASA/White House/Pete Souza

The 44th President of the United States Barack Obama © NASA/White House/Pete Souza

The Barack Obama Presidential Center is a museum, library, and education project in Chicago to commemorate the presidency of Barack Obama, the 44th president of the United States. The center will also include community and conference facilities and will house the nonprofit Obama Foundation. Construction on the 19.3-acre (7.8 ha) campus began in 2021, the tower topped out in mid-2024, and the center is expected to open in June 2026.   read more…

Santa Barbara in California

1 January 2026 | Author/Destination: | Category: General Reading Time:  7 minutes

View from courthouse tower - east © Photopippo/cc-by-sa-3.0

View from courthouse tower – east © Photopippo/cc-by-sa-3.0

Santa Barbara (Spanish: Santa Bárbara, meaning ‘Saint Barbara‘) is a coastal city in Santa Barbara County, California, of which it is also the county seat. Situated on a south-facing section of coastline, the longest such section on the West Coast of the United States excepting Alaska, the city lies between the steeply rising Santa Ynez Mountains and the Pacific Ocean. Santa Barbara’s climate is often described as Mediterranean, and the city has been dubbed “The American Riviera”. According to the 2020 U.S. census, the city’s population was 88,665.   read more…

Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris

31 December 2025 | Author/Destination: | Category: General, Opera Houses, Theaters, Libraries, Paris / Île-de-France Reading Time:  6 minutes

© Pline/cc-by-sa-3.0

© Pline/cc-by-sa-3.0

The Théâtre des Champs-Élysées is an entertainment venue standing at 15 avenue Montaigne in Paris. It is situated near Avenue des Champs-Élysées, from which it takes its name. Its eponymous main hall may seat up to 1,905 people, while the smaller Comédie and Studio des Champs-Élysées above the latter may seat 601 and 230 people respectively.   read more…

Maulbronn in Baden-Württemberg

30 December 2025 | Author/Destination: | Category: General, Bon appétit, UNESCO World Heritage Reading Time:  7 minutes

© Dguendel/cc-by-4.0

© Dguendel/cc-by-4.0

Maulbronn is a city in the district of Enz in Baden-Württemberg in southern Germany. Founded in 1838, it emerged from a settlement, built around a monastery, which belonged to the Neckar Community in the Kingdom of Württemberg. In 1886, Maulbronn officially became a German town and was an administrative centre until 1938. The return of many displaced persons following the Second World War significantly raised the local population.   read more…

Church of the Pater Noster in East Jerusalem

29 December 2025 | Author/Destination: | Category: General, Union for the Mediterranean Reading Time:  6 minutes

© W. Robrecht/cc-by-sa-3.0

© W. Robrecht/cc-by-sa-3.0

The Church of the Pater Noster (French: Église du Pater Noster) is a Catholic church located on the Mount of Olives in East Jerusalem. It is part of a Carmelite monastery of cloistered nuns, also known as the Sanctuary of the Eleona. The Church of the Pater Noster stands next to the ruins of the 4th-century Late Roman/Early Byzantine Church of Eleona. The ruins of the Eleona were rediscovered in the 20th century and its walls were partially rebuilt. Today, France administers the land on which both churches and the entire monastery are standing, following the Ottoman capitulations, as the Eleona Domain (French: Domaine de l’Éléona), part of the French national domain in the Holy Land, which has been formalised by the Fischer-Chauvel Agreement of 1948-49, though the agreement has not been ratified by Israel’s Knesset.   read more…

Shaking beef

28 December 2025 | Author/Destination: | Category: General, Bon appétit Reading Time:  7 minutes

© flickr. com - Nick Nguyen/cc-by-sa-2.0

© flickr. com – Nick Nguyen/cc-by-sa-2.0

Shaking beef or bo luc lac (Vietnamese: bò lúc lắc, French: bœuf lôc lac) is a Vietnamese dish that consists of beef that has been cut into small cubes, marinated with fish sauce, soy sauce and oyster sauce, then sauteed in a wok with red onion and bell pepper before being served on a bed of fresh lettuce or watercress with slices of tomato and cucumber. Prior to French colonization, beef was considered a luxury ingredient in Vietnam, as cows were rarely slaughtered for food and were kept as working animals to be used for labor instead. This dish was, therefore, mostly reserved for formal events, such as wedding banquets and anniversaries, although now it has become a common food.   read more…

Theme Week Seychelles – Mahé Island

27 December 2025 | Author/Destination: | Category: General Reading Time:  7 minutes

Seychelles National Botanical Gardens © A.Savin

Seychelles National Botanical Gardens © A.Savin

Mahé is the largest island of Seychelles, with an area of 157.3 square kilometres (60.7 sq mi), lying in the northeast of the Seychellois nation in the Somali Sea part of the Indian Ocean. The population of Mahé was 77,000, as of the 2010 census. It contains the capital city of Victoria and accommodates 86% of the country’s total population. The island was named after Bertrand-François Mahé de La Bourdonnais, a French governor of Isle de France (modern-day Mauritius). Mahé had a huge land reclamation project due to a housing shortage in the areas of Bel Ombre and the Port of Victoria.   read more…

Longboat Key in Florida

27 December 2025 | Author/Destination: | Category: General Reading Time:  9 minutes

© Ryan Hodnett/cc-by-sa-4.0

© Ryan Hodnett/cc-by-sa-4.0

Longboat Key is a town in Manatee and Sarasota counties along the central west coast of the U.S. state of Florida, located on and coterminous with the barrier island of the same name. Longboat Key is south of Anna Maria Island, between Sarasota Bay and the Gulf of Mexico. It is almost equally divided between Manatee and Sarasota counties. The town of Longboat Key was incorporated in 1955 and is part of the North Port-Bradenton-Sarasota, Florida Metropolitan Statistical Area. The town’s population was 7,505 at the 2020 census, up from 6,888 at the 2010 census.   read more…

Theme Week Seychelles – Praslin Island

26 December 2025 | Author/Destination: | Category: General, UNESCO World Heritage Reading Time:  6 minutes

Raffles Praslin © Bjørn Christian Tørrissen/cc-by-sa-4.0

Raffles Praslin © Bjørn Christian Tørrissen/cc-by-sa-4.0

Praslin is the second largest island (38.5 km²) of the Inner Seychelles, lying 44 km (27 mi) northeast of Mahé. Praslin has a population of around 7,533 people and comprises two administrative districts: Baie Sainte Anne and Grand’ Anse. The main settlements are the Baie Ste Anne, Anse Volbert and Grand’ Anse.   read more…

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