[caption id="attachment_154147" align="aligncenter" width="590"] North facade © Morburre[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]The Catherine Palace was the Rococo summer residence of the Russian tsars, located in the town of Tsarskoye Selo (Pushkin), 25 km south-east of St. Petersburg, Russia. The residence originated in 1717, when Catherine I of Russia engaged the German architect Johann-Friedrich Braunstein to construct a summer palace for her pleasure. In 1733, Empress Anna commissioned Mikhail Zemtsov and Andrei Kvasov to expand the Ca...
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[caption id="attachment_171478" align="aligncenter" width="590"] Zehnder's © AndrewHorne/cc-by-sa-3.0[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]Frankenmuth is a city in Saginaw County in Michigan. The population is at 5,000. The city is located within Frankenmuth Township survey area. Bronner's Christmas Wonderland, which bills itself as "the World's Largest Christmas Store", is located in Frankenmuth. The city's name is a combination of two words. "Franken" represents the Province of Franconia in the Kingdom of Bavaria, home of the Franks, wh...
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[caption id="attachment_160610" align="aligncenter" width="590"] Teatro Goldoni © Lucarelli[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]Livorno is a port city on the Tyrrhenian Sea on the western edge of Tuscany, Italy. It is the capital of the Province of Livorno, having a population of approximately 160,000 residents in 2009. The Venice district retains much of its original town planning and architectural features such as the bridges, narrow lanes, the noblemen's houses and a dense network of canals which once linked the port to its storehouse...
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[caption id="attachment_218127" align="aligncenter" width="590"] © Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed/cc-by-sa-4.0[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]Terneuzen is a city and municipality in the southwestern Netherlands, in the province of Zeeland, in the middle of Zeelandic Flanders. With over 55,000 inhabitants, it is the most populous municipality of Zeeland.
First mentioned in 1325, Terneuzen was a strategically located port on the waterways to Ghent, in present-day Belgium. It received city rights in 1584. Tradition has...
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[caption id="attachment_161161" align="aligncenter" width="590"] State Musical Theatre © Creative[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]Kaunas is the second-largest city in Lithuania and has historically been a leading centre of Lithuanian economic, academic, and cultural life. Kaunas was the biggest city and the center of a powiat in Trakai Voivodeship of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania since 1413. During Russian Empire occupation it was the capital of the Kovno Governorate from 1843 to 1915. It became the only temporary capital city in Euro...
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[caption id="attachment_152728" align="aligncenter" width="590"] © M. Pfeiffer/cc-by-3.0[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]Étretat is a commune in the Seine-Maritime department in the Haute-Normandie region. It is a tourist and farming town situated about 32 km (20 mi) northeast of Le Havre. It's located on the coast of the Pays de Caux area. Étretat is best known for its cliffs, including three natural arches and the pointed "needle". These cliffs and the associated resort beach attracted artists including Eugène Boudin, Gustave Co...
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[caption id="attachment_163600" align="aligncenter" width="590"] Sunset at the Bay of Honey © Paul Postiaux/cc-by-sa-3.0[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]Baracoa is a municipality and city in Guantánamo Province near the eastern tip of Cuba. It was discovered by Admiral Christopher Colombus on November 27, 1492, and then founded by the first governor of Cuba, the Spanish conquistador Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar in August 15, 1511. It is the oldest Spanish settlement in Cuba and was its first capital (the basis for its nickname Ciuda...
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[caption id="attachment_168727" align="aligncenter" width="590"] Upper West Side and Central Park from Rockefeller Center Observatory © Nmattson10[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]The Upper West Side is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan, New York City, that lies between Central Park and the Hudson River and between West 59th Street and West 110th Street. The Upper West Side is sometimes also considered by the real estate industry to include the neighborhood of Morningside Heights. The area north of West 96th Street and east o...
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[caption id="attachment_6355" align="aligncenter" width="590"] Dresdner Zwinger © der-dresdner-zwinger.de[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]The Zwinger (Der Dresdner Zwinger) is a palace in Dresden built in Rococo style and designed by court architect Matthäus Daniel Pöppelmann. It served as the orangery, exhibition gallery and festival arena of the Dresden Court. The location was formerly part of the Dresden fortress of which the outer wall is conserved. The name derives from the German word Zwinger (outer ward of a concentric castl...
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[caption id="attachment_196665" align="aligncenter" width="590"] Kentucky State Capitol © Seifler/cc-by-sa-3.0[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]Frankfort is the capital city of the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the seat of Franklin County. It is a home rule-class city in Kentucky. Located along the Kentucky River, Frankfort is the principal city of the Frankfort, Kentucky Micropolitan Statistical Area, which includes all of Franklin and Anderson counties. Frankfort is home to several major distilleries of Kentucky Bourbon, including th...
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